Baked beans - take on Alton Brown's version

2 cup of navy white beans (great northern beans work well)
1 pound of bacon, chopped
1 large sweet onion
2 jalapenos chopped (optional)
1/4 cup of quality ketchup - tomato paste can be used
1/4 - 1/3 cup of dark brown sugar
1/4 cup of real maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper
2 teaspoons of salt
1/4 cup of spicy brown mustard
4 cups of left over water from soaking the beans – add chicken broth – water to make up the difference if you are short

Heat oven to 250 degrees F

Soak beans overnight in a plastic container - you can extend the soak period to 24 hrs. Make sure there is plenty of liquid because 4 cups of the left over bean juice will be used.

In a cast iron Dutch oven if you have it -

Fry up the bacon, onions, and peppers for about 5 mins.

If the brown sugar is lumpy and hard, I mix up ketchup, brown sugar, black pepper, salt, mustard in a bowl first add a bit of water from the 4 cups of bean water to make sure that the sugar is well dissolved.

Add the fluid to the mixture of bacon & onions for about 2 mins to make sure everything is happy.

In a ceramic bean pot (or lodge Dutch oven) I add layers of beans followed with soups of bacon / onion mix. Add remaining water from the beans making sure that the beans are well covered.

Note: you can add chicken broth versus the water from the beans if you so desire.

Put lid on container to prevent excess water loss – bake in oven for 4 -10 hrs until the beans have been cooked. To speed up cooking time I have bumped the temp from 250 degrees up to 300 after 4 hrs.

I start tasting the baked beans at the 4 hr mark to see how close to being done they are. I would expect that the bean mixture at high alt will take no less than 6 hrs if using dried navy beans.

I find that the baked beans are a bit on the wet side until the mixture can absorb the remaining water. The mixture is slightly sweet with a mild kick from the pepper.