For the second-ever Weekly Reckoning, you web-savvy folks were to be in for a treat. I decided to celebrate the end of Breaking Bad‘s run by making my very own bright blue meth rock candy. It would be, I reasoned, not nearly as dangerous as the actual drug, not quite as addictive, and far more delicious. I found a recipe online for producing shards of blue rock candy that looked remarkably like Walter White’s concoction.
I have never made candy before. This is key to the story and provides some salient context for the title of this post.
Making candy looks unbelievably simple on paper. Pull together a few ingredients, heat, stir, stop stirring, cook it, done. FRAIS ACCOMPLI.
The truth is that candy needs to be cooked to a precise temperature. No problem, I thought, I have a food thermometer. I win, candy.
Except I paid insufficient attention to the part where it said “watch the thermometer like a hawk.”
You already know the ending. I watched and watched the candy thermometer as it hovered around 220 degrees, then 250. I was waiting for the moment when the readout would hit 290-295 degrees. Any less and the result would be sticky rock candy. Any more and the sugars would begin to caramelize and turn brown, which would result in green candy. Heisenberg would never stand for such a thing.
When is this stupid thermometer going to read 295? I wondered. Very quickly and very briefly, as it happened. I removed the thermometer, quickly cleaned off the probe and plunged it back in. There I watched as the readout skipped merrily past 295 and hit 316.
No way the meth heads in the Czech Republic would go for this stuff.