Food Preserving for Beginners

I love foraging, I love growing and I want to make the very most of what I find and what I grow.

Preserving for beginners offers all the skills needed to preserve the taste of summer, the cool of winter and the red of autumn.

This class is jam packed with information and is focused on the Boiling Hot Water Bath Method.

In many preserving classes you are taught one to two recipes but rarely taught all the principles that underpin those recipes. Without an understanding of the principles, you are left always wondering if what you have done will last, if it is safe and safe to share.

Preserving is easy, that is why so many homemakers get involved, it is also very rewarding.

There is a great deal to learn initially and at first it can seem overwhelming, but once learned it is deeply gratifying, empowering and something valuable to share with others.

What you will learn:
• Acidity; its role in preserving, how to measure pH and what the pH of a preserve should be
• How to determine the acidity naturally found in raw ingredients
• Elevation; how elevation affects preserving times, how to determine if you are at elevation and how to adjust for elevation
• Raw Pack and Hot Pack method
• The role of sugar, salt, heat, time, and acidity
• How to sterilise jars and when not to pre sterilise jars
• How to accurately pack food into jars
• Preserving Organisations and their recipes
• How does the Australian Fowler’s method differ from The National Centre for Home Food Preservation

Four Preserves
We will make four preserves. They will be:
Spiced elderberry syrup
Plum and star anise jam
Quince Paste
Wild Apple and Monterey Pine fruit leather

You will work in pairs to make one of the above preserves.

These recipes will use either low acid or high acid foods giving us the opportunity to use our newly acquired preserving principles!
This class is for 8 students.

It’s a hands-on class and you will be asked to partake in a range of simple activities, culminating in the preparation and preservation (by working in pairs) of the four recipes outlined.

Join me if you can! Much huge care, Mara