Preserving for beginners offers all the skills needed to preserve the taste of summer, the cool of winter and the red of autumn. You will look at: fermenting, dehydrating, and the boiling hot water bath method. The boiling hot water bath method is the most information-heavy of the three hence, the team will spend half of the class on this method. In many preserving classes you are taught recipes but rarely are you taught the principles that underpin the recipes. Without an understanding of the principles, you are left always wondering if what you have done will last and if it is safe and safe to share. The focus of this class is on understanding “how to preserve” “how to make that preserve safe” and “how to make that preserve last”. 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.