Interested in preserving your summer harvest into the cold months? Concerned your canning equipment isn’t making the grade?
The University of Alaska Fairbanks’s Cooperative Extension Service this weekend is offering three classes — and one free information session — about food preservation at the Haines Senior Center.
“Preserving the Haines Bounty” will meet on Friday and Saturday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Friday’s class will focus on “non potentially hazardous” foods – fruits, berries and pickles – while Saturday will focus on foods that have to be pressure-canned: fish, meat and vegetables.
Both classes concern local foods and will cover pickling, fermenting, water-bath canning and dehydrating. The course fee of $20 can be paid with a credit card through online registration or with cash or a check in person on the day of the class. Youth and tribal members can attend for free, though children under 16 must come with an adult.
Two shorter free classes will also meet on Saturday. At 10, “Starting a Cottage Food Business” will take participants through the basics of home-based food entrepreneurship. It will include an overview of the Department of Environmental Conservation’s regulations as well as information about drying, water-bath canning and pickling. At 11, “Probiotic Pickles: Fermenting Vegetables” will discuss the nuts and bolts of lacto-fermentation pickling.
A free pressure canner gauge testing session and food preservation Q & A will be held at 11 on Friday. For safety, canners should have their dial gauges tested every year to make sure they reach appropriate temperatures and pressures.
All classes will be taught by Sarah Lewis from the extension service’s Juneau office. Lewis said the classes are suitable for people of every experience level. She goes through each step of every process for beginners, but she also shows recipes and tricks that seasoned canners might not know.
“Almost every time I run a class, people with lots of experience tell me that they learned something new,” she said. She also pointed out that canning regulations are constantly changing, so there really is something for everyone to learn.