by Tod Westlake

by Tod Westlake

























Many people these days are looking for creative ways to save money. If you're a beer drinker, like me, one of the things you can do to preserve the balance in your checking account is to brew your own. Basic home brewing, it turns out, is a relatively uncomplicated endeavor. All that is required is an initial investment of about $200, a little patience, and a little perseverance. The result is a basic batch of home-brewed ale that is cheaper, and often better, than what you can purchase in a store. And for the beer geek, nothing is more satisfying than sitting down with a few friends and breaking bread over a pint or two of your own creation.

My personal love affair with all things beer-related began when my mom's boyfriend, Bob, came home one day with a six-pack of San Miguel Dark. I grew up in a progressive household, in which the occasional sip of beer, or glass of watered-down wine with dinner, wasn't considered a mortal sin, so I was familiar with the unpleasant taste of beer. This was 1975. I was 12 years old.

I remember Bob telling me that this beer was different, and that it was a beer that I would definitely like; mass-produced beer such as Coors, and Miller Lite, were, and still are, pretty revolting, in my opinion. So what was this strange, brown liquid that Bob was encouraging me to raise to my lips? First of all, it had an appealing aroma, something to which I had been unaccustomed; and, on sipping it, I discovered that it had a slightly syrupy-sweet consistency and flavor that I found very appealing.

"This is good," I remember saying to a smiling Bob.

Beer, I was shocked to learn, can be absolutely delicious.

Fast-forward 36 years and I can look back on this experience as a foundational moment in my beer geek-itude—which now includes home brewing in addition to being an amateur cognoscente. I've been brewing for about 13 years now; and I've made everything from simple ales all the way up to complex Trappist-style tripels. I've met with a handful of failures, of course, but, on the whole, I think I've been pretty successful, as many of my friends will attest.

What I find most striking about home brewing is just how simple it can be to whip up a batch on a weekend afternoon. Sure, you can invest thousands of dollars in expensive equipment, and spend hour upon hour employing complex mashing techniques. But none of this is really necessary for those beginners who simply want to try their hand at this ancient alchemy. It's possible to brew a really satisfying batch of beer spending just a few short hours.

To begin, it helps to understand exactly what beer is. Essentially, beer initially consists of various sugars that are dissolved in hot water. These sugars typically come from malted barley or wheat (malting is the process of germinating, and then drying quickly, these grains; the germination process creates fermentable sugars, which can then be released from the grain by steeping it in hot water). Depending upon the style of beer, other ingredients—specialty malts, flaked maize, candy sugar, and more—are added.

In the next stage, hops, which are small conical flowers that contain mild acids, are typically added. During boiling these acids are released into the soon-to-be-beer liquid, or "wort" (pronounced "wert"), and have the effect of acting as a natural preservative, in addition to providing flavor and aroma.

The next stage involves "pitching" yeast into the wort. Brewing yeast, it turns out, absolutely loves the sugars contained in malted wheat and barley. Thus the yeast goes on a feeding frenzy, multiplying many times over, consuming these sugars as if there is no tomorrow, and excreting alcohol as a by-product. Eventually, the yeast runs out of sugar to consume and the colony dies. The whole process, from initial boil to having fully fermented beer, typically takes about two weeks.

The final stage is to bottle or keg your beer. For bottling, priming sugar is added to the fermented wort right before it goes into the bottle; this has the effect of producing carbonation. After about two weeks, the beer should be ready to drink. For kegged beer, a CO2 setup is typically employed, with the same approximate time (about two weeks) needed before enough CO2 dissolves and produces the desired carbonation. Then, it's time to give it a taste.

Brewing in Ulster County, however, hasn't always been the easiest thing to do, as there are very few home-brew supply stores in this area. Brewers will be pleased to know that this situation has changed in recent months, with the advent of Pantano's Wine Grapes and Home Brewers just south of New Paltz. The store is owned by the same Pantano family who were behind the eclectic and sorely missed Robin's Market that went out of business recently.

Jerry Pantano says that the new store is doing well, and that more and more people have been learning that they don't need to drive all the way to Red Hook to pick up bottle caps or a couple of ounces of hops. This past winter, Pantano says, the store held home-brewing classes that were very well attended.

"More and more people are looking to save money by doing it at home," Pantano says.

In addition to a wide variety of home-brewing equipment and ingredients, Pantano's has a broad selection of wine-making equipment, and ingredients for mead brewing. In recent months, Pantano's has also added a canning room, so those who are wondering what to do with all those peaches that are about to go bad will find under a single roof everything you might need.

"People were really asking for canning supplies, so we decided it was a good thing to add," Pantano says.

For those who, for whatever reason, cannot make it to Pantano's, another good option is the California-based, mail-order company Beer, Beer and More Beer (B3). I've been purchasing items from their website for more than a decade, and I always find their ingredients and products to be of the highest caliber. They even have a hotline that you can call when the latest home-brew conundrum has you stumped.

As for my next batch, now that summer is here, I thought it would be fun to brew a hefeweizen. This style originates in Germany and has thirst-quenching properties that are perfectly suited to a hot afternoon. This style typically consists of malted wheat, with some breweries using a small amount of specialty malt, and very mild hops, usually the Noble Tettnanger variety. With a little luck, I'll have a drinkable bottle in another four weeks, or so.

And if you're interested in getting started on a home-brewing journey, Pantano's has a $125 kit that has virtually everything you need to get going in the right direction, as well as several recipe-kits and a wide variety of bulk grains from which to choose. Pantano's is located on Route 32 just south of the Village of New Paltz. They can be reached at 845-255-5201 and should have a website up and running in the not-too-distant future (you can also find them on Facebook). I would also encourage readers to go to www.morebeer.com to take a look at what B3 has to offer.

And I'm always keen to discuss home brewing, so be sure to look me up on Facebook. I also recently created a separate Facebook page entitled "New Paltz Beer Geek" for those home brewers and beer lovers in the area who are looking for like-minded individuals to swap recipes, stories—and, of course, a cold one.

Happy brewing!

Among Us—The Fungus 
by Maria Reidelbach



Like many of my fondest food associations, my love of wild mushrooms began with my mother, who showed me at the age of five how to find edible mushrooms in the woods. It was puffballs we sought and I remember her excitement at spotting each one, and how much fun it turned out to be to search for them—an Easter egg hunt, with a beautiful, edible prize at the end. In my memory, the ones we found were about the size of a tennis ball, pristine white and smooth. Although as a little kid I loved Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, I didn't like the way the puffballs smelled in the saute pan—the aroma was too wild for me then.

After I left home I didn't hunt for mushrooms again, until sharing a summer house with friends just down the street from where I live now in Accord about 20 years ago. Getting out in the woods regularly, after almost 20 city-bound years, was exhilarating. A group of us took a year-round rental near Ellenville. Most of us were artists and kids, and we naturally gravitated toward observing and collecting during our rambles. Soon the old farmhouse hosted collections of animal bones and bird nests, as well as more ephemeral traysful of specimens of fungus—wild in their colors, shapes, and smells.

It was the smells that enticed us. There are some wild mushrooms whose scent is so delicious, it can leave you weak-kneed. But then there was the sobering knowledge that some could be dangerous, even deadly. We wanted to learn what we could eat and what we couldn't. It turns out that there are some simple rules about mushroom hunting that, if always kept, would keep us from getting sick from eating the wrong thing. I'll list them at the end of this column. I'll also be sticking mostly to common names for mushrooms here, but I'll put the botanical names in parenthesis to enable you to easily look them up on the Internet and in books.

July is a great month for lawn, garden, and woods mushrooms. The fantastic and easily identifiable golden chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius) can sometimes be found in great abundance. They are beautiful, apricot-colored, blossom-shaped masses of deliciousness. They can be cooked in many ways: in pasta sauce, grilled, sauteed, and served with chicken or seafood. There is one toxic look-alike, the jack-o-lantern fungus (Omphalotus olearius), but with its clearly differentiated cap and stem, after examining photographs, you will easily be able to tell the difference.

Another wonderful mushroom is the fragrant black trumpet (Craterellus fallax). Because they blend in with leaf litter on the forest floor they are a little harder to spot, but luckily, they grow in groups, and once you've found a patch you can just keep picking. There are no toxic look-alikes for this one. They're delicious cooked many ways, and they dry beautifully and keep forever.

Chicken mushroom (Laetiporus) is an amazing, sometimes enormous shelf fungus that grows on dead wood and will appear even during drought (not a problem this year, yet). There are two types, one is brilliant orange and yellow below, the other is orange and white below. It's easily identified, with no toxic look-alikes. The part that's eaten are the tender, moist edges of the fan, the younger the mushroom, the more of it is edible.
[caption id="attachment_161" align="alignright" width="231" caption="Mmmm, chantarelles . . . ."][/caption]
And then there are those puffballs (mostly Calvatia). There are a number of different kinds, some as big as soccer balls others small as a grape, and many tend to grow on lawns. Again, easily identifiable—as long as they are stark white inside, with no internal structures, they're safe to eat. These guys are good dipped in egg and panko crumbs and fried (what isn't?), but are also fun to use other ways.

These four mushrooms are a very good start to what some people consider an extreme hobby, but what us mushroom geeks think of as a treasure hunt.

Now those rules:
• Get at least one good guide to mushrooms—there are many out there. I prefer Gary Lincoff's Audubon Guide to North American Mushrooms, and he's also got a new book out with a wonderful introduction—Mushroom Hunter.
• Don't eat anything you haven't identified in at least three sources (use the Internet, links below) and have ruled out toxic look-alikes.
• The first time you eat a variety, just eat a mouthful or two, and save some of it, uncooked, just in case. Wild mushrooms contain many complex compounds; besides the possibility of a misidentification, it just might not agree with your stomach.
• Don't eat any gilled mushrooms until you become more experienced. Those are the types that contain the really deadly varieties.
• Always cook mushrooms—most of them contain compounds that are indigestible raw.

Burdock Report
Wow! So I gathered some burdock stems, peeled them like a carrot, cooked them quickly in a pot of boiling water, and they were just fantastic! As delicious as artichoke heart. The one thing to watch for is that you want to get young, tender stems—they do get tough beyond about eight inches or so.

Mushroom info:
Join the Mid-Hudson Mycological Association — they're a great group, membership is inexpensive, and you have access to expert hunters who are happy to help you learn. Plus they've got an active Facebook page where people post photos of all their finds.

The Mushroom Expert: Michael Kuo's web site.

Professor Tom Volk's web site.

Fungi Perfecti: Paul Stamet's company that has everything a mushroom lover could want, from how to grow to truffle oil.

Maria Reidelbach is an artist and author and has been president of the New York Mycological Society since 2007. She is currently on a mission to bring wonder and magic to the Rondout Valley, one Local Giant at a time—see more of the project at valley-of-the-giants.com.

Geothermal is an Earth-Friendly Option

By Dave McCarthy

As we move into a post-fossil fuel economy, we often think mostly in terms of renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar. But the Earth herself is an amazing and mostly untapped energy resource.

“Geothermal” is the general term for systems that make use of the Earth’s energy. About one percent of the world’s electricity is generated by plants that make use of high temperatures from deep in the Earth. There are almost 100 geothermal plants in the US, mostly in the west, and the Philippines generates some 17 percent of its electric grid power in this way.

This article, though, is about another, much more widely available geothermal resource, one that is literally in our own backyards. Geothermal heat pump technology takes advantage of the fact that, at a fairly shallow depth, the Earth’s year-round temperature remains constantly in the range of 50 to 60 degrees (in our Hudson Valley region it is around 50 to 52 degrees). Also known as a “ground source” heat pump, this type of system is a localized method of energy production. It does its work on-site, pretty much anywhere.

How does it work? If you put an ice-cube in a drink, warmth from the liquid is absorbed by the ice in the process of melting, and the drink cools down. This illustrates the most basic process involved: heat exchange. From there it's a fairly short jump intuitively to see that when it's 90 degrees outdoors, and the Earth 10 feet below the surface is at 50 degrees, it's possible to run a system of pipes through the cool ground and let it absorb heat from above. This heat exchange process takes place in steps: from the air, to a fluid (usually water), and back to the air. Notice that we’re not getting energy from the earth here. We’re putting unwanted heat into the ground.

It’s not quite as intuitively obvious why, if it is 30 degrees outside in the winter, and the earth is still at 50, that we could warm our house to 70. For that we need to understand a heat pump. Charles Lazin has installed over 100 geothermal systems.

"A heat pump is an energy concentrator, working like a magnifying glass," Lazin says. "It takes a low-grade heat source and focuses it, so to speak, into a higher temperature. A heat pump works through a cycle of compression and decompression, much like an air conditioner in reverse. The heat pump, and the pumps that cycle the fluid through the ground, are powered by electricity, but the overall energy use is far less than conventional furnace and A/C systems — 30 to 70 percent less."

Studying geothermal systems is a great way to see how the local relates to the global. Let’s talk about carbon footprint: if you were to generate the electric energy on-site to power a geothermal system (using, say, wind and photovoltaic sources) the operation of your heating and cooling system could have near zero carbon footprint (of course, the manufacture and transportation of any sort of equipment has its own carbon footprint). Nevertheless, integrated renewable energy systems -- which can also include the direct capture of solar energy as heat -- present remarkable possibilities for a post-fossil fuel future.

What is more common with geothermal systems is to power the whole thing through grid-sourced electric power. This is where the process becomes interesting and instructive when it comes to carbon footprint. In countries like the United States and China, which rely very heavily on coal-fired electric plants, the carbon footprint of an electric-powered geothermal home heating system could still generate roughly the same, or even a bit more, carbon emissions than one using natural gas. Of course, the homeowner is still saving very substantially on operating costs in this scenario. This is interesting even though there are very few ecologically conscious people today who view natural gas through the rose-colored glasses of its earlier reputation as a clean, efficient, and relatively low-carbon fuel. The emerging, ugly truth about hydro-fracking (a highly controversial form of natural gas drilling) has changed all that. Still, there are a couple of lessons in this: first of all, analyzing something according to one factor alone will never give you a full picture. If you just look at it from the point of view of cost -- or, for that matter, of carbon emissions -- you’re going to miss things, in this case very serious ecological consequences.

One very positive option in using grid power for a geothermal heat pump is to purchase wind energy from your utility. Though it is a bit more expensive, by increasing demand for wind power at the grid level, you are encouraging the development of this renewable source.

Here are some practical points on geothermal heat pump systems, courtesy of Charles Lazin (his website, altren.net is a rich source for further information). The average payback time for the investment required to install such a system is surprisingly short: three to five years. There are substantial tax credits and benefits available, including a 30 percent federal income tax credit on the complete system, plus there are often state rebates and utility company incentives available.

A system can be installed relatively quickly. The energy exchange loop can be installed horizontally at around five to six feet beneath the ground, or it can be installed vertically. There are also open loops using ground water, and systems that work in a pond. The average installation time is one to three weeks.

Aside from the cost saving, we can individually gain by installing renewable energy systems; anything we can do to decentralize and “de-fossilize” energy production has tremendous benefits at the level of the human whole. System by system, backyard by backyard, we can democratize energy production and greatly reduce our climate-change impact.

The challenge of this movement is that it depends on the individual. One by one, we can get educated and motivated, and feel a sense of empowerment and inspiration around the very practical idea of harvesting our own renewable energy from the local environment.

by Maria Reidelbach

So, spring is here, at least according to the calendar. This is the time of the year that I feel compelled to go out and stare at the soggy, beat up earth, looking for signs of green emerging from the muck. This might be hard-wired in the human psyche, or it might be a result of my early training. One of my first food memories is being sent outside by my mother in the early spring to pick the tiniest dandelion leaves—it took a long time, but luckily our yard had lots. From these she would make a delicious wilted greens salad with chopped hard boiled egg and bacon bits. The richness of the bacon and eggs really contrasted nicely with the bitter greens. Years later I realized that on the Depression-era farm on which she was raised, those itsy-bitsy leaves must have been the first greens they had gotten since autumn and an important source of vitamins—a true spring tonic!

Last month, I wrote about herbs to give a jump-start to your edible landscaping. This month, I'd like to talk the fundamentals of a good garden. Sun and soil are two of the most important elements to insure the success of your plantings.

Almost all vegetable and fruit-bearing plants want at least 6 hours a day of direct sun, and preferably 8 or 10, to transform into delicious produce. Look around your yard to discover the sunniest spots, and remember that trees and shrubbery will be growing leaves and producing shade within the month. The more sun, the more vigorous your plants will be.

Soil is a little more complicated. First, soil needs to be a good consistency to both hold moisture and drain wetness, and so should be a mixture of clay, sand, and humus. To determine what your soil's texture is, pick up a little damp soil and squeeze it. If it's got too much clay it will clump together like the stuff you remember from your first grade classroom. If it's too sandy, it will fall from your hands like powder, and if it has too much humus it might be mucky or slimy. You can add sand, clay, and compost until you get a nice texture.

Next, you want your soil to contain lots of nutrients, the right pH level, and few contaminants. You can buy a test for nutrients and pH at any good gardening store and do it yourself at home, or you can send it away. If your home is in a location that has a history of mixed use or agricultural use (especially an apple orchard), or if it was painted with lead paint, you should also get your soil tested for heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, and cadmium. Materials dumped and pesticides used in the past can remain in the soil for decades and are accumulated by plants, especially leafy greens. Our house's lot is mixed use and had a commercial garage, and also once had a hotel. Our soil tested positive for a low amount of heavy metals, so we brought in soil for some of our plantings, although we are growing berries in the existing ground.

What to plant now?
Radishes – there are a number of terrific radishes to grow, from the familiar dark pink spheres, to other shades of pink, red, white, and purple.
Lettuce, arugula, chervil
Peas – they look very pretty growing up an arbor, and even come in violet and yellow varieties.

Good links:
Dandelion, bacon and egg salad: nytimes.com/2006/09/20/dining/202brex.html
Soil testing: soilhealth.cals.cornell.edu/extension/test.htm
Soil contamination study: news.cornell.edu/stories/Dec10/NYCSoils.html
Radish and lettuce seed: seedlibrary.org
Blue and yellow peas: cooksgarden.com