May Speaker - Ken Litchfield

Wine, Kombucha, Vinegar - How to Ferment by the Herbal Organoleptic Style with Emphasis on Mushrooms

This talk will explore the sugar, alcohol, vinegar continuum to better understand fermentation concepts like dry and sweet wines, intentionally producing high alcohol brews, "wine gone bad", capturing raw, volatile, herbal properties by osmotic sugar extractions to transfer them to alcohol and vinegar drinks, all while concentrating on the most ancient brews of meads and root beers.

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Since 2000 Ken has been the Cultivation Chair of the Mycological Society of San Francisco and since that time has been serving on the MSSF's council.

He instituted the society's first mushroom cultivation lab at the Randall Museum in SF. When the museum underwent remodeling, he moved the lab to the Presidio National Park where it resided for several years until the building had to be demolished due to storm damage. He moved it to Merritt Community College in Oakland and instituted the first fully accredited and transferrable university level Mushroom Cultivation course in the country, since he couldn't find any others around to emulate. For a decade until retirement, he taught "Mushroom Cultivation", "Beneficial Beasts in the Garden", and "Growing and Using Healthful Herbs", the plant kingdom, animal kingdom, and fungal kingdom symbiotically interrelated, and connected by a fermentation aspect that used concepts and ingredients from the three classes in every class.

In addition, he is a founding member of Bay Area Applied Mycology, dedicated to all aspects of mushroom cultivation, one of MSSF's several organizational spinoffs. In retirement, Ken has also served on the boards of Counter Culture Labs and OmniCommons in Oakland where he twice established mushroom cultivation labs with citizen science components.

Ken continues to be involved in the mycological community as codirector with David Gardella at the MSSF's MendoCamp, particularly latenight kitchen MycoMendoMondo, and by other mycelial networking.


May Speaker - Ken Litchfield Wine, Kombucha, Vinegar - How to Ferment by the Herbal Organoleptic Style with Emphasis on Mushrooms This talk will explore the sugar, alcohol, vinegar continuum to better understand fermentation concepts like dry and sweet wines, intentionally producing high alcohol brews, "wine gone bad", capturing raw, volatile, herbal properties by osmotic sugar extractions to transfer them to alcohol and vinegar drinks, all while concentrating on the most ancient brews of meads and root beers. ___________________________________________________________ Since 2000 Ken has been the Cultivation Chair of the Mycological Society of San Francisco and since that time has been serving on the MSSF's council. He instituted the society's first mushroom cultivation lab at the Randall Museum in SF. When the museum underwent remodeling, he moved the lab to the Presidio National Park where it resided for several years until the building had to be demolished due to storm damage. He moved it to Merritt Community College in Oakland and instituted the first fully accredited and transferrable university level Mushroom Cultivation course in the country, since he couldn't find any others around to emulate. For a decade until retirement, he taught "Mushroom Cultivation", "Beneficial Beasts in the Garden", and "Growing and Using Healthful Herbs", the plant kingdom, animal kingdom, and fungal kingdom symbiotically interrelated, and connected by a fermentation aspect that used concepts and ingredients from the three classes in every class. In addition, he is a founding member of Bay Area Applied Mycology, dedicated to all aspects of mushroom cultivation, one of MSSF's several organizational spinoffs. In retirement, Ken has also served on the boards of Counter Culture Labs and OmniCommons in Oakland where he twice established mushroom cultivation labs with citizen science components. Ken continues to be involved in the mycological community as codirector with David Gardella at the MSSF's MendoCamp, particularly latenight kitchen MycoMendoMondo, and by other mycelial networking.
Mycena News - May 2022