Wet and Wild Chaga & Untamed Rock Fire.

[Woods Walker]

One question people tend to ask when using natural materials with flint and steel is does that material need to be processed. By this I mean dried over an extended period of time there by making it's use in the field within say 24 hours impossible. There are a few materials which can be gathered and used that same day that will actually catch a spark from a carbon steel implement such as a purpose made striker or edge tool, milkweed ovum comes to mind but are there any others? I never had any luck with fluff catching the marginal red spark from carbon steel and all the chaga I showed in other threads were dried for weeks or months. But what about wet and wild chaga?

I gathered this around 7 pm during an outing the previous day. It rained on and off so the environment was damp.



The chaga felt wet so put the smallest piece in a plastic bag. By doing this no moisture would escape.



Now for the untamed rock. The question of how best to get a sharp edge on a rock to be used to toss a spark from the carbon steel is another issue which often arises. In keeping with the minimal processing theme I looked through this bunch of natural rocks for the sharpest one. No knapping or smashing on my part.



This one looks great! I Kinda lucked out here. Also foraged some cedar bark.



So it's now the next day around 12 pm on the top of another mountain. The chaga and rock are double bagged.



The temperature was around 82F with some wind. I would call it sunny but a few times the sun was obscured by clouds. The chaga was wet so my plan was to limit my processing to 1 hour in an attempt to simulate a field firestart with these marginal materials within a reasonable amount of time and effort. I tried to dust the chaga however it was too wet, clumping rather than producing finer dust. Used the same untamed stone as a sander/scrapper. The clumped up chaga was placed in a leaf near the larger chuck. I then walked around the top of the mountain looking for bears and berries.



Also took the opportunity to fluff and dry the chaga bark in the sun.



Processing done. This takes only a few minutes.



It's a GO!

45 minutes later I made my first attempts. The larger chuck still felt damp refusing to catch a spark but the little clumps did however requiring many more strikes than usual. The coal also expanded slower. Dumped the leaf contents into the tinder bundle. I was actually afraid it would go out which again wouldn't have been a concern if bone dry.







Success. It was a bunch harder using wet chaga than dry but that's not surprising. To gather materials for this fire I covered over 10 miles and it took a good deal of time to make this work. That's one reason why the video is so long for a simple firestart. Granted I am no expert at anything so perhaps this might be easier for another. In short it's possible to make wet and wild chaga & untamed stone produce flames.

Thanks for looking.



My long winded video for people who have too much time on their hands.

[video=youtube;Zt-iLLYUoR8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt-iLLYUoR8[/video]

Thanks for looking.

 

[duxdawg]

Nice write up and vid. Totally agree about having multiple ways to make sustainable flames on us at all times. I only differ in that I always prefer Percussion Fire (F&S) over Friction Fire. It has proven itself far more reliable and takes much less effort for me. But then, I have not put nearly the hours into FF as I have into PF. Which makes our preferences much more likely to be based on our comfort factor than a commentary on the abilities of the methods.

I too have made fire with F&S using chaga the same day it was harvested. I believe yours was wetter at the time you achieved a coal, which is encouraging.

While on five day through hike this Spring, spied some chaga around late morning. Well knowing it can take weeks to dry in the sun, most of it went into a gallon ziploc that I left open in the top of my pack. Being curious about how soon it could be used, I sliced some of it into thin wedges, put them in a mesh sack (what onions, apples, etc are often in at a store) and hung that on the outside of my pack as I hiked. It was a very sunny day in the upper 60sF but I was mostly hiking through forest so it didn't get full advantage of that sun. In late afternoon (4-5 hours later?) as I stopped to filter some water, I noticed the chaga looked and felt much drier than before. Unfortunately I did not keep accurate track of the time as I expected it to take days to dry well enough to catch a spark. After much striking with a chunk of quartz found on that same hike, an ember formed. Made my evening fire using the same set.

Will be paying much more attention to fungi as NUTs from now on!!

 

[duxdawg]

I have been using the wedge shape for many years with NUTs as I found early on that thin edges catch sparks the easiest yet their embers are all too likely to go out before becoming large enough to use. Thicker pieces form more robust embers but are much harder to get an ember started on. Seemed a Catch 22 with me trying to learn the optimal width for each material... until I stumbled upon the idea of wedges. Best of both worlds!!

NUTs is the term I coined many years ago for "Natural Uncharred Tinders that will catch the sparks (produce an ember) from flint the rock and steel". There are at least 16 NUTs here in the Upper MidWest. All of the NUTs that I have found so far can be used immediately upon discovery, except the fungi. Fungi usually require at least some drying.

As with all natural materials, age matters. Put another way, weathering greatly reduces how well any natural material works for any purpose. Pretty wild that the very sun and rain that enable plants to grow, destroy them after they are dead.

The single biggest secret to using NUTs is the concept of micro-charring. F&S sparks are so weak that they need all the help we can give them. You are not going to produce flame from green wood still dripping sap with F&S! (By the way, I have with a ferro.) Charring is the best way we can prepare material to catch sparks with F&S. Micro-charring is when we effectively char material on the fly, as we use it. The first sparks land on the NUT and quickly go out. Most people lose heart after a few instances of that. Take courage! You are 99% of the way to an ember now. When another spark lands near that newly charred area, it is able to grow just enough more to survive and be coaxed into flame.

The second most important secret to using NUTs is patience. You are not likely to get one strike embers with NUTs like we do with chars. With most chars and most strikers I can usually get an ember in less than twenty strikes. With NUTs it usually takes 50-300 strikes.


Milkweed ovum and fluff are my primary go to's as they are some of the easiest to get an ember with and can be found and used immediately eight months of the year.

Mullein pith would be the next NUT to be looked for. The dead stems are everywhere, easy to ID and dry parts can almost always be found in any weather, any time of year.

Primo punkwood is the another NUT to look for when I can't find suitable milkweed ovum, fluff or a suitable pith. It can be found all year 'round but is more difficult to get an ember with. Punkwood from Box Elder, Eastern Cottonwood and some Maples have worked best for me so far. Box Elder is a fantastic tree with dozens of uses.

Most plant fluffs are NUTs. The "exception that proves the rule" as they say, is cottonwood fluff.

Many of the piths found in plant stems are NUTs. I have not yet discovered a rule of thumb with these. In other words, some piths that look and feel like they ought to work don't. Yet others with very similar look and feel do.


I am certain that there are dozens more NUTs out there just waiting to be rediscovered.

Happy Trails Y'all!!

 

[Woods Walker]

I never had luck getting fluff to catch a spark from traditional flint and steel and tried the mirco charring thing. As show in the video wet chaga once powdered and placed on a rock in the sun was ready to go in 45 minutes. My prefered Natural Uncharred Tinder for on the fly use is Milkweed ovum. Dry chaga very often can and does catch a spark within a strike or two, dampish and drying in the sun is another matter but worked. All that said my preference would be for a friction fire first then charring natural materials for a fire chain if in an Alone type setup without my full Fire Kit.

Thanks for posting.

 

[Cody Hofsommer]

Cool stuff, what kind of tree was that chaga growing on? I have never seen it on anything but paper birch, but I haven't looked to hard either. We have paper birch everywhere here, and though it's hard to find a nice big piece, small chunks are usually within a walking distance.

 

[Pioneer Valley]

Nice post. Loved it. Been looking for chaga for tea lately have had no luck.

 

[Woods Walker]

Cool stuff, what kind of tree was that chaga growing on? I have never seen it on anything but paper birch, but I haven't looked to hard either. We have paper birch everywhere here, and though it's hard to find a nice big piece, small chunks are usually within a walking distance.

I believe that was either yellow or a mutated (we get them at times with broken up bark patterns) black birch but leaning towards yellow. Also get chaga on white (guessing paper is another name for it) birch.

 

[Woods Walker]

Nice post. Loved it. Been looking for chaga for tea lately have had no luck.

In Mass look for areas near streams or wetlands when Hemlocks and Yellow birch mix or grow very near each other. It can be found other places but the micro environment of a little stream valley helps cool things off. Yellow birch is probably your best bet.