cool winter use for king alfred's cakes (tinder fungus)

[novembeRain]

Having recently found a new wood to lurk in, I found that it's full of king alfred's cakes / tinder fungus / coal fungus, whatever you like to call them.

I've never used it before so I've been making use of it and learning it's little pros and cons, firstly, I've found that it's usually dry enough to catch a spark from a firesteel even if it's rained a lot recently, and it "blows" into a big ember really easily.

But today I came up with another use for it - a hand warmer! :thinkerg:

Find a big one, the one I used today was bigger than a golf ball but smaller than a tennis ball. Break it off the tree leaving as little behind as possible, I cheated as I thought it would last longer by lighting the very middle of it (I used a lighter but a burning ember placed in the middle would work better) Blow it into an ember as wide as your little finger and place it in the palm of your hand with the "skin" down and blow it from time to time, gets really warm

They don't last very long but to warm your hands in the cold is a true bushcraft luxury!

 

[crazydave]

find an old charcoal pocket warmer and you could use them in there. a bundle of them could also be used as a cup warmer.

 

[novembeRain]

I've got the charcoal hand warmers, I just thought this was a nice use for the fungus. The cup warmer's interesting too, might be a very covert way of brewing up where you're not meant to be as they hardly smoke at all, though you can smell them - smells a bit like the little charcoal fuel sticks you put in those hand warmers.

Wonder what would happen if used instead of charcoal in black powder, I'll let you know sometime soon! lol.

 

[Geuf]

nice one!