Horse hoof fungus.

[den]

Being from the south end of the country not had much experience with horse hoof fungus.
Ive just got back from a canoe trip on the Caledonian Canal where i was able to collect quite a bit of the stuff. Took it straight to Exmoor where a few friends were staying to give it the three day urine boil.
Has any one tried this before? Not the best job in the world when 20 odd pint of urine are condensed into 1 pint boiling in the pan. took alot of stick from my mates and had to build a seperate fire.
Now do i hammer flat and dry job done? or is their something else i can do to it. Any suggestions would be great.

 

[Andrew Middleton]

I found that it works well after simply flattening and drying. I believe you can re-boil with hardwood ash, or rub into it potassium nitrate (saltpetre), which effectively gives you "fuse cloth"!

 

[den]

I cant find much info in detail. Does anyone know why you boil it it urine then wood ash ? I was not over impressed with it just in the dry state i found that other bracket fungus like root fomes just when dried to be much better than the horse hoof. Was this stuff used because it was common and easy to collect? Thanks for the offer but im not on for using potassium nitrate unless i can produce it myself, which i will get around to some day.

 

[bambodoggy]

I brought a bit of this back from sweden earlier this year, this is what I did with it and it's a lot nicer than using urine!!!!

1)Cut away all but the top layer you are after (use your folding saw or a serated bread knife or you'll be there all day with your bushcraft knife).

2)Fill a pan with water and add another pan load of hardwood ash (I used birch).

3)Pop in the fungus and boil for about 4 hours adding a little more water as it boils away and stiring it every 15 to 20 minutes, as it's only wood ash you can use one of the wife's normal pans and the hob and watch your fav RM episode while you're doing it lol .

4)As it dries gently hammer it flat with a club hammer or mallet.

5)Once it's as flat as you want it (about the same as thick boot leather) leave it outside but under cover to dry.

Bingo, all done. You only need a tiny bit and it catches a spark straight away from a traditional steel and piece of flint. The coal grows easily with a gentle blowing and is actually very hard to put out. It's also a very hot coal.

Before you use the flint and steel use the sharp edge of the flint to buff up the surface of the fungus and get it sort of "fluffy". You use the underside of the fungus upwards and on top of the flint to catch the spark as you strike down with the steel.

Dead easy to do and no need to mess about boiling with Urine for days!!!!

Hope that help you Den,

Bam.

 

[falcon]

I brought some back as well and followed Paganwolf's suggestion of "boiling" it in the microwave for half an hour with remains of charcoal(.....yes, I made sure no-one else was at home). I've mislaid my flint and steel so tried it with a strike-a-light and it worked.

 

[den]

Cheers all
The urine thing always comes up when talking about the preparing tinder fungus . It must have been done for a reason. I cant find any info on anyone who has tried this.

Dont get me wrong ,what a job lol Shocking how much urine can be condensed in 3 days boiling. Not too sure i would have done it now.
Im on for trying it all ways ,see if there is any difference between the different methods. Maybe it might catch a spark better with pyrite and flint than other methods or is the ash method better? So many experiments.You'll never know until you have tried it. Nasty job which makes me think it must have been done for a reason even more.
I'd go for the ash method at the drop of a hat if i had a choice . so why didnt they?
I will let you know how i get on

 

[Toddy]

Been thinking about the fomes/urine thing for a bit.
I use Fomes fomentaria as a dye (good dark grey-green) but it needs to be boiled to give up it's colour.

If I'm trying to extract a stubborn dye I sometimes use ammonia to help 'pull' the colour from things like bark, fungi and lichen. Ammonia used to be made from stale urine. Ammonia is also an excellent de-grease agent.

I seperated up some of the fomes I used last time for dye so that the inner top layer was kept intact and just boiled it up with the rest. It ended up leathery but had a furry surface on one side and it does catch and hold a spark and it burns well when lit too.

I'm working with open fires next week; if I boil up some Fomes fomentaria for dye, and put some of the inner 'skin' in whole (well, as whole as I can get, I've dried out all the stuff I have just now, and it doesn't seperate up easily in this state) does anyone else have some prepared F.f. tinder that they'd like to try some sort of comparison with the stuff from the dyepot?
I'd appreciate a good clear link showing *exactly* what part of the fungi I'm supposed to be extracting too. I've just been taking off the hard black crisp coating and then removing everything underneath the thick fibrous layer.....right?

I'm working witbh 40 kids next week, sorry, but I'm *so* not boiling up with ammonia with them around
Cheers,
Toddy

 

[den]

I'd appreciate a good clear link showing *exactly* what part of the fungi I'm supposed to be extracting too. I've just been taking off the hard black crisp coating and then removing everything underneath the thick fibrous layer.....right?

Toddy

Thats what ive been doing. After boiling ive not needed to hammer it flat im able to tease it open in to a velvet sheet with my hands.

 

[Ogri the trog]

Not too sure if I've done this the right way, but could some of you who have experience on "Horses Hoof Fungus" tell me if I've struck gold here.

top side

Under side

...no, it's not growing money, its just there for scale! Its growing in my field on a pile of firewood that has been there for a few years (ahem), there is birch in the pile but the growth is on some type of thorn tree (Blackthorn, Hawthorn etc)
Is it the elusive Horses hoof or is it a spoof, sent to try my sanity?

Ogri the trog

Oh wow, can posting pictures really be this easy?

 

[tanto]

Im sorry to say that it is not Horses Hoof Fungus. What your looking for should look like this:

 

[Ogri the trog]

Thanks Tanto,
I've pretty much drawn a blank with HHF here in the mountains of Mid Wales. If my examples get a little bigger though I will try to process them and at least try to see how good a tinder they provide!

ATB

Ogri the trog