Tinder experiment?

[decorum]

British Reds thread about the culinary aspects of Jelly Ear Fungus in this thread
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29203 reminded me about something I'd wondered about before.

I keep finding Jelly Ears which are dried and shrivelled (From what I understand this drying out, whilst being a possible sign, doesn't actually signify being dead - is this correct?) Will the dried fungus take a spark and act as a natural alternative to char cloth or is it slightly more robust and acts as an extender? The opportunity to find out never seems to coincide with remembering to do it.

Having asked the question(s) it is my intention to try to get down and dirty and find out during the coming week week as I find that seeing something not work can sometimes show you the way forward - and I need to be quite active prior to a sleep deprivation test at the end of the week :yikes: .

Thanks in advance.

 

[falling rain]

As far as I know, the shrivelled jelly ears get de-hydrated in the sun and will re-hydrate when it's damp/raining. Never tried them for tinder but if you have a go let us know how you get on.

 

[jojo]

oops posted here by mistake

 

[IntrepidStu]

British Reds thread about the culinary aspects of Jelly Ear Fungus in this thread
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29203 reminded me about something I'd wondered about before.

I keep finding Jelly Ears which are dried and shrivelled (From what I understand this drying out, whilst being a possible sign, doesn't actually signify being dead - is this correct?) Will the dried fungus take a spark and act as a natural alternative to char cloth or is it slightly more robust and acts as an extender? The opportunity to find out never seems to coincide with remembering to do it.

Having asked the question(s) it is my intention to try to get down and dirty and find out during the coming week week as I find that seeing something not work can sometimes show you the way forward - and I need to be quite active prior to a sleep deprivation test at the end of the week :yikes: .

Thanks in advance.

Do You Have you findings for us?? Have you compiled a statistical significance test???

 

[decorum]

Do You Have you findings for us?? Have you compiled a statistical significance test???

Erm.... Not at the moment. The original post was a typical damning of an idea. Before I'd posted there were dry jelly ear fungus aplenty - all I've found since are nice healthy and moist. I have considered picking and drying at home, but my initial idea was about whether they could be used in situ rather than tampered with.

 

[decorum]

Do You Have you findings for us??

I have now!

Have you compiled a statistical significance test???

I don't know about a statistical significance test, but I did (finally) manage to gather a sizable amount of very dry jelly fungus from the 'wild'.
As it was to be an initial test I decided to use a fire steel rather than traditional flint and steel.
To this end, I ground some of the fungus to a powder, left some as small pieces and so on.
I then carefully piled it up in its various grades, all the while taking great care to make sure that the wind didn't blow the pile apart - it was extremely windy.


Now for the make or break part!


How did it fare as a tinder?


Absolutely Flaming Useless!!!


Even soft scraping some bits of the rod onto and into the pile and then igniting them didn't do the trick .

It was so windy that I never got the chance to experiment with the pile as a coal extender or as a tinder/coal extender when combined with one or more other materials

 

[IntrepidStu]

A negative finding is as valuble as a positive one mate!!
Nice try anyway.

 

[decorum]

I haven't given up hope - Jelly fungus is very woody when dry. I think that, because of this woody nature, it might still be a worthwhile fire contributor. Probably not on its own, but possibly in conjuction with something that will take a spark and smoulder but be hard to get to flame on its own i.e white rot.