chaga fungus (with photo)

[jamie]

i added a pic on the first post

[stickbender]

     Jamie, thanks.  I googled it the other night, and went to the wikipedia site, and then down to the research site.  Amazing stuff.   I thought that Tea Tree Oil was amazing, but wow, I will have to try to get some of this stuff.  I hope it grows in Montana.  I am pretty close to the Canadian boarder, about two and a half, to three hours away.  I will definitely be on the lookout for it, when I am in the woods !  Wish I had some of it earlier, maybe I wouldn't have had to have an inch and a half of my right ear sliced, for skin cancer.  Squamis cells.  Nasty stuff.  Tends to travel.  Well I will see if any of the health food stores here have it.  Thanks for showing it.

                                                                            Wayne

[DanaM]

jamie how do you prepare the tea and what strength   I have one good sized chunk laying around, know where more is but its a 2 or 3 mile trip in on snowshoes

[stickbender]

     Well ya know Dana, ya could send da wife fer it......   Ooooh, I forgot she reads this too......   Dana, go to Google, and look it up, and then go to the wikipedia, and go down to research, and it will tell you all about it, and there are also venues on how to prepare it.

                                                                            Wayne

[jamie]

dry the conk so it doesnt mold up. two ways ive made it. grind it and use twice the amount of cgaga as you would coffee and use the coffee machine. my favorite. one gallon of water boiling throw in a handful or two of chaga chunks and simmer for an hour then turn off and let it sit for a day. dont throw away chunks. you can get 2 or 3 more brews out of em.

[DanaM]

Thanks jamie this stuff is hard as rock on the tree, can't imagine it molding

[jamie]

after making tea from it dana i usually throw the chunks back in the dehydrator to dry. one time i didnt by the afternoon the mold spores had already grown. now who knows that mold may be good for ya but i aint gonna be the one to find out right now.

[DanaM]

Ya big wussy

[jcinpc]

chaga is awesome, I have a few pounds of it, I too make tea from it, nice earthy stuff. Let it dry out and can use it in your fire piston or as insence. It does vary as too hardness, I like the softer pieces for the piston.

[jamie]

jc my kids and friends call it "dirt tea". 

[jcinpc]

you aint kidding, They tried it but used alot of honey and mint or lemon. I like it. I wouldnt be suprised it does have an effect on tumor growth and cancers , yet we will never hear of it because that means the gov`t cant make money off of it.

[Hillbilly]

I haven't found any here in a long time. It grows at high elevations here on yellow birch, but it's rare. I've tried using it for tinder, but never medicinally. I'll have to keep an eye out for some more.

[Jude]

Huh, you learn something new every day.  I've seen it plenty in Vermont and New York, and in Alaska as well, so I assume it probably grows anywhere in between you find birches.  As far as I know, no fungus that grows off the side of a tree is poisonous.  Now the ones growing on the ground are another story, got sick as a dog once from something I thought was a puffball, before I learned that puffballs should always be white in the center.  They were tasty though.

[jamie]

ground ones i stay away from , too many uh-ohs can happen with em.

[Hillbilly]

Jude, there are definitely several fungi that grow on trees that are poisonous, including at least one deadly one. Even some edible ones can be toxic if they're growing on the wrong kind of tree.