How to Forage Wild Chaga Mushrooms | Chaga Tea Recipe | Identify, Sustainably Harvest and Prepare
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- čas přidán 4. 07. 2024
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Hang out with Kevin as he ventures into the Maine woods to forage for native Chaga (Inonotus obliquus), one of the most sought after medicinal mushrooms in the Northern Hemisphere. Along the way, he'll show you how to identify, sustainably harvest, and prepare Chaga for consumption, as well as point out common look a-likes.
The earliest known use of Chaga can be traced back to the Khanty people in 1000 BCE Siberia. It was valued for its remedial properties, primarily used in rituals or folk medicine by shamans and healers. Since then, scientific discovery has confirmed the rich variety of minerals, vitamins, and nutrients that make Chaga a medicinal powerhouse.
References:
History & health benefits of Chaga:
www.ethnoherbalist.com/chaga-e...
Growth of Chaga Mushroom (Inonotus obliquus) on Betula platyphylla var. japonica:
www.researchgate.net/publicat...
Chaga Tea & Tinctures: northspore.com/collections/ch...
00:00 - Introduction
00:47 - The search: Chaga habitat, birch trees, and identification tips
02:07 - Success! Kevin finds his first Chaga mushroom
03:55 - The Chaga look a-like, Tinder Conk mushrooms
04:56 - How to sustainably harvest Chaga
07:47 - Processing and preparing Chaga for consumption
10:27 - Chaga tea with a twist: a special Maine treat - Věda a technologie
And just add something in case anyone's wondering about their medicinal properties. It really does work. I started getting involved with drinking chaga tea about seven or eight years ago when I was exposed to black mold and the chemical Roundup. And I almost died from a complete auto immune shut down..... and I used to buy it already ground up but for a small bag it's $35. And I used to go through that small bag in no time at all. But I will say at that point in time when I was at my lowest point of health and barely 102 lb and dying, the chaga helped a great deal. And they gave me back some of my immunity that literally nothing else could do. Because I was at the point where I could not eat anything. And even Water started making my stomach hurt. So very slowly I started incorporating chaga and I never had a bad reaction to it. That along with green matcha tea and organic lemon... helped a great deal.
Big game changers without having to use medicines and Chemicals or antibiotics....wich I'm highly allergic to. ❤
If you need and chaga or reishi lmk. I could send tinctures too unless you're allergic to alcohol.
PS Not trying to sell you anything,lol.
At the risk of coming off as a know-it-all I got to point out something on that first conk you cut into. When you saw a frozen chaga , even closer to the center ,( where the good looking colors will be found) the saw will melt and refreeze or at least "smudge" the cut face. When it's an easy one like that bust it off with an axe or Karate kick. I almost guarentee that conk was good inside. Out on the tip of a horn the mass is denser anyhow.
Ha! I've thought a lot of things about those 'tree lumps' but I never thought they were mushrooms...so interesting! Thank you
Super video. Really liked the content, the delivery and the settings used for footage! 😊
Great video, btw. You guys are great! Thanks for all the great content. Much love.
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for the awesome info, Cheer!
Yesss maple syrup!!! 🍁 thanks for the informative video. Just what I was looking for.
Found close to a thousand pounds of the stuff while hunting in remote spots in Manitoba over the last 10 years. A tip if its too high in a tree is to simply shoot the chaga where it meets the tree. I keep some FMJ on hand for this.
None of the chaga in this video looked particularly great, kinda all dark and dull.
Sawn off doesn't looks as good. Especially in winter. I harvest up to 25' and go to 40 if it's a really nice conk.
Thanks for always making such great content!
Glad you enjoy it!
Enjoyed the vibe of this video. Almost felt like we were hanging out
i like this type of video i need more now
Thanks for sharing
Thank you
Україна має багато чаги куплю карпатську .Доступний і цікавий фунг .
Hi, thanks for sharing this. However, I've been looking for ways to extract the goodness from chaga without alcohol. I've come across fermentation and glycerin. While glycerin seems to work, I lean towards fermentation as I do towards everything natural. But I couldn't find any more information online on the fermentation method, apart from 2 studies on rats in Asia. Could you share anything you might know on this? Thanks a lot)
I mixed some powdered chaga in with my decaffeinated coffee & have some every day.
Great informational stuff namaste.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Unfortunately, people's GREED is contributing to the serious scarcity of the chaga and the destruction of people's land! I live in mid coast Maine and have personally seen birch trees broken down and ruined by unethical people illegally harvesting chaga on private property!
Ya, this is certainly a concern. It goes without saying that harvesting anything on private property without permission is a poor practice. I'm looking forward to the potential for really growing our own Chaga: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112721003327
Not allowing nature or stopping g nature... says it's self. Got white birch in pa. Heard of chaga but know nothing of it. Respect nature
If one is older dark orange is there medical value in it
@@NorthSpore seems like it should/could be attempted along with truffle orchards at the same facilities for the same reasons, right? having to inoculate the live tree first, I mean
I think I would have taken the chaga at the base of that birch but would have handled it separately from a more vibrant orange specimen. For 1 cup of test tea.... Curious if that was pooled, darkened sap at the base of the tree .... wonder how concentration of that birch sap might taste when brewed for tea.... wonderful video. shared,ty.
Yeah the tree was dead and the chaga's days were numbered. Went to complete waste.
Nutmeg/cheese-grinder and coffee grinder when home!
Be careful with that, Chaga will destroy some coffee grinders.
Thanks for all the info :-) Can I ask, a maybe stupid question? Doesent all the good stuff get inactive, after boiling it? x
Hello! Boiling helps release all of the good compounds within the mushroom! You shouldn't encounter a situation where the opposite is true.
👍🙌
Can you buy this in stores or online? If so which brand is more natural.
northspore.com/pages/thrive
I think i read back east in the US people are growing like wild ginseng by planting it in their woodlots as part of their timber stands. It's not really wild, but it's not farm raised either. But i think the article i read said they harvested at 10 years. I'll have to read more as the guy in the video said the life cycle is 30 years. That'd be crazy long to grow ginseng for 30 years. I guess chaga would be even worse time wise.
They're doing a lot of cultivation stuff in Finland too!
One question to anybody who has used the grow bags. Do you just set them in the bottom of your pressure canner or do you have to put something underneath of them? Will they melt?
Definitely have them raise up wit a grate of some sort.
@@NorthSpore awesome thank you for the reply
Biggest one I've found to date was 7 lbs 5 and a half ounces in happy valley ny. Happy hunting
Nice one. My record is 52 pounds ( fresh weight) Eastern adirondacks. Already had about a hundred pounds in the truck. And yes I have pictures. They're not up on my channel yet but soon. Cheers
I take my small chunks to the grocery and grind it into my coffee in the whole bean section.
That's really smart! I'm not sure the store appreciates it all that much though.
Thank you so much!!
So here in Vermont the Chage seems to want to grow way up high.. and often times on private land...LOl
So I guess my one question for you is, because it's not very easily accessible for me, and I don't have a car so I can't explore my options that far, I ended up buying a large chunk of chaga that's probably about three sizes larger than my fist.... and it is literally like Stone. And I am having an incredibly difficult time breaking it down. Do you think maybe using a chisel and some other type of hard device and work? Because I've already killed one of my cheese graters, LOL😮😂
Haha yes, we know your pain! You'll first want to break it into smaller pieces. In the past, we've used a chisel and a hammer. Once the chunks are small enough, you can break them down even further using a meat grinder, mortar and pestle, or an incredibly tough blender. Just keep in mind that if you use a blender, it may dull the blades.
In addition, if you manage to find fresh chaga, we recommend processing it the same day as it will be softer on the inside!
@@NorthSpore
Ok awesome!! Thank you so much for getting back to me.
I'm on the hunt for acorns and pine needles as soon as this snow leaves...LOL
Wich will probably be never..ha ha
I use a hachet and set the chaga on a block of wood. I built a screen cage to catch the shrapnel because I process a lot of chaga. Maybe 200 pounds a year. I used to lay a clean tarp down and put my wood block on that. It worked but killed my knees. If you're not handy with sharp tools then I'd avoid this. I charge 15 per pound for whole conks and 8 more for ready to use chunks so if you're buying conks it's well worth it to go with the ready-to-use chunks.
how would you inoculane chaga?
There folks in Finland working on that I believe.
please post link or do a video when more info is found
Good documentary clip. But i don t get, if it can still spread if you harvest parts of it, why should you not take if you se one remotely? So if you cut it completely of the tree it can t grow more?
There are several problems. To start with, not enough is known about Chaga and it's ecology. We do know it can grow back, but can take something like 10 years. If the Chaga sclerotias all get taken and they are important for the fruiting body to do it's job (assumption, but why would they be there?), then this would indeed cause a problem for further proliferation.
Is that Chaga darker than what you would like to harvest because the tree is dead? I of course I can't see the whole tree, but I have always learned that you're not supposed to take it off of anything but a live birch.
Exactly! It's good practice to harvest chaga from living trees.
Is that 4pm central time?
Yes, it is. Sorry about that not being clear.
Interesting but what is it used for?
yuppie tea. I'm being sarcastic but thats where much of the chaga is going. Its an amazing mushroom that has a freakishly high antioxident level and tinctures have strong cancer fighting properties. The tea or hot water extractions have strong immune boosting properties. Great for the skin , gut , you name it. Check out my humble youtube channel to learn more.
Native Americans use it as either a topical paste mixed with herbs and fat
Or as a tea that's mixed with honey
I am in Texas and have Chaga on several oak trees in my yard. Have you heard of this?
Are you 100% sure it is chaga. If you take some good pictures and send them to info@northspore.com we'd be happy to take a look and confirm. They are sometimes found on other trees, but oak in TX would be quite unusual.
@@NorthSpore drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-349gBLcVugJRSPSEXXBLNc4fVRDqkqq
I must say, I can’t really understand the claim that harvesting chaga doesn’t limit its ability to proliferate. Especially when your next point seems to walk back the claim, “you want to minimize being human in the woods.” It hard to imagine that we should be mindful of roughing up some forest scrub, but there’s no need to be concerned about harvesting chaga.
I basically don’t harvest chaga because of the pressure it seems to be under. It’s hard to find because it’s over foraged. That means foraging reduces its ability to proliferate. That seems very straightforward to me. But I would love to be wrong about this, so if anyone knows that I’m wrong or can help sort out my error, please do!
Where I harvest it's not overharvested ... yet, but it's only a matter of time. As it becomes scarcer it will go up in value then pressure will increase. I don't have an answer but videos like this irratate me with their preachyness. Soon it will be "regulated" , then endangered, then strictly regulated , then the price will be so high it will disappear. Like ginseng.
Visually pretty decent content but kind of lacking on the educational front
Let us know what you'd like to know and we'll try to help. A lot of info about Chaga just isn't out there.