Chaga...

I have a small chunk of it. But it was given to me, so not sure about storage and drying. Suppose to be good stuff. Ive made tea with it but if you throw it in coffee you don't even taste it. If its a big chunk I would just cut down the whole tree...lol. its quite expensive
 
I have a small chunk of it. But it was given to me, so not sure about storage and drying. Suppose to be good stuff. Ive made tea with it but if you throw it in coffee you don't even taste it. If its a big chunk I would just cut down the whole tree...lol. its quite expensive

Not supposed to cut it all off or cut the tree down.. If you only take a portion, it will continue to grow.. The peice I found is honestly 1/2-3/4 of a basketball growing on the side of the tree..
 
I use it daily. I've not found anything better to lower my BP.
Drops both my systolic and diastolic almost 10 points and does so within a day or two.

It's high in oxalic acid though, so don't over consume if they're a concern to you.
I've read daily doses between 1.5-3 grams.. What are you doing?

Are you tea or powder?

I['m not sure if your processing it yourself or if you store buy.. If you are doing it your self, how did you process? I understand making tea is super easy to process.. Just dry it and simmer for 4-5 hours to extract for tea.. But if you want all the goodness from chag, you have to alcohol extract
 
I use less than a gram a day of fine powder to make tea.

Like cheapshot says it is expensive to buy so some people might include other melanized conks that are not chaga, or use dead conks.
If buying chaga, you may never know for sure what you are getting so I harvest it myself. One conk can last me years.

processing it easy. don't cut into the wood or injure the tree, and the conk will grow back in a few years.
I just break off by hand whatever will come off cleanly and leave at least 20 or 30%

The day you get it, break it up into 1 or 2 inch chunks and set it out somewhere to dry at room temperature for a few days.
Don't wait, or mold can set in.

once dry I grind a few ounces in a coffee grinder to powder and keep it in a spice shaker container.

Shake in a 1/2 gram or so and simmer it for about 30min until the water turns to black coffee colour.

I've never bothered with alcohol extraction, but it is amazing how many times you can reboil that same gram of chaga over and over and have it continue turning the water black.
 
Look right?

I took off a chunk.. When I got home I took off majority of the black and all the tree wood. Chunked it up and its drying on my wood stove now.
 

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you want to keep the black stuff, the blacker the better.
It has the most potency highest amounts of melanin etc. and sells at a big premium.

Also, you want dry at room temp. Heating it up supposedly destroys many compounds.
Although I always questioned that, due to the fact we extract them into boiling water.
 
you want to keep the black stuff, the blacker the better.
It has the most potency highest amounts of melanin etc. and sells at a big premium.

Also, you want dry at room temp. Heating it up supposedly destroys many compounds.
Although I always questioned that, due to the fact we extract them into boiling water.

shoot.. the aritcle I read said cut the black stuff off... I'll keep it next time..

I took it off the stove.. Stove wasn't hot at all. I picked up peices and they were just slightly warm.. next time I'll do straight room temp.
 
tried the tea last night.. a bit on the bitter side, but nothing like orange pekoe tea.. I added a tiny bit of splenda and it was really good.

I blended some powder chagga in my coffee this morning.. made it very gritty.. I think I'll stick to the tea..
 
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