I recently saw a post suggesting that coffee grounds could be used to repell mosquitoes. The grounds could be lit with a flame so that it would smolder in the area where you might sit outdoors.

One person suggested that used coffee grounds could be used for this purpose and so I decided to give that a try. I laid the used coffee grounds out in their paper filters on a cooling rack on top of a tray and put it in the oven and set the temperature on “warm” for about an hour, then I turned it off and let the oven cool down overnight.

The next day I poured some of the processed grounds into a jar lid and tried to lite it… unsuccessfully. It probably was not dry enough so I decided to use some new unused grounds and was successful. That spawned a thought that coffee pods could be used because they are a self contained package enclosed in a paper filter wrapper. The paper would serve as tinder to ignite grounds that would make lighting it quick and easy. It worked great as shown in the photo.

Each pod cost about twenty-two cents. Of course there may be other natural materials available if you are out on the trail such as a Cattail flower head or Bracket Fungus that can be lit to smolder as well.

I lit a match and held it at the edge. No melting took place but eventually an ember appeared and began to smolder. That reminded me of a previous article “smoldering cattails” where natural materials would allow a person to transport a live coal from a previous fire while traveling to the next remote location. Another option for transport is dry punky wood.

I also wanted to test it for catching a spark similar to another bracket fungus “fomes fomentarius” or “amadou” but without success. I am still exploring the structure of bracket fungus for the layer that is best used for these purposes and would welcome any comments from those with experience in harvesting these fungus specimens.