[Bright Raven]

Hi Folks 
Last year I worked out that walnut shells burn really hot and fast. Great free fuel for my wood burning stove. This year I am looking at hundreds of fallen acorns and conkers. Does anyone dry these to burn? I am a bit worried that they will cause the flue in my chimney to get coated in resin the same way it would if I burnt green wood. Do you think this will be a problem?
If not I will start collecting and storing.
Also have any of you ideas about any other smallholder friendly fuel sources that could be used when the lights go out and when I run out of coal and wood.
I have plenty of wool  maybe I had best just get knitting a big jumper.

[happygolucky]

I collect pine cones as they are great for starting the fires but I do now they create a lot of resin but we have open fires, would the conkers explode?  I so wanted to coat my pine cones with different coloured chemicals to burn pretty colours, I think I put it on here once but have forgotten.  I suppose you could make tallow or any animal fat candles 

[Steph Hen]

Not sure its particularly smallholder friendly, but used cooking oil burns well. If you're not doing anything else with it, soak half burnt -charcoal sticks in it, burns well.

I would have thought that conkers would take a lot of drying out? I collected and tried to burn beech mast once, but they smoldered as I hadn't dried them enough. - The shells of nuts burn well, but the nut themselves have a lot of moisture as well as energy, I'd guess you might need to split them all open to dry, but have never experimented.

Again, at a guess, I'd say if they were well dried and added to a decent fire that was already up and going, I wouldn't assume they'd cause too many problems to your lum.

[happygolucky]

http://chemistry.about.com/od/funfireprojects/a/colored-fire-pinecones.htm

That was the idea I had to make a pretty fire with cones.....