My Test
Trial One
![Picture](/uploads/1/1/5/9/11595494/9839819.jpg)
First, I dried my mushrooms by cleaning them with a toothbrush and cutting them into thin pieces and baking them in the oven at 150F for one hour. The materials I used for this were: 1. A knife 2. A cutting board 3. 24oz of Cremini mushrooms 4. A toothbrush 5. An oven and 6. a baking tray. Once I had cut up the mushrooms, I started to heat the oven, and I noticed that our oven only goes down to 170F, so I will had to do some improvising. The first batch of mushrooms went in for one hour, and when It came out of the oven it had turned into dust. The second batch of mushrooms came out whole, but they did not burn. I think this was because they were overcooked so that they were out of burnable material. I will try to dry them using other methods.
Trial Two
![Picture](/uploads/1/1/5/9/11595494/3783274.jpg?183)
When I looked at my second batch, I saw that the water in the mushrooms had leaked out and stayed in the mushrooms, and when I salted the mushrooms (Which I am doing for the second trial) the same thing happens. I concluded that salting the mushrooms does the same drying baking them does, minus the heat and burning factor. When I tried to burn the salted mushroom, burned worse than the oven baked mushrooms. The conclusion I reached was this: mushrooms will not catch fire. Even if I soaked the mushroom in wax, the actual mushrooms would not burn and therefore defeats the purpose of using mushrooms at all.
Trial Three (Four)
![Picture](/uploads/1/1/5/9/11595494/1337553295.jpg)
Since the mushrooms cant become ethanol because of lack of carbohydrate/sugar, I tried to add sugar to the mushrooms. I got a cutting board, my knife, sugar, a camera, a cup, and a concrete floor. I diced the mushrooms, put them into the cup, put an unmeasured amount of sugar in it, and mashed and mixed them together. Then I tried to burn them. The sugar melted into caramel onto the mushrooms but they did not burn.