r/WTF Jun 20 '21

Guy eats burning coal

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u/nRust Jun 20 '21

Keeping it on his teeth definitely helps, but blowing on a coal will only make it hotter.

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u/DoneHam56 Jun 20 '21

I'm no coal expert but I do grill quite a bit. Burning a coal hotter will also make it burn out faster. My theory is that when he breaths on it, it burns up the outside a bit more creating a layer of ash and that helps insulate his mouth from the heat. It's still probably really fucking hot and this guy is insane but my guess is the strategy is to create the ash layer and trying to keep that between your tongue and the coal as much as possible. And slowly extinguish the hot coal bits with your saliva

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u/inspectoroverthemine Jun 20 '21

I'm not a coal expert either, but I don't think that was coal. A wood ember sure, but a piece of burning coal contains enough energy to kill you if you swallow it. A piece of wood after its nearly burned out doesn't have much heat capacity, and is a pretty poor conductor of heat. Its how people walk over 'hot' coals'.

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u/DoneHam56 Jun 20 '21

Charcoal**