Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Burning Resins In Small Areas

כ' תמוז התשס"ח
Faunus 22

A few tips for gently heating and burning resin incenses in small areas:

1. Use a tea light heated oil diffuser. The candle heats the reservoir holding the resins which then heats the incense within it to release their scent. Thick soapstone is a safer choice and is less likely to 'explode' (as thin porcelain diffusers might) with dry heating or if the reservoir goes dry if heating resins with water. It's a good idea to use a little water or unscented wax chips with the resins for gentler heating, especially if using a diffuser made of finer materials.

2. Use a ventilated votive holder fitted with a double-folded piece of metal screen. Place the resins on the screen lid, and a tea candle in the bottom of the holder.

3. If using charcoal, form a little bowl using aluminum foil. Place the foil bowl over the already lit charcoal and add your resins. The foil lowers the burn temperature, thereby burning the resins slower and more gently. Use tongs when dealing with charcoal.

4. Don't burn too much resin at once indoors, as resins tend to be very smokey - you don't want to set off the smoke alarm.

5. Japanese bamboo charcoal burns cleaner than black saltpetre charcoal.

Other tips are welcome.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was the best information I have seen! I only recently began using loose incense on charcoal and hated how smokey and fast they burned. I frequently ended up putting out the charcoal with the resin also. This solves it all! Thank you!

Lori said...

You're welcome. Thank you for your comments. :)

Madalina said...

One tip for using charcoal:
in the censer put a layer of sand and a dig a small hole into it, just enough to fit the charcoal. Light the charcoal (using tongs is best to avoid singed fingers) and place the charcoal in the hole. Use the tongs or a teaspoon to cover it up to its height and place the resin on top. The sand absorbs enough heat from the charcoal to let the resin melt nicely without giving too much smoke :)

Lori said...

Good idea.