Incense
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Incense
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Cone Incense 6 parts powdered Sandalwood (or other wood) 2 parts powdered Benzoin (or any gum resin) l part ground Orris Root 6 drops essential oil 3 to 5 parts incense mixture (recipe follows) Tragacanth Gum Glue (recipe follows) Salt Peter Mix the first three ingredients until combined. Add the oil and mix again. Then add three to five parts of the completed incense mixture to this. This should be a powder. Weigh and add ten percent potassium nitrate (salt peter). Mix, add the gum tragacanth glue, combine again and mold to small cones. Let dry overnight. Tragacanth Gum Glue: place a teaspoon of the ground herb in a glass of warm water. Mix with a whisk or egg beater until it's evenly dispersed. If it gets foamy you can skim it off or wait a while and it'll go away. This Tragacanth Gum will absorb up to a gallon of water in a week, so if it gets too thick to work with, just add some more water and mix it in. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let it sit for a bit until it turns into a paste or "glue". Incense Mixture: This can be anything that'll burn. I light a charcoal tablet and then go around gathering various herbs, woods and resins to try. Some things smell wonderful when you burn them and others are just foul. As long as you take the following rules into consideration, you'll be fine. * Never use more than ten percent saltpeter. Ever! Woo Hoo Fireworks! :) There should be at least twice as much powdered wood as resins. If there is too much resin, the incense won't burn. When you create your incense mixture, take the base into consideration so that there's never more than 1/3 resin in the entire incense recipe. Because of the nature of homemade incense, this will be much more "sparkly" than you're used to, it's no more dangerous than commercially made incense but it could be a surprise. It's my own opinion that one should keep an eye on anything that's on fire in the house. |