How to Prepare Combustible Incense

Incense is an aromatic biotic material which releases fragrant smoke when burned. Incense has been used since time immemorial for religious purposes and as a fragrance that provides the surrounding with good aromas.

There are several good brands of incense in the market, but these products are most often composed of artificial ingredients. Therefore it is advisable that you prepare your incense at home since the materials required are easily seen in our surroundings.

We have different types of incense which include the combustible and incombustible incense. In this blog, we shall be looking at very simple ways of preparing combustible incense at home.

How to Prepare Combustible Incense:

The basic ingredient needed is gum tragacanth which is quite expensive but a small quantity can last for many months. Before commencing with the full preparation of your incense, you should first create your incense base cone using the following items.

• 6 loaves of crushed wood charcoal (not self-flammable),
• 1 part of crushed Benzoin,
• 2 parts of sandalwood crushed ,
• 1 part of lily root (sets the perfume),
• 6 drops of essential oil (use the oil of one of the ingredients of the incense),
• 2 to 4 parts of a mixture of incense charged with power.

Formula:

• 1 glass of warm water,
• Mixed, ground, and empowered incense,
• Gum tragacanth,
• Incense base.

Procedure:

• Add a teaspoon of gum tragacanth to a glass of warm water to form the glue.
• Mix the ingredients thoroughly.
• Add drops of essential oil and mix it with the other ingredients. Mix thoroughly until a fine texture is formed.
• You can also use mortar or crusher to carry out the above step.
• After a nice texture has been created add two to four ounces of the prepared incense.
• Mix thoroughly then add ten percent of potassium nitrate. If more is added, the incense will burn too fast; if less than ten percent is added, the incense may not burn. If you have prepared ten ounces of incense, you must add an ounce of potassium nitrate.
• Then add teaspoon to teaspoon of tragacanth to the mixture.
• Mix it with the other ingredients in a container, until all the ingredients are wet. The texture should be thick, similar to a dough.
• Pour the mixture into a waxed paper then mold cones with it. The cones should have pointed tips in order to burn easily.
• After molding, keep the cones in a warm place to dry between two to seven days.

Note:

Do not fail to add a pointed tip to the cones as flat tips don’t burn easily. Also, after the dough has been formed, you can make an incense stick with the mixture through the following steps:

• Place the dough on the waxed paper and pat it until it is very thin.
• Place the stick on the dough and roll.
• The thickness of the stick shouldn’t be more than the incense.
• Squeeze the dough against the stick until it sticks to it and let it dry.

If you wish to form block shaped incense then you should;

• Make a large square about 1/3″ – 1/2″ thick on the  waxed paper.
• Cut into 1″ squares then set them up to dry thoroughly.

The preparation of combustible incense of different shapes can be very complicating and sometimes getting some of the ingredients might be a challenge. The consistency of the mixture will depend on the type of incense you want to obtain. If you want to make incense sticks, the mixture must be quite thin.

On your first trials you are most likely to make mistakes but do not get disappointed instead keep practicing until you have gained perfection.