Recycling Beeswax Candles, Part 4

DIPPING BEESWAX CANDLES

My secret dipping sauce process involves a water heating device called Sansaire. It's a recirculating water heater made for sous-vide cooking. You can look it up if you're not familiar with the process.

The Sansaire heater provides a source of hot water that can melt beeswax and keep it at a precisely-controlled temperature for dipping. New ones cost about $200 but I didn't pay that much. I've had mine since the project was launched a couple of years ago on Kickstarter. Using it for the candles was completely unintentional - I peeked inside a cupboard looking for something else and Eureka!

Our candle-dipping kit involves a large plastic pickle bucket, a 5" x 12" glass flower vase, the Sansaire heater, and a few more items (the optional T-Rex sprayer is from Alton Brown). Fill the bucket with hot water and turn on the heater. Fill the vase with chunks of wax (and/or melt some wax on the stove in a pan and pour it slowly and carefully into the heated vase).

You will have to weight down your partially-filled vase unless it is glued to the bottom of the bucket, or you find some other way to offset its buoyancy. That's why I have a chunk of marble on top. Once it is full it's going to stay still.

My improve-the-process plan B involves a bucket lid, into which I will cut several openings that will hold down the vase, stabilize the Sansaire unit, allow me to dip, and keep the heat in.

Here you can see I have melted the wax. My water temp is set to 165-166° F to make up for losses into the room and through the bucket. Glass conducts heat adequately (only $6 at the florist's shop if when you break one).  I am dipping a long candle into the glass vase.

Dipping just one candle at a time is laborious, so I made a jig to hold 6 wicks at a time. That's all the candles I can fit into my 5" vase.

I have carefully placed my bucket in the sink so NO wax can go down the drain. That would be catastrophic for the pipes. It's safer to do this outside but it's my house, so I chose the sink.

In the following photo you can see small threaded nuts that I am using to weight down the wicks. Otherwise the wicks will bend or float.

After a few dips you can cut these nuts off, then peel off and reuse the wax. The wicks will stay straight on their own.

You will need another bucket to hold the wicks so they can dry. Here you can see the jig which I made from the center core of a spool of wire. See your local hardware store for a freebie if you don't have one laying around. The stick holds up the spool without touching the candles. Any touches mean flaws in the candle.

A third bucket is handy if you want some cool water to accelerate your dipping speed. Notice the bucket full of water is covering the drain. No wax in the pipes!

So the process is to dip the wick down, then up smoothly without pausing, then cool for a minute in the air (or in the water), then repeat. After 4-5 layers you need to give it a good rest, or put it in the water for a couple minutes. Wipe off any water bubbles and repeat until the candles are the proper diameter. 

 Cut off any lumps or drips at the bottom, trim the wick end, roll them to straighten, and leave to cool. 

Add more wax to the vase as its level drops, and repeat.

The end results are shown below. The lighter color candles at the top came from St. Tikhon's Monastery. I put them in for comparison. They are made of fresh beeswax straight from the hive, and cost me $11 per pound plus shipping.

The candles on the lower right are partially-burned devotional candles; they came from Russia and another church. The ones in the center are from the first batch of experimental candles we made. The ones on the left are big and ugly, but I consider them part of the learning process.

One good thing about this candle business - if you make a faulty product you can melt it down and make a better one!

Stay tuned for the next installment.

Recycling Beeswax Candles, Part 3

PREPARING TO DIP CANDLES

Wax Inventory
In the last blog installment I described how we prepare the recycled beeswax by melting, filtering, and pouring it into molds. The objective is to clean the wax without excessive handling or heating, and to make it easy to store and reuse.

These are the blocks I've created in the past 3 weeks. I count 64 blocks.

How much wax is in a block? My cooking scale says 2 ounces each.

Rather than piling up enough bricks to compete with Lego, we intend to make candles from this reclaimed wax. How many candles do you think we can create from our inventory of blocks?

How Many Candles?

We did a test - here are some sample candles about 6-7 inches long. We can make three from the 2-ounce block shown above.

In addition to the blocks of wax, we made all these candles in our first test "dipping" session.

We have 64 blocks from which we can make another 192 candles (you can do the math). Not bad for 4 weeks of recycling.

CANDLE PRODUCTION OPTIONS

Now - how do we make the wax into candles? There are two main technologies for making candles, pouring and dipping.

Pouring Candles
Pouring involves the use of a mold, either discardable or reusable. Here are some conventional candles made in paper molds (whisky bottle packaging which I get free from the store - free cartons, not whisky).

These are referred to in the candle trade as Pillar candles. They're mainly good for burning for the smell, as little light is given off once the flame burns down into the candle. I like these 3-cornered shapes; thanks Glenfiddich.

You can also pour wax into molds to make tapers, or tall candles for candlesticks and devotional use. Nowadays the molds are made of polyurethane rubber. The candles can be quickly removed and a new candle poured. The main drawback is the molds cost about $25 each. It's impractical to melt and pour one candle at a time, so lots of molds make for productive and happy (but poor) candlemakers.

Here are some pillar and taper candles in use with our icons.

Dipping Candles
We chose to dip candles for our first few production efforts. I did try making one poured, pillar candle but I don't have adequate wicks - you must have a large, open-weave wick for beeswax, due to its low melting point and viscous (thick) melted state. Otherwise the wick drowns in melted wax.

Unlike poured candles, which just require enough wax to fill the mold, for dipping you must have a large container filled with melted wax - more than enough to dip the full length of the candle. So for a 10-inch candle, you need about 12 inches of melted wax. That requires some technology!

I think I will get into the secret dipping process in the next blog. Please come back for the details.

Recycling Beeswax Candles, Part 2

In my last post I showed the mess that accumulates as beeswax candles melt down to their stumps in a pan of sand.

REFINING THE USED WAX
We have started to reclaim the beeswax from our church's discarded candle debris.

Step one is to collect the bits and throw them into a plastic bag in a box. Each Sunday afternoon we now have a box full of little rings of beeswax-infused sand, along with drippings, stubs and short pieces of candle.

We take it outside and separate the bits, dropping the hard chunks of sand onto the ground (eventually into the trash can).

The remainder of the bits are placed in a perforated pan and washed off with the hose. We put these remains into an old crockpot, and pour boiling water over the top. Roughly a half-gallon of water is adequate.

We turn the heat on low and put the lid on the pot.

About an hour later, we have a bunch of dark liquid in our crockpot. In reality, this is a layer of clean beeswax floating on top of the hot water. Sand and heavy debris are on the bottom, while wicks and other lighter material are floating underneath the wax.

We use the crockpot because we want the melting to go very slowly - beeswax melts around 150 degrees and the closer we can keep the wax to this point, the less it will lose its attractive smell and color.

PREPARING THE WAX FOR REUSE

At this point we have several alternatives.

Disk of Wax
We can turn off the pot and let the whole thing cool overnight. That results in a disk of wax floating on top of the water but securely "glued" to the sides of the crock pot. It has to be remelted and all the debris filtered and removed. We did this at first, and poured the large amount of wax into a bread baking pan lined with foil.

The bread pan process unfortunately left us with enormous chunks which were slow to melt and messy to cut up. We need to be able to meter out the wax easily for our candle making.

Bricks of Wax
Alternatively, we can use a ladle to lift the wax off the top of the water. Because we can't see the line separating these liquids, the ladle may contain both water and wax. We pour the wax through a metal screen into a silicone baking mold (just $9 each, from Amazon).

In an hour or so we have nice little bricks of wax (and water) which look like this.

The water drops to the bottom of the molds and comes out when we remove the blocks. On the occasional block we find some trapped water. We cut into the block, liberate the water, and remelt/repour it into a clean block of wax.

CLEANUP

At this point we have a crockpot full of congealed sand, partially burned wicks, waxy bits, and water. We've learned that the fastest approach is to have another teapot full of boiling water. We pour that into the crock pot, let it sit for a minute or two, and pour the mess out on the ground. Then we can wipe the pot clean. The rest of the boiling water gets poured through our metal screen, which cleans it off.

The ground soaks up the water and the sand and wax stay on top. We clean up the sand; bees clean up the wax.

Please come back for Part 3 where we describe how to make new candles.

Recycling Beeswax Candles, Part 1

BACKGROUND

My Candle Experiences
In college, 45 years ago, I had a candle-making business called 3D Waxworks. Over a period of years I accumulated equipment, expertise and a love for candles. Although I gave up the business when I got a real job, I kept the "stuff".

Years later, when we bought a house in San Diego, we acquired a beehive and learned to extract honey and wax. As a beekeeper I know that bees consume about 6-8 pounds of honey in order to produce a pound of wax. Any waste or theft of the wax causes a decrease in hive productivity. Beekeepers have to remove the cappings from honeycomb, but they try not to ruin the comb itself.

These experiences prepared me for the subject of today's blog - recycling beeswax candles. Given the shortage of healthy hives nowadays, anything we can do to help save wax helps the bees as well.

The Church
Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and other churches tend to have candles burning whenever the worship space is used for services or private prayers. These candles are located in various places and serve many purposes. In this blog I am primarily interested in the Orthodox church use of candles.

Altar
Candles are used in the altar area. Two candles are normally placed on the altar table. They are replaced by the trikiron  and dikirion ( 3-candle and 2-candle holders) during a hierarchical service. Below you can see one of each being used during a bishop's visit.

A seven-branched candle stand may appear on the altar table or a freestanding candelabra may be used.

Chandeliers
Some churches use candles in their chandeliers rather than electrical lamps.

Nave
Candles may be found upon stands in front of icons in the nave, on the iconostasis, and as memorials before the golgotha (icon of Christ crucified).

Narthex
Candle stands are placed in the narthex of some churches. Some stands are comprised of a large flat tray filled with sand, which makes it easy for parishioners to light and place candles. Other stands have many small holders; each accepts a single candle.

Processions
During processions, candles are held by the deacons, members of minor orders, and acolytes. Both individual candlesticks, or candles in a glass chimney may be used. During Pascha, a deacon carries a Paschal candle and the bishop or priest uses the Paschal trikiron.

Home
Many Orthodox believers maintain an icon corner in their home, with candles and/or vigil lamps.

Type of Candles

Beeswax candles are preferred over petroleum, soy, gel or artificial candles. There are many reasons suggested for this preference, including:

• more natural
• no dripping (as long as drafts are minimal)
• no soot (on ceiling or icons)
• smell better
• burn longer
• traditional
• income for monasteries
• non-animal fat (compared with "tallow" candles)

For lamps, olive oil is preferred. We won't get into lamps in this series of posts.

THE RECYCLING PROJECT
When we began visiting some Orthodox churches about a year ago, I noticed burnt candles being thrown into a box or bin. Chunks of waxy sand were being discarded along with partially-burned candle, stubs and drips.




It seems prudent to use the candles for devotional purposes, but not waste anything in the process. So I asked the priest if I could investigate recycling the wax. He said yes.

Subsequent blog posts will review how we are going about this recycling and reuse project.