Make your own incence?

[MstryShovel]

Has anyone ever done this appart from burning leaves and whatnot, im talking about almost making your own "stick" or cone or whatever of compacted material to burn and get some sweet smells from. the idea being grind everythign up compact it , make it stick together and THEN burn it. anyways, has anyone ever done this? if so or know about it what are some good resources?

[Arcygenical]

Well, if you're looking to create a thick incense cone, you'll have to do a tiny bit of extraction first... I've done this a few times with lemon-grass vanilla beans and almond bark... And it would work beautifully with salvia too.

If you're making incense from a waxy or powdery source (like, most leaves, bark, seeds etc.) and NOT a sappy source (resin, syrups etc.) follow these directions (If you're using a sappy, sticky source, you can skip ALL the extraction part, and jump down to the third set of points):

-Go get yourself at least 500ml of acetone or 1000ml 99% Isopropryl alcohol. Acetone is recommended for this. Also, purchase some gum Arabic and saltpeter, or (preferably) incense mako.
-Pulverize your ingredient as much as possible... The smaller the particles the better. You can use a coffee grinder for this.
-Put your ingredient in a large glass jar with a lid (no plastic please! Not even the lid!) and cover it with ALL the solvent from above (500ml or 1L depending on your selection)

-Let this sit in a warm dark place for 3-5 days. The longer the better. We want to extract as much of the tar and resin as we can.
-Strain out the particulate matter with a few coffee strainers into another jar. Let this evaporate down to 10% of it's previous volume.
-Pour the mixture into a small stainless steel dish, and get a mortar and pestle ready.
-Place the mixture into a pot of boiling water (double boil it) so all the solvent evaporates.
-Leave it in a cool dark place for 24 hours, then freeze it for 2 days.

-Once completely frozen, you can easily pestle it down into a fine powder. Weigh your final product, and add in an extra 60% of the weight's worth of mako. If you got gum arabic and saltpeter instead, form a 50/50 mix with them, and add it in the same volume.

Press it into pellets on wax paper, and stick it in the freezer.

You're good to go, really.

[MstryShovel]

sweet thanks!
how hard is salt peter to get now-a-days, I remeber back in my rebel days that saltpeter was an easy way to get potash, and make explosives, although i had hard luck trying to actuly find the stuff. either way is that mako stuff easyer to get/work with? Its arts and crafts time kids\!!

[Arcygenical]

Saltpeter is just potassium nitrate... You can get it easily all-over the web!

[Synchronium]

Err... Won't adding potassium nitrate (an oxidiser) to a carbohydrate-rich resin/gloop make it burn more like a fuse than an incense stick? Potassium nitrat + sucrose produces an awesome purple, hot flame and gives off a lot of sugary smoke.

I'd say be careful with that.

[Arcygenical]

Yep, you need to be careful, but remember... Sugar is an excellent source of energy for combustion, resins aint... so, as long as you put the immediate flame out, you're good to go.

Saltpeter is used in charcoal and 90% of *unorganic* commercial insence AFAIK. Mako would be the better choice, or bamboo charcoal.

[Synchronium]

Saltpetre + Charcoal + Sulphur = Gunpowder

Saltpetre + sugar = Smoke mixture (you can also mix it with dextrin and make a really cool, reliable slow burning fuse, but that's another story)


What kind of quantities are we talking?

[Arcygenical]

Trust me, I know the potential of saltpeter. Like every other 12 year old boy, I too read the anarchist's cookbook, and used it for some really fun things. Magnesium, potassium nitrate and sugar made one hell of a lot of smoke .

If you don't believe me, go buy some cheap incense... Light it, and it should crackle a tiny bit. This is how you know there's saltpeter in it.

As for quantity... Well, if you take 100g of dried incense material... I said to add an extra 50% saltpeter/gum arabic mixture... So, that's 25g of saltpeter and 25g of gum arabic.

Yes, it will act as a fuse a little bit, if you don't put out the flame immediately. When it starts to burn without ignition, then you're good to go.

[DrYRHead]

sweet thanks!
how hard is salt peter to get now-a-days, I remeber back in my rebel days that saltpeter was an easy way to get potash, and make explosives, although i had hard luck trying to actuly find the stuff. either way is that mako stuff easyer to get/work with? Its arts and crafts time kids\!!

African violet fertilizer has Salt Peter(KNO3) in it. Many nurseries carry it.