Here's the bit about using a Pots & Co Ramekin. I've since found that you can get rid of any gap between wax and container by running a blowtorch gently round the edge after it has set. You can remelt just enough that the gap is filled.
Pots & Co Container candle
While searching online I found a candle company that recycles Pots and Co pudding ramekins into a beeswax container candle, so I thought I would have a go. The Pots & Co ramekin makes an ideal container for a candle as they are oven and heat proof. They also come with a very nice pudding and once washed out are free! Both these things should naturally appeal to beekeepers. Container candles are very fashionable but aren’t often made with beeswax; as the wax cools and shrinks it doesn’t stick to the side of the container and leaves a gap. Candlemakers try to avoid this and even blend specific container waxes that stick to the sides. I don’t think it matters at all - it shows that you are using natural beeswax and not some unholy blend of waxes. The gap can be minimised by warming the container before pouring and pouring the wax at 69°C to 70°C. For a bit of fun, I tried using both a traditional cotton wick and a wood wick. Wood wicks are very popular but can be tricky. They burn with a good flame and make a soft crackling sound – perfect for those cosy winter evenings by the fire. Like cotton wicks, wooden wicks must be trimmed down to 5mm before each lighting – they can be cut with sharp kitchen scissors. On the left, below, cotton wick, Wickwell NT 59. (Note the use of a heatproof coaster and the slight gap between the wax and the side of the container). This wick worked well if it was trimmed regularly to 5mm. The wooden wick, on the right, was excellent. I used Lumetique Original Woodwick 1.016, 15.875mm from 4candles. I found that using a double thickness (as recommended on the 4 candles website) worked best. The only downside being that, because of the way the wooden wick sustainers work, about a cm of wax in the bottom of the candle was unburned. The crackle and flame both made up for this though and this is my favourite candle so far. If you are going to get a present from me this Christmas, this is probably it! Note: You may be able to just stick the wick in place using a glue dot, rather than the metal sustainer, allowing more wax to be burned. Why not try it and let me know how it works?
Cost: Cotton wick 8p, Wooden wick 35p, beeswax » 100g
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…I’ve found in burning votives, by the end of the evening, the wick is quite charred and it’s hard to blow out / pinch out without dropping bits of carbon into the wax. How do you safely put the candle out and do you cut the wick afterwards? If so how do you prevent carbon dropping into the wick when the wax hasn’t fully set?
