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February 20, 2005
Candles
A long time ago, after getting my first block of yummy cheddar cheese dipped in wax, I decided I would try to save the wax in order to make it into candles. Hey, worth a shot, I thought... I've been collecting wax now for about a pound and a half worth of cheese, and today I decided to actually follow through with my plan before it started getting nasty :)
It was a simple matter to put the wax in a plastic dish and float it on top of some boiling water. It melted pretty quickly while I searched frantically for something to use as a mold. I found some parchment paper and tried to tape it into the shape of a cone, but the paper's advertised "non-stick" qualities also applied to tape. I quickly came up with an alternate plan, to fold the paper into the shape of a box and somehow fasten it together with the tape which stuck somewhat. I poured that candle, using a wick of some cotton thread I scavenged from school. I still had a lot of wax left, though, and decided to try dipping.
Dipping candles is a lot of fun but usually makes a lot of mess and takes a lot of time, neither of which I was particularly enthusiastic about. I started dipping but realized that the wax actually had to cool in between successive dips; I then rushed over and grabbed Matthew's fan which was in the living room to cool the candle down. With lukewarm wax, though, dipping goes really quickly, and I was very careful not to spill a drop. I dipped two candles that way before I decided there was just not enough wax left to dip any more.
I still had enough wax to make one last small candle, though, and searched frantically again before I found the right mold... a round piece of plastic covering a pack of toothpicks. It worked well but leaked all over the countertop - a piece of parchment paper underneath solved that problem. I cleaned up right away, threw out the plastic container now covered with wax and little bits of cheese, and managed to discover how to make wax marbling on paper towels...
It took a little while for the candles to cool, and besides I didn't want to waste my afternoon's efforts all at once. Tonight, though, I finally decided to unmold everything and try it out. The first thing I noticed is that the wax is a lot softer than normal candle wax... of course, because cheese wax is softer than candle wax. The second thing is that it doesn't seem to burn quite as vigorously as normal candle wax. I tried burning the smallest, round candle and while I might have cut the wick too short, it just doesn't seem to want to keep going. Bummer.
Maybe this whole cheese-candle-wax thing won't work out after all. Oh well, it was fun anyway. Maybe next time I'll use real candle wax and real wicks. Won't that be fun?
Update: Making the wick longer doesn't help. It still burns out pretty quick. Do you think they add stuff to this wax to keep it from burning? Nuts.
Posted by kgutwin at February 20, 2005 08:54 PM
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Comments
Yo, you don't have time to work on your sister's blog, but you have plenty of time to conduct an obviously futile attempt at making candles out of cheese wax? I can see where your priorities lie... :-)
Posted by: Rebecca at February 21, 2005 09:10 AM
the problem may be the lack of a better wick. I think the thread is burning before the wax has a chance to join in. I do think the project was interesting and certainly a change from sufing the net :)
Posted by: mom at February 21, 2005 10:36 PM