Ideas for incense at home

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I’ve seen a bunch of threads for home burning of incense, and I know how you do it at mass, but what if I don’t want to burn an entire charcoal puck? I think those burn for over an hour. What I am looking to do is just burn this when I do Lauds and Vespers, so maybe 15 - 20 minutes tops I would have this burning. Is there a better way to do this? Can I break the puck into four pieces and then just light one piece and place the incense on top of that or would I have issues getting it to burn?

Do they make incense sticks or cones that actually smell like the church incense? I’m thinking these are more pressed wood pulp than resin, so I feel they would not have the same smell.

Any help would be appreciated.

John
 
I’ve done the same thing with my charcoal lighters, and they light just the same. (it also stretches out the supply of the charcoal – what? So I’m cheap… :p)

You’re right about the sticks, most of them have a bamboo core that can affect the smell. At Renaissance Faire one year I got some incense sticks which were pretty much just pure essence oils and a bit of binder and they smell fine. I wish I could remember off the top of my head the name of the company…
 
It’s nice to leave incense burning for a long time, I really like jasmine incense.

Another option that I do at home is burning sage. I open the windows in case it gets too smokey. The only downside is that you shouldn’t leave it burning unattended.
 
KD8TZC said:
Does this smell like real church incense though or just a bad knock off?
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I have no idea. It’s cheap enough to find out. You can buy small amounts of church incense from religious online stores. You know also, that you can simply break large briquettes into manageable pieces.
 
pianistclare said:
You know also, that you can simply break large briquettes into manageable pieces.
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That’s what Pat above says too. That might be the route that I go. It also looks like they sell different size charcoal pucks. The ones I remember from church were about the size of a hockey puck, but it looks like they come in smaller sizes too. I saw the one below where someone says it is about 1 1/2" in diameter which sounds perfect.

amazon.com/Lighting-Lasting-Incense-Charcoal-Briquette/dp/B00A7F50NA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428758517&sr=8-1&keywords=incense+charcoal
 
pianistclare said:
I have no idea. It’s cheap enough to find out. You can buy small amounts of church incense from religious online stores. You know also, that you can simply break large briquettes into manageable pieces.
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Thanks for posting that, I just ordered a pack. The one reviewer on Amazon said it does smell like church incense. I LOVE the smell of church incense, i wish they used it every Sunday.
 
Whenever you burn charcoal be sure to have good ventilation. It creates vast amounts of Carbon monoxide, which is very deadly.

Re incense, one finds that the cheaper the incense the more smoke and the less smell. 😉
 
KD8TZC said:
That’s what Pat above says too. That might be the route that I go. It also looks like they sell different size charcoal pucks. The ones I remember from church were about the size of a hockey puck, but it looks like they come in smaller sizes too. I saw the one below where someone says it is about 1 1/2" in diameter which sounds perfect.

amazon.com/Lighting-Lasting-Incense-Charcoal-Briquette/dp/B00A7F50NA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428758517&sr=8-1&keywords=incense+charcoal
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Our parish uses those small disks.
We use incense when prescribed, but it seems like it’s used about 10 minutes anyway.
Our Deacon-in-training accidentally left the sensor on the counter in the working sacristy, and burned a hole in the countertop. He didn’t realize how hot it gets. 😊 Poor guy.
 
I like insence sticks and have a holder for it. I also have a cone-insence holder that looks like a hogan with a hole in the top to let the smoke out.

However, I don’t use it for prayer and meditation, I use them in the bathroom because they kill the stink better than air sprays. Also, they can’t be huffed by curious teenagers.

I like dragons blood, nag champa and frankincense.
 
I have some Prinknash Abbey incense at home, that is sold in our abbey shop. I’ve tried it a few times but generally don’t use it. I love the smell, but my prayer oratory is small and not so well ventilated. As I like to chant the Divine Office, my voice tends to seize up with the strong smell. It works to burn it at some other time then come pray to that lingering incense smell one often gets after Mass in church. However my wife doesn’t particularly care for it. The abbess has ruled…
 
Well, I picked up a small censer, some frankincense, the small charcoal pucks (1 1/2" in diameter) but even the small pucks seem to burn for almost an hour (and produce a lot of smoke). The straight frankincense too was just too strong for me (and it didn’t smell like the incense I remember from church). I’m going to go to the local church supply store and see if I can get a few small samples to try that are mixed with myrrh as well to see if that is more like it. It’s amazing how much some a small amount of the resin incense makes.

I really wish though I could find a nice heavy duty censer (that doesn’t cost a fortune). I remember my mom having one that must have been cast brass. It was really heavy, and I know she would not have paid a lot for it. I’m sure I can find one, I just have to keep looking.

PAX

John
 
robertericleech said:
Update: I tried this yesterday, and it doesn’t smell anything like church incense…search continues.
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Then you’ll have to just buy church incense. Just break it up into segments from the pucks. You can buy it from Autom.
 
If you are looking for an incense burner that you can use for small intervals, you may want to look into using incense with a wax melter. I know that the candle heat source, while a lot hotter, is also a lot smaller, so you may have to play with the distances or size of candle providing heat to get the incense to burn.

As to the frankincense, most churches do not actually use pure frankincense. They either use a small amount and mix it in with other incenses (as it is very expensive in pure form) or use an entirely different resin based incense outright. Some even use plant based incenses, although these tend not to last as long and have a different temperature at which they give off aromatic smoke.
 
I used to use incense that I obtained from a Russian Orthodox monastery near Boston. They had a variety of lovely scents. You could burn the incense by putting them on a lightbulb, which not only released the fragrance, but also avoided the tarry smell you get when you use charcoal.

There are a number of websites, but this is the one from which I ordered mine. It has a great selection and reasonable prices for small quantities (which is all you need):

bostonmonks.com/index.php/cPath/38
 
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