How do I melt my Wax Safely? Starting the Microwave on Fire is Never a Good Idea!
Posted by Lyschel Bersch on
How Do I Melt my Wax Safely? Starting the Microwave on Fire is Never a Good Idea!
In order to make candles we need to melt wax. And it is better to do so safely. Lately I have been seeing a lot of candle making websites say to "Just microwave your wax" And while that may seem like the easiest way to heat up wax it can be very dangerous. Microwaves can cause hot spots. I am sure that you have noticed that when you take a bite out of most any food that you have heated up. One end can be frozen and one part can be volcanic! Unlike most foods, wax can combust at a little over 300F. In fact, wax can super heat and vaporize and then ignite in the interior of your microwave and cause a fire. I have actually done this....um....twice. The first time I thought it was because I was using a very very old microwave. I had just read about using a microwave to melt wax and thought I would try it out. I put a chunk of paraffin in the microwave and let it go for about 30 seconds. I walked out of the room to get a drink of water, heard a loud pop, rushed back in the room and gazed at the flames seeping out of the microwave. The fire was very easy to put out but needless to say that was the last of that microwave. It was old. Probably 15 years at that point. It was also the end of the experiment at that point.
(Not my picture-borrowed from consumer testing)
It wasn't until a few years later and soy wax had just been introduced that I decided to try it again. My microwave was a lot newer. I had also seen more websites talking about "microwavable" soy wax. So, I thought "what could be so different about microwavable soy and regular soy. I put about a pound of soy wax in the microwave, melted for 30 sec, stirred, melted 30 sec, stirred, melted 1 minute, stirred tested with thermometer. Did that a few more times. Temperature wasn't rising very quickly. Let it go for about 2 minutes. Opened the door and POP, the top of the microwave had little flames coming out of it. Not much. But it was enough for me to not trust using a microwave to melt wax ever again. And again, that was the end of that microwave. Sigh.I strongly suggest using either a double boiler system or a Presto Kitchen Kettle or Options pot (NOT Fry Daddy). You can use an actual double boiler or create one using two pots and the ring pictured below. (See blog post on how to make a double boiler). Or if candle making is something that you are going to spend a good amount of time with I would strongly suggest the Kitchen Kettle or Options pot. You can put your wax directly in the pot and use the temperature gauge to adjust the heating element. You will still need to double check with a thermometer because the numbers on the dial do not always correspond exactly to the actual heat generated. Once we find the correct setting on our Presto Pots we don't touch the dial again. We just disconnect the magnetic dial from the pot or turn off the electric strip when we are done working.
Order double boiler maker.
Presto Pots are fairy inexpensive at this point and you can pick them up just about anywhere. I have seen them range between $25 - $60. $30 being much more common. The Presto Kitchen Kettle now holds about 7 pounds of melted wax and the Presto Options pot holds about 8 pound of melted wax. One more little tid-bit of information that you may enjoy. We used to have a great big wax melter at our store. Thought it would make life easier. Fill it up with 50 pounds of wax and go! It was terrible! It took all day for the wax to melt. So, by the time we were ready to go home our wax was finally melted! We tried to just let it go over night but I was always nervous about that and it would "cook" our soy wax. We tried a timer but that also made me nervous. I didn't like having my wax unattended. So we sold the melter and went back to using 4-5 Presto Pots at a time. The wax heats up quickly and we can still make hundreds of candles very easily.
Oh, and don't use a blow torch. But that is a story for a different day ;)
Have fun on your candle making adventures!!
Lyschel