How To Make Beeswax Dinner Candles

Why Make Beeswax Candles?

Before humans found reliable ways to extract petroleum from the earth, we used beeswax. It was a pre-cursor to modern plastics, a way to waterproof fabrics, a polish for wood and leather, and a medium for making candles.

But not just any candles.

To this day, beeswax candles are prized above all other forms of lighting (whether by fire or electricity) for their unique attributes.

First, their flame burns longer, brighter, and cleaner than all other candle waxes. The high melting point of beeswax also means that tall tapered dinner candles hold their shape well, and won’t bend or melt on a hot summer day.

In fact, a well-built beeswax candle doesn’t even drip, making for a safer, mess-free experience compared to the softer waxes found in other candles.

One 12” tapered beeswax candle can produce up to 12 hours of the soft, warm glow that lightbulb engineers still can’t quite replicate without any of the soot, VOCs, or messy wax drippings of lesser candles. As a bonus, it even has a mild, natural honey scent to remind you it’s the real deal.

No wonder the Orthodox Christian Church frowns upon using any candles that aren’t made of beeswax.

Can I Make Beeswax Candles?

You’d think making such a remarkable candle would demand equally remarkable skill, but anyone can learn to dip their own beeswax candles with a little patience and a steady hand.

Beeswax dinner candles make for great weekend projects, and a unique gift to bring along when visiting friends or family for dinner. And because they don’t spoil over time, you can keep them for as long as you like.

Whether you plan to make a handful or hundreds of candles, you can follow the same simple guide below.

What Equipment Do I Need?

To start making beeswax dinner candles at home, we recommend the following supplies:

• Filtered beeswax
• Square braid cotton wick (1/0)
• Stainless steel hex nuts
• Wide stainless steel pot
• Tall stainless steel pot
• Metal stand for tall pot
• Thermometer
• Drying Rack

Filtered Beeswax

When beeswax is first separated from honey, it contains organic residue, dead bees, and various other impurities that should be filtered out.

You can filter it yourself with a cheesecloth strainer, but most beeswax blocks sold commercially are already filtered (often twice) for making candles right away.

Square Braid Cotton Wick

The cotton wick your beeswax will surround is crucial to a well-functioning candle. A wick that is too large can lead to dripping, a wick that is too thin can hollow out your candles, and different braiding patterns or wick materials will modify the way your candle burns.

Square braid cotton wick is designed to be self-trimming, as the tip curls and burns off as the candle melts. Square braid wick is sold in different thicknesses for candles of different diameters, but for tapered dinner candles we recommend using the '1/0' size.

Stainless Steel Hex Nuts

When first dipping a cotton wick into a tub of melted wax, you will have to overcome the viscosity of the wax to make sure your wick stays taut.

Since a straight wick is the first step to a straight candle, we suggest tying stainless steel hex nuts as weights at the ends of each wick. They will be cut off the candle once it is thick enough to remain straight, but the first few dips are crucial to developing a strong scaffold for the rest of the wax to adhere to.

There are many other metal rods, racks, and solutions to keep your wick taut when dipping candles, but we suggest hex nuts because they are simple and inexpensive.

A Wide Pot

Beeswax melts at 145 degrees and begins to denature above 170 degrees. Therefore, it requires careful attention so that it is only melted in this narrow temperature band.

Stove elements are not always this precise, so to ensure an even, indirect heat across for our entire tub of wax, we suggest using a double boiler. Large beeswax candle operations use custom double boilers, but you can achieve the same effect using two pots from your kitchen.

The idea is to use a wide outer pot filled with water, and a thinner, taller pot sitting on a metal stand inside it. A large stock pot is perfect for your outer pot.

A Tall Pot

The tall inner pot does not need to be particularly wide, but it does need to be slightly taller than the dinner candles you want to make. You can subtract 4" from the height of your tall pot to determine a safe target height for your dinner candles.

If you are unable to find a cooking pot tall enough for your liking, other metal containers like large olive oil cans will work fine.

A Metal Stand

The key reason this double boiler method works so well to evenly heat beeswax is because the inner pot is elevated off the surface of the outer pot (which is directly touching the stove burner). To make sure the bottom of the pot is elevated, a metal stand is ideal.

If you don't have a metal stand that you can rest your inner pot on, you can use other metal or stone buffers as long as they can handle some heat and can keep your inner pot level.

Thermometer

To make sure your beeswax doesn't get too hot, keep a thermometer fixed to the edge of your pot. You can use a handheld thermometer too, but it is far more convenient to clip a thermometer to the edge of your pot.

Drying Rack

Once your candles have been dipped, they need to cool down for the wax to harden. The candles in each pair should not touch each other during the dipping phase, so use a drying rack that allows each candle to hang freely with a few inches of surrounding space. Wire clothes drying racks typically work well, but suspending a plank of scrap wood (1"x3") also works in a pinch.

How Much Do I Need?

A pair of beeswax dinner candles contains roughly 1/4lb of beeswax and a 2' cotton wick. However, these figures are misleading.

You will be dipping candles into a tub of beeswax, so you need a substantial "base" of wax to start. The precise amount depends on the dimensions of your inner pot, but to be safe, start with at least 10 lbs of wax if you are making a dozen candles. Beeswax doesn't expire, so you can save the leftover base of wax for your second batch of candles.

Since each candle is dipped in pairs, a single string of cotton wick will be shared between two candles. But rather than simply doubling the length of your candles, you will also need enough string to tie on two hex nuts and enough room to hold the candles as you dip them.

As a rule of thumb, add at least 12" to the total length of your candles for a suitable wick length. That means to make a pair of 10" dinner candles, you will need a 32" wick.

Steps

1 - Prepare Your Work Station

• Spread a layer of newspaper on the ground, beeswax is messy
• Break your beeswax into small chunks that fit inside your inner pot
• Cut your cotton wicks down to the correct size
• Tie hex nuts to both ends of your cotton wicks
• Set up a drying rack for your beeswax candles

2 - Set Up Your Double Boiler

1. Put the outer pot on your largest stove element
2. Put a metal stand inside
3. Put the inner pot on the metal stand
4. Fill the cavity between your two pots with water (2" below top)
5. Fill the inner pot with beeswax (2" below top)
6. Set your stove element to low

3 - Be Patient

• Make sure your water stays between 150 and 170 degrees
• Wait for your beeswax to completely melt
• While waiting, get more small wax chunks ready to quickly top-up your main wax tub as needed

4 - First Wick Dip

• Pick up your first wick from the middle of the string
• Keep the hex nuts at equal heights with a small gap between them
• Dip the wick into your inner pot until you reach your desired height
• Remove the wicks and set them on the drying rack
• Repeat with all remaining wicks in your batch

5 - Repeat Until Satisfied

• Give each wick 1-2 minutes for the wax to harden, then dip them again
• Cut off the hex nuts from the ends of each wick after 5 dips
• Continue to dip the candles until they are 20mm wide at the base (7/8")
• If you don't have a measuring tape, test size with a dinner candle holder
• Trim the drip marks from the bottom of the candle as desired

6 - Cool Down

• Leave your candles to cool down for an hour after your final dip
• Once cooled, use them or store them. They will last indefinitely.