A frugal Crisco emergency candle.

[Kaleva]

My wife goes to sleep several hours before I do and with Biden in office I find that I'm spending much less time here to read what cluster fuckery Trump is up to so I watch YouTube videos.

Last night I was watching several on clay pot heaters that use candles and that brought me to watching homemade emergency candles made out of Crisco.

I got a half pint mason jar form the basement , found a birthday candle and got the Crisco out from the pantry. I filled the mason jar with liquefied Crisco up to about 2 1/2 inches which I figured would be just below the height of the candle and put the jar in the freezer. After about 15-20 minutes, I took the jar out and stuck the candle in the center. The level of the Crisco was a little short so I liquified some more in the coffee cup in the microwave and added that to the jar and returned it to the freezer for another ten minutes or so.

I burned the candle last night for an hour before blowing it out and going to bed and lit it again this morning. Burn time is 2 1/2 hours total so far and it's a clean burning candle and there is no tunneling. I'll keep it lit all day and the next and the next if possible to find out the total burn time.

My next project will be using this type of candle to make a clay pot heater.

I'll post updates to this OP to let know how long the candle lasted.

[samnsara]

1. youve hit upon something! maybe mix a bit of bacon grease with the Crisco Candle..yum!

[SnowCritter]

6. Oh heavens, no!

That would be sheer torture. All that bacon aroma with no bacon at the end of it!?

I. Just. Couldn't.

[bucolic_frolic]

16. I can't divert that much bacon grease from putting it on

my car's exhaust system. Exhausts as black an an oven don't rust.

[NurseJackie]

2. Would it work with Crisco shortening?

Does the wick get a feathery (or leaf-shaped) bit of soot at the tip of the wick? I've seen that with other decorative candles that use floating wicks...( ie: a layer of vegetable oil on top of water + a floating wick cup) they're very pretty and functional except for the soot.

I guess it depends on the wick and the type of oil used too.

Post photos if you can. Sounds like a fun project.

[Mazeltov Cocktail]

3. Youtube rabbit holes are so much fun...

So much better than the endless cycle of trump madness...

[Arkansas Granny]

4. I wonder if you could add some essential oil to the Crisco to make a scented candle.

If I had some birthday candles I'd try this today.

[Kaleva]

25. My wife want's me to add some essential oil to the next one I make to try it.

[quaint]

5. Crayons work, too.

No shortening in my pantry.

[black-bear]

7. Poison

A good use for a poison. Burn it, and not using it for food

[mopinko]

8. i just watched 'the help'

there's a scene where the maid is teaching the poor white lady how to cook. they're making fried chicken. and the maid is extolling the virtues and uses of crisco. squeaky hinges, beat up leather.

there used to be a show on my local npr station that had a doc on regularly, a dermo. he said crisco was the best skin cream out there.

have to assume in a pinch butter would work the same. i dont use crisco, even for my shoes.

[Native]

11. My OB/GYN said it's a great lube too.

[Ferrets are Cool]

15. ...

[Native]

19. He said he and his wife use it all the time. Lol.

So if you see a can of Crisco on someone's nightstand....

[Ferrets are Cool]

20. I honestly don't get it...

not when there are so many great water soluble products available. To each his own though.

[mopinko]

17. yeah, i usually use olive oil, but

i bet it does work better.
i have a nice bottle that i bought full of dried lavender, and filled w olive oil. put a thin fabric over the opening. rub it over my skin. great skin treatment.

[FailureToCommunicate]

9. Interesting. But every time I hear about burning (unattended) candles, I want to check my

insurance (fire, replacement cost) policy.

Just be careful out there.

But I TOTALLY agree about spending time, and learning new things, on YouTube now that Trump insanity has lessened a bit.

[mopinko]

18. my nephew fell asleep and left one of those big pillar candles burning once.

it was sitting on a plate on top of the teevee. he was drunk.
woke up to the smoke alarm. killed the teevee and smoked up the house.

the upside was that ins paid for service master to come clean. my sister said her house had never been that clean.

[niyad]

10. A friend told me about the crisco candles a while back, but never tried one. Yes, please keep

us posted on it.

[SmartVoter22]

12. Is this after global collapse or Wed afternoon?

A Crisco candle, for light? heating? cooking?
Not sure what you are implying needs to happen to even want to make one of these things.

[blaze]

14. Power outage?

[Kaleva]

23. Power outages are somewhat common where I live.

I use Crisco for cooking, we have birthdays here (before COVID19) for the 11 grandkids , and we have a number of pint and half pint mason jars as we can.

Rather then have a bunch of dedicated candles sitting around waiting for the next emergency, I can use materials we have on hand to make several or many if needed should a situation arise.

In the near future, I plan on putting in a vent free LP gas space heater for in case power goes out but even with that, I'll have rooms quite cold in this large, two story home so I'm going to try the clay pot heater to see if it'd work in keeping the bathrooms, the office and bedrooms at least tolerable.

[2naSalit]

13. I like that idea.

I used clay pot heaters in a high elevation greenhouse one year. They work well if you have a large enough flame inside. Tealights don't put off enough heat to do much. The candles you describe sound like they would be one of the best type candles for heat generation. The clay pots heaters are interesting and you may come up with innovations that work best for your set up.

Have fun!

[Kaleva]

24. Yes, after watching many vids, I felt that tealights wouldn't work well with clay pots

As they don't put out much heat and they don't last all that long so one would have to change them frequently.

[LymphocyteLover]

21. my wife uses regular cooking oil for her prayer lamp

so yeah

[ChazInAz]

22. I've used Crisco for years.

One of my gunsmithing tools is an antique, Crisco-fueled Betty Lamp.When inletting metal parts into gunstocks, I use it to soot up the metal to mark high spots on the wood.
It seems appropriate, since these are flintlock and wheel locks!

[Kaleva]

26. 11 hours of total burn time and still going strong.

The level of Crisco in the half pint jar has dropped to 2 inches and the entire top 3/4" of Crisco is liquified and clear.

[Blue Owl]

27. K&R

[Kaleva]

28. 19 hour total burn time.

As the Crisco burned down to about an inch, all of it liquefied from the heat and the birthday candle fell over and extinguished itself.

Since we have only 1 birthday candle left in the house, I'm going to pick up a couple of packages of the longer 3 1/2" candles (I used a 2 1/2" candle) which would easily fit in the half pint jar. I'm expecting to get close to 30 hours of burn time by using a longer candle and having more Crisco in the jar. I'm also going to carefully measure the amount of vegetable shorting so I have an idea of about how many candles I could make with a 1 pound container.

I'll also be putting together a clay pot heater so I can test that out when determining the burn time of the next candle I make.

Overall, I think this is a pretty good emergency candle as the components are items one uses such as the Crisco, birthday candles and half pint mason jars so one isn't buying something that would only be used in an actual emergency. I would only make these as needed and I could make them quickly.