Drying and storage
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The drying process When your incense is still wet there are all
kinds of processes that happen before you have a stick that is ready for use.
To have patience is one factor, another one is that drying takes places from
the outside to the inside. After only a few hours an incense stick will look
dry, but the inside will be still wet. When you leave a Tibetan stick in open
air like that it will twist. A bamboo stick will twist less easily because it
already has a 'skeleton' Temperature :
The higher the temperature, the quicker the drying. You can see drying as the
evaporation and binding of water, which happens faster as temperature rises.
But when temperature is getting too high, you can get cracks because of a
minute shrinking, your sticks may break while drying. When you have used oils
you run the risk of evaportion of precious high notes. On the other hand, a
too low temperature slows the drying down and can even stagnate it, so that
your incense is still wet after three weeks! The bes temperature is between
20º and 30º Centigrade. An oven or a microwave is probably not a good idea
too speed things up, but there are situations that you insist on trying these
options. In such a case, keep to the strategy of drying little by little, in
very short time intervalls, never overrun your stuff with high temperatures.
When drying herbs in a microwave for example there is the phenomenon that
nothing happens after 3 trials of 20 seconds microwave but when you try it in
the next go for 40 sec all your stuff is burnt and spoiled. Air :
When you let your incense dry in a drafty environment the stick will
irregularly dry and become skewed.
However the sticks will be usable, but a straight stick is most of the time
more preferable. The best is to let your sticks dry in a space with slow
streaming air, inside a cupboard for example. Storage :
Store your sticks in glass jars or sealed plastic boxes. Storing sticks while
they are still wet may cause growth of mucus, especially when there are green
plants in the incense. Take care to keep your dry incense out of direct
sunlight. A temperature between 10º and 25º is best. It is also nice to invent a package for your
incense sticks : Think for example of empty cd boxes for storing short bamboo
incense sticks, glueing together matchboxes, printing a nice motif and logo
and staple it into a rectangular wrapper. Take care that a Tibetan stick is
by nature a lot more brittle then a bamboo stick so that when you send those
by post special precautions are necessary : the best option is to wrap them
tightly in a paper cylinder. |