Cooking With Three Candle Flames

The soup took about 15 minutes to be hot enough to be warmed up soup since there was a slight bit of steam.

After 30 minutes there was a slight bubbling / sizzle sound and there was a lot of steam. The soup was officially hot and ready to eat.

There was some actual bubbling after 40 minutes. The soup was at “blow on it” hot.

More bubbles at 45 minutes. The soup was at “better let it cool before you eat it”.

Step 2: Soup’s Ready

This will work well for canned foods like soup, spaghetti, ravioli, chili con carne, vegetables and other things like hot coffee, tea and cocoa.

This will probably not work for foods that need to be fried. For that you will need a small propane stove. If you have a propane stove, cooking with a candle will make your propane last longer because you can save it for foods that really need it.

When you need to bring water to a rapid boil (making water safe to drink), my past testing indicates that you can save about 40 percent of the propane you would normally use by using candles to pre-heat the water first. I need to find two spare stove things so I can put one in each car along with a candle (“bug out “stuff).

Another good thing about cooking with candles is that they are safe to use indoors.

Here are a few other thing you can do with this setup: If your emergency situation includes a severe snow storm you can melt snow for drinking water or better yet, coffee. You can also heat up water to put in hot water bottles. It would be nice to be able to wash your hands with warm water.

Step 3: Boiling Water

You can use this setup to boil water. It took a little less than an hour to start boiling. Your results may vary depending on:

• Ambient temperature and the temperature of the water.
• The size of the flames and how close the flames are to the pan.
• The size of the pan.
• The amount of water.

I boiled 16 ounces of water four times.

Step 4: New Wicks

At some point in time you may need to add or replace a wick. I was able to easily do this with left over birthday candles. I crunched up the candle and added the wax to the 3 wick candle to keep the level of wax up. I pushed a small nail into a new candle to demonstrate how to add a wick. Next I pulled out the nail with pliers and threaded the new wick in the hole and lit the new wick.

The need to add wax to keep the flames close to the bottom of the pan is the one draw back to this setup. You can still heat up soup even if the flames are not right under the pan, just expect longer cooking times. Adding wax from another candle and replacing wicks will keep you cooking as long as you need to.

Step 5: Run Time

I burned this candle for another hour and determined that it burned 0.0225 pounds of wax (about 10 grams).  Based on the weight of the candle there should be more than enough wax to boil 16 ounces of water 127 times.  The only problem with this candle is that the wax near the sides does not burn. This wax needs to be removed with a knife or razor blade and added to the liquid wax when the candle is burning or saved to be melted and made in to another candle.

The last picture is emergency cooking at the office.

As always use caution with fire.  I would suggest not leaving open flames unattended.

by luxstar