Hop Scented Candles

So....... I thought it would be cool to give away hop smelling candles to my brewing buddies for Christmas along with their bag-o-beer. Unfortunately... my girlfriend and I were unsuccessful at our first attempt. I ordered some Cascade hop oils from HopTech. Very good smelling stuff. However, when we added it to the wax for the candles, it all sank to the bottom and had no mixing ability with the parafin. This was found out after all the candles were made and didn't smell like anything. So now I just have some green candles with hop cones in the bottom that have ZERO scent whatsoever.

Has anyone had any luck doing this? What would be a more appropriate scent additive?

No I am going to drink as much beer as it takes to reclaim my man card that I lost making candles!

My sister is sitting right next to me and is essential oil happy. Anyway she says to try and use a soy base as opposed to Paraphin as it is more natural. Also, is your oil pure or alcohol based? The more natural the oil is the better it will mix. Pure essential oils should have no alcohol added (even though some need alcohol to extract in the first place).


Can you post your procedure? How you made them? There might have been something wrong with the paraphin or with the oil.

I've always wanted hop candles. I'm sure there is a way to do it with hop oil but I have no idea how. I hope someone can shed some light on this.

Hi, tsuyako's sis here. Call me Celestyal, there are a number of ways to do this. I think what happened with you is that you added too much oil to your wax (i preffer soy cause it's more natural and i dont like how parrifin smells). The wax can only hold about 2 to 3 percent of oil or it will seperate.

Also, you must use oil based EO's (essential oils) in your candles. You could also soak the wicks in the oil (be aware they will burn more; oil+fire= you get it) but it will burn the scent into the air.

Another suggestion is to use the enflerage method in which an herb is soaked in oil. Place your hops in the oil heated oil and let cool in a dark jar for a week or two. (a few should be fine though) then melt the wax again and remove the hops (or leave them just remember they may burn a bit when the candles burned) then use a you normally would for making candles. Hope this help, just pulled out my candle making book to refresh the memory.

When you do figure out how to do this maybe you could make an instructional thread. I would love to make some!

drill a hole into the wax,put hop oil in hole,cover it up with wax..??????

Damn dude, that sounds like a lot of work. When I want the house to smell like hops, I just brew a beer.

Good luck though. The idea sounds pretty neat.

Hoptech's products are water-based. In order to add them to candles, you would have to distill them down to the pure oils.

Only thing I have to add is that I feel like I was seriously raped after ordering isohop from morebeer. I knew they were seriously over charging for isohop when I got it but I didn't know of anyone else to buy it from. I knew I could have ordered it through the group by my HB club is putting together from Northern Malt but I didn't need to spend $80 or $100 whatever it was on the amount you got. FYI Isohop is $26 at morebeer and it's like $11 at hoptech.

Did you melt the entire wax amount? You might want to try using the flaked wax, mix the oil really well with the flakes, and then only heat the top with a heat gun to lock in the wick and smell. I've done this with great success with colognes that I was almost out of and made candles with the left overs. I love the idea of making a hop candle... Thanks for adding to the to-make list

I haven't tried this yet, but the easiest method my friends (two chemical engineers) have thought up so far is to just make a tincture (alcohol + hops) to extract the oils (couple weeks should do it), then get your wax up to 200 degrees and add the tincture. The ethanol flashes off at temperatures above 170 degrees so all you'll be left with are the hop oils. I'll let you know how it works out though when we finally get around to trying it.

Bumping this for more info. Has anyone tried this recently? I'm thinking of making hop scented candles out of empty Heady Topper cans. Originally I was just going to play with different proportions of citrus and pine scented candle oils but if anyone has experience with straight hops scents id like to hear some feedback.
Thanks

That sounds amazing

Just a thought or question I guess. If dogs are allergic to hops, and the candles are full of hop oils, what happens?

http://www.petpoisonhelpline.com/poison/hops/

That says to use in oil burners but can you use the oil in a candle and if so how do you go about it? Thinking of making these for Christmas gifts thanks

any info on the oils working for candles? The way it reads it's not but if it works I'm game on making some in heady cans for presents

vnyand said:

I haven't tried this yet, but the easiest method my friends (two chemical engineers) have thought up so far is to just make a tincture (alcohol + hops) to extract the oils (couple weeks should do it), then get your wax up to 200 degrees and add the tincture. The ethanol flashes off at temperatures above 170 degrees so all you'll be left with are the hop oils. I'll let you know how it works out though when we finally get around to trying it.

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Did you ever try this? Did it work?