Carnauba Wax: Making Blocks

Today I made a 400g block of pure carnauba wax. My wife lost a cake tin, I gained experience with this new beast!

First, I measured 400g into a cake tin and placed it in an oven preheated to 180 degrees Celsius. As soon as it formed a pool (i.e. some wax melted but not all) I reduced the oven to 100 degrees. After half an hour the remaining wax still hadn't melted, I think the oven just wasn't hot enough. It's an old analogue oven, the thermostat may not have been reading accurately.

I bumped the temperature up to 130 degrees and everything melted inside 10 minutes  I didn't want to overheat the wax as I wasn't certain if it would change it's chemical properties. Once everything had turned liquid I removed the pan from the oven and let the wax cool down to room temperature. Once again, I'll experiment with this as I'm not sure if slow or quick cooling is desirable. In one of the photo's you can see that the area above a hotplate (not on, just where I put the pan) that the tin was sitting on cooled faster. In the finished block this area is slightly lighter in color, closer to the original flake color  Next time I'll put the pan in the fridge straight from the oven and see what happens!

Whilst in flake form, during cooking and once cooled the wax had quite a nice odor. My eyes did become slightly irritated though when I was crouched in front of the oven looking through the door. Air from inside the oven was being blown out the front and into my face. Still, I don't think it is terribly nasty in any way...although you never know.

when all was said and done I was happy with the result. I had originally intended to use a muffin try to make little pucks, but each puck would only have been around 30g (I measured it). I decided that it would be easier just to make one big block and then to cut chunks off of that as required.

Enjoy the pics :)

No sissy blocks around here mate...let's rock.

Hmmm...time to up the temperature, oven must have cooled too much...

Melt already, dammit...

Fuzzy yes, but you can see how the area in the bottom of the tin cooled quicker where it was touching the cold  hot-plate underneath.

Liquid gold, I was tempted to dunk a pipe in there...next time perhaps...

If you rotate this 90 degrees clockwise I swear you can see a man smoking a pipe...Jesus in a muffin eat your heart out!

Smooth...and you can see the area that cooled quicker...hmmm...

Hmmm..lost a gram somewhere, with the tin on there as well it wavered between 1 and 2 grams under...