These are some Yahoo emails I've accumulated on incense and how to cure the acrid smoke problem. If you have any suggestions for burning pleasant fragrances unto the Lord, by all means do post them here.
My experience is rather to the contrary. The acrid scent you sometimes get at the "tail-end" of a lump of incense is always there; it's just usually blended with the sweeter scent you burn the incense for in the first place and is unnoticeable. All you accomplish by placing the incense to the side of the charcoal is to delay the onset of the acridity. Admittedly, possibly until the next time you need incense so that it remains masked, but then you've got smoke coming out all the time and it never really clears out. If the smoke is a problem, then this won't help much.
In response to some of the other posts:
A dirty censer is almost never a problem if your charcoal is hot enough, because the trouble really comes from unburned residue accumulating inside and occasionally coming into contact with the fresher charcoal. This not a problem I've ever actually had. We're in the habit of emptying out the censer before every service, and I always put the incense directly on the charcoal so there's never any unburned residue to speak of.
There's incenses and then there's incenses, and they can all be quite different. The one that's most likely to choke the choir in my experience is the "Athonite" style, which is frankincense or some other resin mixed with essential oils and cut into little rectangles. The rose scented incenses are all in this style. It tends to be quite heavy and is rather acrid toward the end. The pieces also burn off too quickly to do a great censing of the whole church, so one tends to use too much in that situation.
There's one we use that we get from a local RC church supply house that's a blend of various plant resins. I *think* it's all natural, but I have to admit I don't really know what's in it. It's very sweet, if a tad heavy, when freshly burning, but the residue is *very* acrid. I think it may be myrrh or something. I tend to put that in the censer only when we need a nice amount of smoke fairly quickly. With this one, some of the resins will tend to melt and can actually put out the charcoal if you use too much.
In my experience, nothing is more pleasant than fresh, pure Arabian frankincense of the hightest quality. (Hojari) I order it direct from Oman here: http://www.soukofoman.com [Edit by chanter: a muslin site
]Apparently there's a bit of a shortage at the moment; prices have been better than this in the past. When fresh, it smells almost like pine or fir when first burning even before you see the smoke. When it gets a bit older, the initial scent will turn more towards citrus. The smoke is never very heavy, never very acrid, and since the resin comes in chunks of various sizes you can use whatever size is appropriate for your immediate needs.
Most charcoal has no scent to speak of. If it's burning properly it should produce no visible smoke on its own. (Think of a backyard barbecue. It makes smoke when you first light it, but there's none left by the time the coals are ready to cook on. You get smoke when you're cooking, but that's from burning fat dripping off the meat.) It'll put off some carbon monoxide, which is odorless and not harmful in small quantities in a well-ventilated area. Self-lighting charcoal always smells unpleasant when you first light it, but that smell doesn't usually linger. Sometimes if the charcoal has not been lit well enough ahead of time some of the saltpeter will still be burning off as the first censing of the service progresses. This will also produce an unpleasant scent, as well as visible sparks. The worst of the lot I've found was some that came from Greece, which makes a *lot* of very unpleasant smoke when you first light it, and the smell doesn't go away quickly either. I don't know if all Greek self-lighting charcoal is like that, but I tend to avoid it now.
-- Theodore C
My experience is rather to the contrary. The acrid scent you sometimes get at the "tail-end" of a lump of incense is always there; it's just usually blended with the sweeter scent you burn the incense for in the first place and is unnoticeable. All you accomplish by placing the incense to the side of the charcoal is to delay the onset of the acridity. Admittedly, possibly until the next time you need incense so that it remains masked, but then you've got smoke coming out all the time and it never really clears out. If the smoke is a problem, then this won't help much.
In response to some of the other posts:
A dirty censer is almost never a problem if your charcoal is hot enough, because the trouble really comes from unburned residue accumulating inside and occasionally coming into contact with the fresher charcoal. This not a problem I've ever actually had. We're in the habit of emptying out the censer before every service, and I always put the incense directly on the charcoal so there's never any unburned residue to speak of.
There's incenses and then there's incenses, and they can all be quite different. The one that's most likely to choke the choir in my experience is the "Athonite" style, which is frankincense or some other resin mixed with essential oils and cut into little rectangles. The rose scented incenses are all in this style. It tends to be quite heavy and is rather acrid toward the end. The pieces also burn off too quickly to do a great censing of the whole church, so one tends to use too much in that situation.
There's one we use that we get from a local RC church supply house that's a blend of various plant resins. I *think* it's all natural, but I have to admit I don't really know what's in it. It's very sweet, if a tad heavy, when freshly burning, but the residue is *very* acrid. I think it may be myrrh or something. I tend to put that in the censer only when we need a nice amount of smoke fairly quickly. With this one, some of the resins will tend to melt and can actually put out the charcoal if you use too much.
In my experience, nothing is more pleasant than fresh, pure Arabian frankincense of the hightest quality. (Hojari) I order it direct from Oman here: http://www.soukofoman.com [Edit by chanter: a muslin site
]Apparently there's a bit of a shortage at the moment; prices have been better than this in the past. When fresh, it smells almost like pine or fir when first burning even before you see the smoke. When it gets a bit older, the initial scent will turn more towards citrus. The smoke is never very heavy, never very acrid, and since the resin comes in chunks of various sizes you can use whatever size is appropriate for your immediate needs.Most charcoal has no scent to speak of. If it's burning properly it should produce no visible smoke on its own. (Think of a backyard barbecue. It makes smoke when you first light it, but there's none left by the time the coals are ready to cook on. You get smoke when you're cooking, but that's from burning fat dripping off the meat.) It'll put off some carbon monoxide, which is odorless and not harmful in small quantities in a well-ventilated area. Self-lighting charcoal always smells unpleasant when you first light it, but that smell doesn't usually linger. Sometimes if the charcoal has not been lit well enough ahead of time some of the saltpeter will still be burning off as the first censing of the service progresses. This will also produce an unpleasant scent, as well as visible sparks. The worst of the lot I've found was some that came from Greece, which makes a *lot* of very unpleasant smoke when you first light it, and the smell doesn't go away quickly either. I don't know if all Greek self-lighting charcoal is like that, but I tend to avoid it now.
-- Theodore C
