In the last few articles you must have read about a few varieties of incense burners, we further elaborate on the topic here and help you solve your confusions regarding which should be the best one to serve our purpose of incense burning.
Combination Type Burners
A large variety of incense burners are so designed that it can contain and burns more than single incense stick if required. They are prepared out of a large variety of metals as well as clay and china. The design can also vary from cone shaped burners that are perforated at places to hold the sticks or certain shapely flat disc shaped holders that have perforations at the bottom to hold the incense sticks while the tray shaped structure helps to retain the ashes within the container itself. If there is a big room that you want to purify and cleanse with the help of incense sticks, these multiple incense holders can come in very handy and serve the purpose without much of a hassle. Some are designed to carry both the bamboo shaped sticks, the spaghetti sticks and the cylindrical incense. Of all these multiple incense holders, the bowl shaped burners are the most popular and versatile.
Cone Shaped Burners
Cone shaped incense burners are so designed that they burn the incense stick completely and mostly prepared out of non combustible substances like metals. They are not prepared with wood lest it should come in contact with flame and result in accidents. In case the burner is made in wood, it would have a metal case inserted within acting as the incense holder so that the purpose of preventing accidental fire is served. Cone shaped burners work well when they are inserted within a large bowl shaped structure such that the ashes do not litter on the floor or the table. The desirable width should be around 2 to 3 inches so that one can easily place a burning cone within the burner without burning ones hand. The depth should also be significant as sand or ash needs to be set within in while the cone is well placed within the burner stand and gets easily surrounded by sand. Doing so should provide ample air transmission to the burner while it allows complete combustion of the incense stick without getting heated too much.
In case you desire to put a lid to the preparation, the size of the burner needs to be increased to allow ventilation and circulation of air even when it is covered. The lid will need to be cleansed regularly as deposits of oils and resins would become a regular feature. With prolonged usage of the lid on incense burner, the deposits will get seasoned with the burner and their smell will get emanated every time the burner is put to use. Such smell might not exactly be bad and add to the pleasant atmosphere.
Spiral Hanging Incense Burners
In case of space crunch one would prefer to hang the incense burner conveniently rather than placing it somewhere where the full benefit of the incense stick is not derived. In such cases, the role of hanging spiral incense burner comes into play. These burners have the unique mean of remaining suspended within the air with the help of a spiral that bears its weight against gravity and keeps it floating in the air bearing its own weight. These burners are not easily available and often sold not in places where you might find the usual burners. Their anatomy consists of a plain rod equipped with a hook with which it remains put on a wall or the likes and it extends to end up in a plate like structure where the incense stick can be placed and also deposit the ashes post combustion. If one is not sure where to find these burners, they can get it custom made as they are not exactly complex in design.
Clay and Stone Burners
This variety of incense burners are hugely popular and widely available across the globe mainly because of the attractive colors and shapes and sizes that it comes in. Clay and stone incense burners are also dynamic in the types of incense sticks they can hold. They commonly have two types of holes for the purpose of holding both the bamboo type incense stick and the spaghetti type sticks of incense. However they are not designed to hold the Indian or the Tibetan variety of incense, the dhoop sticks as they are far too thick.
A small number of these burners are also designed to handle the cones. One needs to be careful with these cones because they have to be placed over a high temperature resistant surface like the ceramic tiles.
While burning solid incense sticks in these burners, one can always keep a stick or pin in the vicinity as they need to be cleansed at regular intervals of all the ash fillings in the hole and such pins can act as the cleaning device. The sticks burn right up to the very end leaving no space for the resins to fall out and therefore they get deposited within the holder itself. Soaking the burner in green tea can help remove all the dirt completely. But such cleaning requires effort and cannot be done on a regular basis.
Smudge Pots and Bowls Burners
There are some smudge bowls that can be conveniently used for the purpose of support the burning of smudge bundles while there are others that come in handy for burning loose herbs on charcoal along with the resins. These smudge bowls can also serve your purpose of burning incense but one should on priority make sure that the material out of which the smudge bowl is made is fireproof because on the usage of charcoal, the temperatures can go really high (sometimes up to 1500 degree F) and can be dangerous despite putting a bed of sand below the charcoal.
Providing with the exhaustive list and details of the various types of incense burners might not be possible but the varieties discussed here cover most of the majorly available ones. Thus we hope that the task of choosing the perfect burner for your holy purpose has now become a lot simpler.