Apocalyptic Prepping

I was reading a post in a Facebook group about a person claiming olive oil was a renewable fuel. He also claimed that Olive Oil was one of the cleanest burning fuels, and was used biblically, specifically in Exodus to light the temple. He also claimed that if the wick is properly trimmed and there wasn’t a draft, it wouldn’t smoke either, and that it was odorless. That just about makes olive oil magic. So I had to test all this out to figure out how to make an olive oil candle.

It has also become a viral sensation to make an olive oil candle from an orange, so I tested that as well.

Experiment 1: First Attempt at Making an Olive Oil Candle

My first attempt in making a candle started with me pouring a tablespoon of oil into a bowl. I had done some reading and people were using cotton wicks for their olive oil candles. I didn’t have cotton balls, but my wife had some cotton pads for makeup, so I took one of those and cut it into strips. I then cut about a 3/4″ portion of that strip, that was roughly triangular, and put it in the small bowl of oil, about 1 table spoon of oil and lit it. It started to burn. I was impressed. It lit and it burned for about 2 minutes, at which point the cotton strip fell over into the oil, extinguishing the flame.

Observations:

• This is theoretically possible.
• It makes sense why candles have wicks with little metal bases. This helps hold the wick straight up, and makes sure it won’t fall over. I need something to secure the wick so it didn’t fall over
• This works more like a lamp or a tiki torch than a traditional candle. The wick didn’t burn all the way down to the oil, but rather the wick stayed unburnt above it by about a half inch.

Experiment 2: Second Attempt at Making an Olive Oil Candle

At this point I started thinking of the olive oil candle as more of a lamp than a candle, though in reality what I was making was some sort of hybrid between the two. My second attempt was pretty much the same as my first attempt. I cut a new wick, and then I put the bottom of that wick in a paper clip. The paperclip held the wick in an upright position. In fact, it was surprisingly stable, and I was able to walk around with it without the wick even wobbling.

I put my now stabilized wick in the same little bowl I had been using with my first attempt, still with about a tablespoon of oil in it, and lit it. It lit the unoiled portion of the wick and burned down to the oiled portion, then went out. Strange. It didn’t do that the first time. I tried to light it again with the lighter and it didn’t want to light. I held the lighter there for about 30 seconds and it still didn’t want to light. At this point I figured the problem was that there was too much oil in the wick, so I gave the top of the wick a squeeze to remove some oil, and tried lighting it again. It lit and stayed lit.

Amount of light

I was curious about how much light this put off, so I took the olive oil candle to my bedroom. Our bedroom has blackout curtains which make the room pitch black. I also have amber smart lamps that look like a flame, and I am able to turn them on to a set percentage of power, which gave me something to compare to. For this experiment, the flame from the bowl or the olive oil candle was about the equivalent to 1% of the light power. This sounds small, but I generally turn on my lamp to 1% when I’m going to bed at night and my wife is already asleep. It’s enough room to navigate a room with, but not enough to get dressed in matching clothing.

I then thought- if I had a reflector, like is used in light fixtures, it would probably direct more light out of the bowl. With this theory in mind, I went and cut little squares of aluminum foil and put them inside the bowl. I then took my olive oil candle back inside my dark room to compare. It made very little difference. I think this is because the ceramic bowl I made the olive oil candle with already has a pretty glossy finish, and was white, so it was probably reflecting light out pretty well.

Observations:

• Olive oil candles work surprisingly well, and one of these candles could light a room enough to make it usable after dark.
• Because it takes so long to light, I’m not very worried about the candle tipping over and spilling at least from a fire hazard view point. Flames are obviously dangerous, but the oil won’t all ignite like kerosene or other petroleum based fuels would.

Experiment 3: 3rd Attempt at Making an Olive Oil Candle

For this experiment I wanted to mainly track exactly how fast the oil would burn. For this, I grabbed my wife’s little Pyrex glass measuring shot glass and put exactly one tablespoon of oil into it. I had put about one tablespoon of oil into experiment 2, but it wasn’t exact. the little Pyrex shot glass also had teaspoon measurements on the side, so I could gauge how quickly the olive oil was burning without having to wait until it was all gone. One tablespoon is 3 teaspoons, so I could get those updates as well.

I decided to upgrade my wick holder to a bolt, which I pulled the wick through and then dropped to the bottom of the glass. This wick holder worked pretty well. I experienced the same challenge lighting the wick as I had in experiment 2, and had to go through the same procedure of squeezing out the oil and then lighting it. This allowed me to light the wick.

Amount of Light

The glass pyrex dish put off much more light. I have 2 possible reasons why- I used a bigger wick (about 1/2″ wide strip), and the clear glass container lets all the flame be visible. This light was about the equivalent of my smart light at 4%. Below is an image of experiment 2 and experiment 3 side by side, showing the light distance.

Problem:

After 22 minutes I heard a popping noise coming from my olive oil. It wasn’t the pop of hot oil. It sounded like a plastic type snapping sound. I went up to check things out, and a piece of the cup had broken off. I didn’t notice much change in the level of oil, so it wasn’t burning at a fast rate, and I also knew it hadn’t cracked. Luckily it wasn’t leaking oil. Even still, at this point I blew out the olive oil candle and ended that experiment.

Observations

• I imagine gas lamps with gas covers are made in the bell shape so that the glass is further from the burner. I also wonder if they’re made from a stronger glass. Please leave a comment if you can confirm this. One Article I read suggested using a canning jar that is heat treated.
• Glass might not be the best choice. You should especially avoid letting the flame get close to the glass. If the glass stays cool, you’ll probably be fine. Maybe try a bigger glass bowl.

Experiment 4: 4th Attempt at Making an Olive Oil Candle and Wind Tolerance

The glass dish didn’t work out, so I cut the bottom off of a soda can to use, the idea being that the shiny aluminum would be reflective. I also cut it fairly low so that the wick would be able to put most of the flame above the edge, making it visible. I transferred the wick from experiment 3 (Pyrex) and used it in this experiment. The light put off by this design was about the same as experiment 3.

After breaking my wife’s Pyrex measuring glass, my wife was getting less and less amused with my experiments. Because of this, experiment 4 did not last long, especially because I had used the same half inch wick that was making a flame much bigger than experiment 2’s (which was also still burning). I now needed to rely on experiment 2 for the burn time.

I started by blowing with more and more force. It didn’t blow out, but I figured that this wasn’t very scientific or consistent. At this point I switched to my wife’s blow dryer. I snuck it into the kitchen, away from my wife. I figured she would be glad I was blowing out one of my candles, but probably not thrilled that her blow dryer was going to be part of my experiments. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

I turned on the blow dryer about 5 feet away and pointed it at the olive oil candle. It didn’t go out. I moved closer and closer and at about 3 feet it went out. I didn’t have a tool to gauge the wind speed, but it felt like a medium springtime breeze. From this I figured that you could probably use one of these olive oil candles outdoors if you had a bit of a wind block, or if there wasn’t a lot of wind. I would say that it can stand about the same amount of wind as a tiki torch.

Experiment 2 Finalized: The Burn Rate

I was writing the results of experiment 4 when I noticed the candle I made, experiment 2, was darker. I had been watching it and was hoping I hadn’t missed it going out. When I looked into the bowl and I saw that it was still lit, but that it was almost burned out. I watched it for 2 more minutes until it went out, at which point I checked my clock. It went out an hour and 59 minutes from when I first lit it. From this, with a 3/8″ wick, I would say that the olive oil burns at a rate of 1/2 tablespoon per hour.

I had another person in a Facebook group make one of these candles using about 1/4 of a cotton ball as a wick and had their candles burn for about 4 hours, so your wick size will be a big factor in how much oil you burn and how quickly you burn through it. 1 gallon of olive oil is 256 tablespoons. Based on my burn rate, that is 512 hours of light, or 21.3 days straight of candle light. If you use a smaller wick, with 4 hours of burn per tablespoon, you’re looking at a month and a half of light from one gallon of olive oil. That’s pretty cool. It’s also more efficient than most candles.

Experiment 5: Cooking with Olive Oil Fuel

I fired the experiment 4 olive oil candle back up for this as it had the highest flame output. I lit it and positioned it on my stove inside the burner hole after removing the heating element. With it lit, I then put my grill cage over the candle and put the pot on top of that with 1 cup of water inside. I let it go for quite a while, and the temperature did increase. It got the temperature up from room temperature to 154 degrees Fahrenheit, but that’s as hot as it got. I couldn’t get it any hotter. It also made my pan really dirty. I was able to clean this off and didn’t notice any damage to the pan, but it was gross.

Final Observations and Takeaways:

• I don’t want to have to cook with olive oil, but I can. You just need multiple or bigger wicks. I also want to put my pot higher above the flame so it can burn a little cleaner.
• Do my experiments when my wife isn’t home.
• Olive Oil doesn’t burn 100% clean despite what others say. It burns pretty clean like a candle, but not clean enough to cook with.
• Buy organic extra virgin olive oil. The stuff I used was Great Value brand stuff. People were saying that if you use organic stuff, it burns cleaner and is healthier for you. I plan on buying a couple gallons of this organic olive oil. It has the best reviews on Amazon.
• Making olive oil lamps would be a great activity to do with kids. Another great activity would be Dehydrating Marshmallows.

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