What materials are used to make the incense that is offered in temples? What equipment is used to make it?

Before making traditional Buddhist incense, the first step is to prepare the required raw materials. The raw materials of traditional Buddhist incense generally include four parts: they are incense medicine, wood powder, binder and additional materials.

One, the preparation of raw materials

Incense medicine

Incense medicine, is the most central part of the traditional Buddhist incense, which determines the characteristics of the aroma, the efficacy of the incense, as well as the grade and grade of the incense. Including natural spices and some Chinese herbs. Natural spices, such as incense, sandalwood, benzoin, musk, frankincense, descending incense, etc.; Chinese herbal medicines, such as farzhi, white flowers, rhubarb, dahuric dahurica, danpi, dingpi and so on. Since the natural spices are basically included in the Chinese herbal medicine, so historically "incense" and "medicine" are not differentiated, collectively referred to as "incense and medicine". This is the difference between traditional Buddhist incense and modern craft incense. Modern craft incense does not use incense medicine, but the use of artificial chemical flavors, the resulting incense has lost many of the effects of health and sex.

The first step in making traditional Buddhist incense is to consider the use, fragrance and taste of the incense, and then select spices or herbs according to these basic requirements. For example, Zephyr orchid, cymbidium orchid, pepper tree, osmanthus, mugwort, tulip, rue and so on, mostly used for literati incense; incense, musk, lobster brain incense, ambergris and other character line of expensive incense medicine, mostly used in the court of the imperial incense and Buddhist incense; Lingshou incense, benzoin incense, descending incense and other character of the incense medicine, mostly used in the incense of Taoist.

Incense concoction is a very important part of the traditional Buddhist incense production. The technical requirements are also relatively high, "less than the efficacy of the difficult to find, too much is the nature of the flavor of the anti-loss", and even the time of concoction, the texture of the container have a lot of attention. By accumulating experience in practice, you can gradually grasp the essentials. There are many ways to make specific concoctions, such as steaming, boiling, stir-frying, gunning and so on.

Produced in hot and humid areas of sandalwood, the aroma is simple, is an important incense. However, the "raw" sandalwood that has not been shelled has a lot of fire in it, so traditionally it is not used directly to match the incense, but is shelled first, so that the fire disappears and the aroma is more pure.

First of all, the large piece of sandalwood split, split into a size that is conducive to grinding, generally 2 to 3 centimeters long, 3 to 5 millimeters thick can be. Then put the split sandalwood in the basin, with sandware tea set steeping oolong tea or Yunnan group tea, while turning the sandalwood, while sprinkled with hot tea. Sprinkle evenly, cover the mouth of the basin to prevent the sandalwood aroma leakage. The wood is immersed in the tea for about 72 hours and is turned every 5 hours. The subsequent task is to cool the sandalwood: spread the soaked sandalwood out evenly and place it in a well-ventilated, sunless area to dry until it is dry.

When the sandalwood is dry, dilute the honey with grain alcohol, usually 200 grams of grain alcohol and 100 grams of honey for every 500 grams of sandalwood. Pour the diluted honey into the basin containing sandalwood, constantly turning, so that the honey and sandalwood all soaked. Sealed for 3 days, turning once a day. 3 days and then dry sandalwood: soaked sandalwood evenly spread, also placed in a well-ventilated place without sunlight drying, until dry. The last process is the sandalwood frying: dry sandalwood in the pan frying, first with high heat frying for five minutes; then frying with medium heat for 20 minutes; and finally frying with low heat for 10 minutes, until the pan has a purple gas rising on the sandalwood has been fried well.

According to the incense recipe listed in the various incense one by one concocted, the next step is to mix these incense according to the proportion of the medicine, we call "with the medicine". There are many kinds of incense, medicine, but not directly into the next process, but to be sealed in the cellar for a period of time, known as the "cellar", and then only to enter the next step. After the completion of the preparation of the drug, it is necessary to use special equipment to grind these drugs, the ancient general use of stone mills, mills and other tools to grind the incense; now there are special grinding equipment. Some herbs are not suitable to be mixed with other herbs and need to be processed separately. For example, some resinous aromatic herbs, or easily volatile aromatic herbs, most of them have to be ground separately.

After grinding, the aromatic herbs become powdered, also known as incense powder. Here, one of the most important parts of the raw materials for incense making, the incense powder, has been prepared. These powder can be directly used to manufacture incense bags, incense pillows and other incense products. If you want to make burning incense, you have to prepare other raw materials.

Wood powder

Added to the incense in the wood powder, you can adjust the concentration of aroma, help incense burning. Generally choose cedar wood powder or pine wood powder. It is also used special equipment to grind them, and then use a sieve to sift out large impurities. Finally, the wood powder is formed.

Binding material

Powdered incense and wood powder, are relatively loose, it is not easy to form a body, so there is a need to add some of the role of adhesive materials. Generally use elm skin powder for bonding material, also referred to as "elm powder". Elm powder not only has good adhesion, but also can make the incense more toughness and elasticity, more solid, not easy to break, and elm powder itself can be used as a kind of incense.

Additional materials

In addition to the three basic raw materials mentioned above, some incense can also add auxiliary materials. For example, a small amount of saltpeter can be added to some incense to make it burn better.

Because of the use of natural herbs and herbs, traditional Buddhist incense will take on the color of the herbs used itself, which is not bright. If you want to make it a bit brighter in color, you can add a bit of colored incense or Chinese herbs, or colored natural minerals. For example, some brightly colored flower petals, but also grind them into powdered packets.

Two, mixing the ingredients

Nowadays, you mostly use a blender to mix the ingredients.

The specific method is to put the ground spices, wood flour, elm skin powder, etc. into the blender, add the right amount of water, the ratio of water to materials should be determined according to the characteristics of the raw materials, usually 1:1, but also with the seasons and the weather to make the appropriate adjustments, when the weather is dry, you should add a little more. It should also be noted that the temperature of the water is generally 45 degrees is most appropriate, too cool for the mixing of raw materials, too hot will damage the medicine. Add water should be calculated when the amount of water, try to add enough at a time, if the mixing in the middle of the water, it will affect the toughness of the incense and finish. After the water and ingredients are ready, you can start mixing. Stirring time is generally 20 minutes, if the mixing is not enough, the material will be uneven not only affect the quality of the aroma, but also because of the gap in the material to make the incense broken. Stirring too much, will make the raw materials too loose, will affect the quality of incense.　

Three, molding

Put the stirred material into the briquetting machine, pressed into blocks, the size should be suitable for the extruder into the trough. Pressing blocks should be uniform, dense, so that no air bubbles in the blocks. After the material block is pressed, the next step is to make strips. Nowadays, extruders are generally used as the equipment for strips. Extruder mainly consists of transmission part, extrusion head, trough and die several parts. Molds are generally made of steel plate, steel plate with many different caliber holes, small holes in many specifications, less than 1 mm thin, thick can be dozens of millimeters. Should be based on the thickness of the incense to be produced, the installation of the corresponding specifications of the mold. Put the material block into the trough, the raw material by the mold hole is extruded, it becomes a thin strip of incense. This step is called "receiving the incense" when the incense sticks are received by the spreading incense rods. The incense sticks are usually irregular and of different lengths, and there may be broken sticks. After finishing and repairing the strips, the strips can be relatively neat. If the production of disk incense, it is necessary to pass through the specialized equipment, the two incense sticks coiled together. Neatly and smoothly placed on the incense Luo.

Four, drying

Drying this process is mainly for the line incense, disk incense do not have to dry, placed in a place where there is no sunshine drying can be. Line incense must be cooled in the sun to make the incense dry slowly and naturally. If the sun is soft, the drying place can be chosen in the outdoor. After the incense is placed on the rack and dried, it is necessary to do a screening to pick out the incense that has more or less minor problems. After that it is time to move on to the next process.

Five, packaging

The box can prevent the incense from moisture, easy to store and transport, but also has the role of preventing the volatilization of the aroma. But the traditional Buddhist incense using natural incense medicine, volatilization at room temperature is very slow, the main role of the box or to prevent moisture. Therefore, if you use the carton packaging, it is best to use the better moisture-proof performance of the laminated paper.

Six, cellar

Not all incense can be used immediately after packaging. Some incense also need to be sealed cellar for a period of time, only to complete all the processes. For example, there is a very famous incense called "Lingxu incense", it is the production of incense time has strict regulations, the requirements of the day in the A Zi medicine, C Zi grinding medicine, Huxu Zi and material, Geng Zi day incense, Nong Zi day packaging and sealing, A Zi day after the use of the day. That is, this incense with drugs, and materials, incense, packaging processes, are to be carried out on a specific date, and after the packaging, but also sealed, cellar 12 days before use.