A frugal Crisco emergency candle.

[Kaleva]

28. 19 hour total burn time.

As the Crisco burned down to about an inch, all of it liquefied from the heat and the birthday candle fell over and extinguished itself.

Since we have only 1 birthday candle left in the house, I'm going to pick up a couple of packages of the longer 3 1/2" candles (I used a 2 1/2" candle) which would easily fit in the half pint jar. I'm expecting to get close to 30 hours of burn time by using a longer candle and having more Crisco in the jar. I'm also going to carefully measure the amount of vegetable shorting so I have an idea of about how many candles I could make with a 1 pound container.

I'll also be putting together a clay pot heater so I can test that out when determining the burn time of the next candle I make.

Overall, I think this is a pretty good emergency candle as the components are items one uses such as the Crisco, birthday candles and half pint mason jars so one isn't buying something that would only be used in an actual emergency. I would only make these as needed and I could make them quickly.