My Kapet/Kyhpi Recipe

My recipe is based on this one:

However, I found it didn’t quite work for me so I adjusted it to this:

Mix 2-4 large dates, a good tablespoon or so of honey and cover with a good red wine.

Let steep for a week in a cool air tight environment. Stir every now and then to make sure the dates are well covered. After a week mixture the dry ingrediants to the following proportions:

2 portions ground frankincense
2 portions ground myrrh
1 portion ground mastic
1 portion dried mint leaves
1 portion dried & ground juniper berries
1 portion ground cinnamon

Grind all together and mix well.

Now comes the very messy part! :slight_smile:

First heat up the date, honey and wine mixture in a small pan and reduce by half. Make sure you don’t burn it, it needs to be really gloopy and sticky. Let it cool enough so you can handle it with your fingers without getting burnt.

In a clean bowl add some of the wet and dry mixture together a bit at a time. Note the dry mix will be absorbed into the wet very quickly. Add a bit of wet if its too dry and the dry if too wet. The consistency you are after is tackiness. It needs to be damp and sticky but not leave too much on your hands if you touch it - think bread dough.

Layout some grease proof paper (very important as you will find out).

Take a teaspoon of the mixture and drop onto the paper and hand roll into a ball. I’ve found a small finger nail ball will burn for around 15min, and a thumb sized can burn for 30min.

Roll the lot out and leave to dry for a day or so. Then place in air tight boxes with layered paper so they dont stick together. Mine have lasted months like this.

To use just place a ball on a lit charcoal disk (or you can stick to the inside of a fire pit as its sticky enough). The honey, date and wine suspension part seems to act as a preservative, and seeing the whole not are natural food items the smell and taste while making it is absolutely divine. Just watch for mould in storage as the article says, though I’ve not had any on mine at all.

Any questions just ask.
K

If I can get some spare cookware I might try this, I’m tired of hunting for a replacement for Kemet Design’s. I don’t burn on charcoal though. I like the smell of it heated gently on a short oil burner. Hot enough to release the smell, not quite hot enough to burn (although the underside does melt a bit on the very short burners).

I think it should work on a oil burner. What seems to happen is the moisture it retains heats up and bubbles up. Like I say, I’ve used it stuck on to the side of a fire pit so its just the heat from the radiate heat and its worked fine.

The smell is quite unusual but very sweet.

Let us know how it goes if you try it!

I burnt the last of my year old kapet for Ra on Thursday. So just now i mixed up the wet part of the new batch which should last me a year at least. This consists of dates, honey and wine which i leave in a warm place to ferment slightly or a week or two depending on room temp. More when i reach the next stage :slight_smile:

Final stage of this year’s batch of Kapet incense. The smell (and taste for all ingredients are edible) was amazing. Now to let them dry for a few weeks under a sheet of backing parchment. Took about an hour to do this stage and well worth it :slight_smile:

I’m about to run out of kyphi, so it’s time to face the music on getting that spare cookware and trying this out! I’ve had a recommendation for a store that makes some but it’s US based and out of stock.

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If you can make it give it a go. Of course no one really knows what went into it so you could just make something pleasing. I like this one because there are many elements that could be authentic. I think too many ingredients too might be just a waste of material. This one turns out quite earthy and fruity.

i have frankincense and other resins here but no gum. where can i get food grade frankincense and gum? (you know what’s gonna happen…)

I bought my mastic on line. It was really expensive - more so that what I paid for my frankincense! That, I bought many years ago quite a large supply so I don’t recall where. I think it was a special deal from something like the ‘Frankincense Company, London’.

For the dry one, do you just leave out the wet stuff?

I wish I could do incense, but I’m just too allergic to fragrances. I try to go for sweet-smelling foodstuffs instead - honey is a particular favorite.

Yes I have a bag of dry already mixed.

I need to learn to make my own for now. :cry: