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Beeswax and Bacon Fat Linen Wraps

Making waxed linen wraps has been on the “list” for many years so imagine our excitement when we finally decided to just jump in and do the experiment. Here, in the following photos and explanations, I will share our process, what we discovered, and how everything turned out.

This experiment was fun and only took one afternoon, approximately three hours, from start to finish. We are happy with the results especially because this means we can stop using so much tin foil and plastic wrap. Obviously, we will still need to use tin foil for cooking.

Some things to note are that with each use you can feel small particles of beeswax rubbing off. This also occurs with the more modern beeswax wraps that are made using resin. When washing these wraps it is important to gently rinse using warm water and a bit of dish soap if needed. Washing with hot water will remove more of the wax and cause waxy lumps to rub off, prematurely “ageing” the life of the wraps. The wraps also cling better if they are slightly warm. You can warm them up a bit just by holding them in your hands first before wrapping.

Wax wraps do wear out after several uses. There are, however, a couple of things you can do to further use your used-up wraps. If the fabric still looks good you could treat them again in the beeswax mixture. If the fabric is kind of done looking then they can be cut into strips and made into candle wicks.