The wick chart

The traditional wick series for beeswax is called square braid, and it is sized to the candle's diameter rather than to any other measurement. A thin novelty taper takes the smallest size, 4/0, and a standard taper, one and a half to two centimetres across, takes 2/0.

From there the chart climbs with the mould:

• twenty-five millimetres takes a #1 wick
• up to fifty millimetres, a #2
• fifty to seventy-five, a #3
• seventy-five to a hundred, a #4
• a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five millimetres, a #5

That chart, though, is built around soy and paraffin. Beeswax is denser and higher melting than either, so a beeswax candle wants a wick one or two sizes bigger than whatever this chart names for its diameter.

Size up a beeswax wick one or two sizes bigger than the chart says, or the flame will never keep a proper pool melted.