My Favourite Method For Burning Incense Cones

In general, you can burn incense cones on any fireproof surface, which makes them a very versatile type of incense. However, placing a cone directly on a plate or in a bowl of sand usually has the drawback that it doesn’t burn completely. Additionally, I often find that most cones smell quite unpleasant toward the end, and I thought this might be at least partially due to them not burning entirely.

I tried burning them on a bed of ash, like one can do with sticks or an incense trail, but because of the intense heat of the ember, the scent becomes particularly unpleasant at the end. Apparently, residue in the ash gets released into the air.

By chance, I came up with the idea of placing them on a fine metal screen, and surprisingly, it worked really well.
When I use incense cones now, I place them on a small pipe screen (20 mm in diameter), which I either set inside a curved metal piece (something I had lying around) or on one of the holders often included with cones or thick dhoop sticks – the important thing is that there’s some air underneath the screen to prevent the ember from suffocating. Essentially, any kind of metal screen should work, including the grids used for burning incense coils or sticks laying flat.
This way, the cones burn fully, and I think it has a slightly positive effect on the scent.

In the top row, you can see my setup using a pipe screen; the last two pictures show a round grid for burning incense coils (bought on AliExpress).