How to Make Incense
I would suggest you first get your tools together, before attempting to make your own incense. As making cones and Joss sticks are pretty difficult and messy to make, I won't even go there, since you are just starting. Making loose incenses are the easiest to prepare.
Incense Burner - Filled with ash or sand
Natural Incense Ingredients - Resins, woods and herbs
Essential Oils
Self-Igniting Charcoal
Tweezers - To hold charcoal while lighting it
A Mortar & Pestle / Coffee Grinder - To pulverize our ingredients into powders or you can omit this by starting with powdered substances (however the freshest ingredients are obtained if you pulverize them yourself).
2 Mixing Bowls or Food Grade Plastic Bags - to hold our pulverized ingredients until final mixing
A Drying Cloth or Wax Paper - for drying some recipes
A Stirring Spoon
A Lighter or Candle
A Notebook - To record your recipes
A Food Processor - Optional
Making Loose Incense
If you are not starting with powdered ingredients then of course you must pulverize them using a mortar and pestle or coffee grinder. Electric coffee grinders produce too much heat, allowing for the loss of vital chemicals from ingredients and therefore shouldn't be used. Also, most resins will break the blades of electric coffee grinders.
If you freeze your resins for a short while (1/4 hour or so), they will be much easier to pulverize. I have found that resins can only be ground or powdered using a mortar and pestle. I use a Mexican Molcajete for this because of it's rough texture. If you try to use a coffee grinder for this, it will only gum up the blades.
Woods are very difficult to pulverize with a mortar and pestle and really require the use of a hand crank coffee grinder of some sort or simply beginning with powdered woods.
If you are just starting out making incense mixtures then you should keep the number of ingredients down to three (3) to begin with, perhaps one wood and two herbs, or one resin, one wood and one herb, etc. As you get used to making incense you can slowly expand the number of ingredients you use.
Mix all your dry ingredients together first (herbs & woods), separately mix all your resins together then add your resins mixture to your dry mixture and mix together thoroughly. I usually throw the completed mixture into our mortar and pestle again and grind it all together one last time to help blend the aroma of each ingredient into the others. This also adds a little bit of your magick to the recipe, as you can think about the intent of the use of this incense.
Well, that is all I have time to type for now, but you get the idea.
Ideally, keep the incense stored in a dark place for a couple of weeks, so that the ingredients have the chance to sort of blend together.
Light a disc of self-igniting charcoal and place it in the incense burner. Sprinkle the finished incense on it. You may notice that it will REALLY begin to smoke, and that some resins or herbs are particularly strong in smell. But, that is all part of making your own.
