Miscellaneous: 1. Smoke composition

For the production of this compositon, one needs to prepare potassium nitrate, sucrose, a scale, a coffee grinder, a beaker in which the composition will be heated, a heat source, and a spoon or something similar for stirring.

The ratio by which KNO3 and sucrose are mixed, is 6.5 : 3.5. So, in order to make 100 grams of this composition, 65 grams of potassium nitrate and 35 grams of sucrose is measured on a mechanical scale.

After weighing, the ingredients were separately powdered in the coffee grinder. Before going on to the grinding of the second ingredient, the coffee grinder was cleaned. The grinding intervals were reduced to about 1 minute at a time to avoid excessive coffee grinder heating.

After that, the ingredients were mixed together, and then poured in a glass jar, which was then closed and shaken thoroughly.

After the mixture was ready, the heat source was activated (this part should be done outdoors). The steel beaker was than placed on the heating pad, and a small portion of the smoke composition was added. The temperature is slowly increased until the moment where the sugar in the mixture starts to melt. That temperature is than maintained and slowly more mixture is added. The mixture is thoroughly stirred with a spoon all the time to avoid hot spots, where the mixture could easily ignite.

A good indicator that the temperature is too high, is the color change of the heated mixture. If a yellow color occurs, the temperature should be lowered a bit.

If an orange coloration occurs, it is necessary to stop heating the mixture and remove it from the heat source while still stirring thoroughly. This kind of mixture isn't useful anymore, because by returning it to the heating source, ignition could occur easily. Usually it is enough to get the mixture to a sticky/dense state. When it reaches that state, it can be easily shaped in a desired form (either by using moulds or other similar methods).

One the picture above you can see the result after 5-10 grams of this composition was ignited.