I’m Using an 11 cm Jar with Two Wicks and Getting an Uneven Melt Pool — Should I Try Three Smaller Wicks Rather than Two Larger Ones?

Is your uneven pool a coverage problem?

Before any maths, look at the candle you already have, after a session of about four hours, once it has cooled enough to see the set wax clearly. Mark the two wick positions on a strip of tape across the rim, then note where the unmelted wax is thickest. You are looking for the pattern, not a number. The coverage comparison in this post only answers one of the patterns in the table below; the others have their own tests, and adding a third wick to them can make things worse.

The first row is the one this page owns. A pair of wicks on a diameter melts most strongly along its own line: each flame has a wall close in front of it and its partner behind. The two points of the wall at right angles to that line are the last to melt, so the leftover wax forms two crescents facing each other across the jar. If that is what you see, the question in the title is a fair one. If you see an even ring, the reason is different, and so is the next step: the ring-shape map in the 10 cm post reads it in detail.

Two wicks in 10.3 cm: where the far wall is

First, the jar. CSI lists no jar at 11 cm by any stated diameter, so this is your jar, and you need its inside measurement. If your 11 cm is the outside figure (no CSI jar listing states an inside diameter), an assumed 0.35 cm wall makes it 10.3 cm inside: a pool of 83.32 cm², 23% more than the 9.3 cm inside of CSI's 10 cm Apothecary jar. Measure the inside at the rim, the middle and near the base before you trust any figure here; the external-diameter post explains why the outside number misleads. The nearest CSI listing, the Reusuable Premium Glass Clip Top Airtight Glass Candle Container (₹229.00, "Wax Fill - 550g"), gives "Dimension- 11cm * 11cm * 10cm" without saying which figure is the height, and no heat wording in the text we captured, so we do not call it an 11 cm jar. Ask us if you need a wider jar; we would rather say "not listed" than guess.

Now the pair. Put two wicks on a diameter, 51.5 mm apart (centre to centre equal to the inside radius, the labelled starting point this cluster uses). Each wick is 25.75 mm from the wall in front of it along the wick line (r − s/2). The two wall points at right angles to the line are farther: each is √(r² + (s/2)²) = 57.58 mm from both wicks. That is 2.24 times the near distance. In a pool where heat spreads outwards from each flame, the far points get least.

Can spacing fix it? Only partly. Move the wicks apart and the right-angle points get farther from both, because the wicks move away from them along the line. Move them together and the right-angle points approach a full radius, 51.50 mm, but never get closer than that, while the walls along the line move away. With two wicks on a diameter, no spacing brings every wall point closer than the radius. That is the geometric reason a wide jar on two wicks tends to leave crescents, and why spacing ladders (which the two-wick spacing post covers) can trim the crescents but not remove the cause.

Three wicks: shorter reach, smaller share

Place three wicks at the corners of an equilateral triangle centred in the jar. Its circumradius ρ is the distance from the centre to each wick. As a labelled starting point we use ρ = r/2 = 25.75 mm. Then each wick is r − ρ = 25.75 mm from the wall straight out from it, the same nearest distance as the pair, and the farthest wall points sit midway between two wicks, √(r² + ρ² − rρ) = 44.60 mm from each. Wick to wick is ρ√3 = 44.60 mm. Each wick now serves 27.77 cm², 33% less than a wick of the pair.

Two things follow. The reach is more even: the farthest wall is 1.73 times the nearest, against 2.24 for the pair, and 23% closer in absolute terms. And ρ = r/2 is not arbitrary: for three wicks in an equilateral triangle, that circumradius gives the shortest possible distance to the farthest wall point (r√3/2). Wider or tighter triangles both push the farthest wall point out again. That makes it a sensible first layout to test, not a final one; whether the centre stays cool enough at 44.60 mm between wicks is a burn question, and the circumradius ladder belongs to the triangle-spacing post.

Why C1 for the three and C2 for the pair? Because the question is "three smaller rather than two larger", and in CSI's range the sized, tabbed steps are C1, then C2. Neither page states a flame size or a jar range in the text we captured, and CSI publishes no measured flame or pool data for either, so the area-per-wick figures say nothing about whether a C1 can melt 27.77 cm². Only the head-to-head can. If your current pair is already 2 × C1, there is no smaller sized, tabbed wick than C1 to make the three "smaller"; your three-wick arm is 3 × C1 at the same size, and the comparison becomes count alone.

The head-to-head: two candles of each

The worked example: British Rose at 8% in Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464, a 600 g fill in your own 11 cm jars (48 g of oil and 552 g of wax per candle, load as a share of total weight). The 600 g is our labelled choice; weigh a water fill to your own fill line first, and keep about 1–1.5 cm of headspace. Everything except the wick layout is identical across the four candles: one melt, one pour temperature, one cure, one room. Two candles per arm, because one candle can mislead you with a wick that leaned or a tab that slid.

Observe glass heat by eye: flame-to-glass distance, any blackening, how the glass looks near the pool. Never judge glass by touch. If you own a non-contact thermometer, log a reading at the same height each hour; CSI lists none, and no figure here is a safety limit. Stop any candle whose flame approaches the glass, and stop every burn with about 1 cm of wax left.

Reading the head-to-head

Most results land in the first three rows. The first is the clean answer to the title: the pair could not reach the right-angle points, three could, and the centre stayed in range. The second is the honest surprise: if both layouts reach the glass, your original candle's crescents came from something else, often spacing, a draught or a leaning wick, and the cheaper, faster candle to make is the two-wick one. Two versus three as a production choice, with labour, session length and heat weighed beyond diameter, is the scorecard post.

The third row is common in 11 cm jars. Three small flames reach the edge, but the triangle is tight and the centre goes deep. Don't respond by changing wick size and spacing together: keep the three C1, and test a wider triangle next. If you later wonder whether all three wicks must be the same size, that is the identical-or-mixed post; for a round jar, symmetry usually argues identical.

The decision covers burns 2 and 3. A layout can pass the top and fail lower down, where heat builds as the wax level falls. A three-wick candle that passes here still needs its full life; whether a multi-wick candle stays in range all the way down is the life-cycle post, and how far to burn before approving is the full-depth post.

Holding three wicks without a triangle holder

We would rather say it plainly than sell you the wrong tool. The Steel Wick Holder page says its "3-hole layout fits single, double, or triple wick setups" and that it fits "up to 9 cm wide": its holes sit in a line, and it is shorter than your jar is wide. The Wick Centering Device has one hole and its page says it suits openings "less than 4"" (about 10.2 cm). The Wick Setting Tool holds wicks along a single magnetic bar. None of them puts three wicks at 120°.

What works: cut a card disc to the jar's inside diameter, mark the centre, draw a circle of 25.75 mm radius and mark three points on it 120° apart (use a protractor, or set a compass to that circle's radius and step it round the circle: it marks six equal points, and every second point is 120° from the last). Lay the disc in the empty jar, stick each tab on a mark through a small cut in the card, then lift the disc out. For the tops, a second card laid across the rim, pierced at the same three points, holds the wicks upright while the wax sets. A needle makes neat holes; a sharp pencil does too. The paper template with a fixed starting circumradius for a 12 cm jar is the 12 cm placement post.

Four candles in grams, wicks and rupees

The worked example in numbers: four 600 g candles at 8% British Rose in CSI 464, two on 2 × C2 and two on 3 × C1. Your jars are not costed, because CSI doesn't list one at 11 cm.

Per candle, excluding your jar: the two-wick candle costs ₹468.22 (₹164.26 oil, ₹280.08 wax, ₹18.88 wicks, two stickers); the three-wick candle costs ₹469.54, ₹1.32 more once its third sticker is counted, although its wicks alone are ₹1.18 cheaper. From nothing, the cash outlay is ₹2,519.00. Costs are worked examples and exclude labour, freight, packaging, jars and GST. Labour is the cost that really separates the layouts in production, because a third wick is a third tab to place and a third wick to centre; that comparison belongs to the scorecard post.

If three wins and becomes your production layout, the C1 100-pack (₹590.00) wicks 33 candles with 1 over, at ₹17.70 a candle; if two wins, a C2 100-pack (₹944.00) wicks 50. A kilogram of British Rose fills 20 candles of 600 g at 8%.

Buying for the 11 cm test

Five items, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 29 September 2026. CSI publishes no wick-performance data, so nothing is ranked on burn results. Oil candles are counted at 48 g (600 g at 8%) and 12 g (the standard 150 g candle at 8%).

Frequently asked questions