Here's what I do:
  After extracting, drained cappings go into a pot with a lot of water, and carefully heated (you must watch continuously) until the wax is entirely melted. Cool, remove wax cake on top and carefully scrape off the debris that clings to the bottom of the cake. I let it cool overnight.
   Dry, and store wrapped in plastic until ready to process. I don't work with the wax on a regular basis, so I tend to accumulate a fair amount of these dirty wax cakes before I process them once a year or so.
   Using an electric counter top deep fryer, place one quart of water and 2 cups or so of white vinegar in the bottom (I read that the vinegar helps separate the contaminants from the wax), then add broken bits of wax cake as prepared above.  Note that if the wax cake has been stored for some time, and contained a lot of debris, it may get moldy.  When breaking up the moldy cake, try to avoid breathing any of the dust (I use a mallet and break up the cake while it's in the plastic bag).
  When the wax is melted I use a slotted metal spoon to remove some the larger bits of debris, carefully draining off back into the fryer the larger bits of debris then tapping the spoon into the trash.  When wax is completely melted the fryer will be bubbling - you must turn it off an wait for the bubbling to stop before final filtering.
  Filtering is done using a funnel made of galvanized sheet steel, which has soft metal wires wrapped around the surface of the cone running up and down from the rim of the cone to the opening at the bottom.  These wire "ribs" are to hold the filtering medium (one paper towel folded into a cone) off the funnel surface allowing the clean wax to drain through more easily.  If you've seen melitta coffee filter holders you know the rib effect I try to achieve.
 The hot wax is poured into the funnel using a small kitchen ladle, while the funnel itself is rigged above either the fryer (to filter the batch a bit before the final pass) or above a small bread pan for making wax blocks. If your cake is not too dirty, there is no need to pre-filter out some of the debris, you can rig the funnel up over where you are going to place the molding pans. Pre-filtering is done by just rigging the funnel over the fryer (it can still be bubbling for this) and filtering the wax back into the fryer. I work on a carpenter's shop bench, so my jig for holding the funnel is an embarrassing combination of scrap lumber and clamps.
  Line the funnel with  a clean sheet of paper towel, carefully ladle the wax into it and let the clean wax filter down into the bread pan.  Be careful with the ladle not to pick up any of the water/vinegar mix, only take the hot (dirty) wax from the top of the liquid in the fryer.  As the molding pan is filled, switch in a new pan.
  As the filter empties, or if the amount of debris trapped in the paper builds up, wait until most of the wax has drained out and carefully lift and discard the dirty paper towel, replacing it with a new one to begin again.
  Sometimes, if it is cold enough, the wax in the paper towel will cool enough to solidify and cling to the sides of the funnel.  If you're practised enough you can remove and change the filter before this happens, but if it does carefully heating the outside of the funnel with a small torch (be careful!) will remelt this wax and you can easily change the filter. Tearing the filter out would leave bits of paper in the funnel that would later drain into the clean cake you're trying to mold.
 I do about six bread loaf pans of clean molded wax before changing out the water/vinegar mix with a fresh solution.
 I got my fryer at a yard sale years ago and it may look ugly, but this method will render even very moldy stored cakes into buttery yellow clean wax.  The next best thing would be some kind of electrically heated funnel that would help the wax drain and make filter changing easier, but I've never seen anything like that.

C.Crowell
Hightstown, NJ

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