I do not like powdered incense

I recently bought some more powdered incense, the same kind that I had with my Wicca box and because it smelled good I wanted more and some charcoal incense burners. So I bought the charcoal briquettes and the incense and quickly found out that the little charcoal briquettes don't burn worth a shit. I put sand in the bottom of the brass burner I have, then lit the charcoal briquette and let it get hot, then put about 1/2 a teaspoon of incense on it and it smoked for about a minute and then stopped, I knocked the ash off the top and put more incense on and it didn't burn because the charcoal wasn't still hot. Maybe I need better briquettes.