Essential Oil Still

[MountainGoat]

I'm started to get real keen to get a still to make essential oils. Is anyone here already extracting oils? If so, what still do you use? Is it really necessary to spend big $ to get one for essential oils, or can one 'make do' with a regular still from the home brewers?

Cheers

[shroomau5]

I have used a closed loop system that recovered the solvent.(butane)

Loved it!

Definetly the way to go IMO.

[shroomau5]

I will attempt to make one in the next couple of weeks. Just sourcing parts atm

Edited June 11, 2015 by shroomau5

[waterboy 2.0]

for essential oils its

-water

-water/steam

- or, steam extraction methods

every target oil has a given temperature and pressure for optimum recovery <___base_url___>/uploads/emoticons/default_newimprovedwinkonclear.gif .

[MountainGoat]

yeah my target oils are through steam extraction. Ideally i'd like to be able to recover at least 100ml of oil per process, which at 3% oil (for example) would require 3kg initial product to fit in there...

[El Presidente Hillbillios]

a massive closed loop soxhlet would be best i think. But the only oil still i have seen worked kinda like a slobber box. i think they werent too worried about efficency as it was huge and they were using lots and lots of plant material in a run.

The legality of owning any of those i think would be another issue

[waterboy 2.0]

soxhlet is sexy...lol....

I watched a home made, mcgyver made farmer make peppermint and eucalyptus oil on a grand scale by steam. Wood fueled.

They'd put in days on end taking shifts to keep the production runs in the sweet spots.

[El Presidente Hillbillios]

was that with a two chamber still, the second chamber just steam?

[waterboy 2.0]

yeah primitive box like construction , two chamber.

The smell of peppermint always gives me thoughts of those guys...lol...they were good value

In honesty I think it was one of their more profitable enterprises.

Edited June 12, 2015 by waterboy 2.0

[woodwoman]

Cedarwood Essential oil is cold pressed by fully timber constructed presses. It is not to touch anything metal. The nuts are pressed and re-pressed to get all the oil. ref. The Ringing Cedars of Russia, By Vladimir Megre.

I wonder if you can press herbs similarly.

[Heretic]

yeah my target oils are through steam extraction. Ideally i'd like to be able to recover at least 100ml of oil per process, which at 3% oil (for example) would require 3kg initial product to fit in there...

You're going to need a huge still to recover yields in the 100 ml range - it is not as easy as you may think to produce large amounts .....

I once played around with a set up using an old beer keg as the boiling vessel , and my yields were but a fraction of what you are anticipating . Furthermore , you are going to require massive quantities of plant material to produce in the 100s of mls .....

Nevertheless , it is being done by savvy folk - best of luck ; and it is satisfying and fun to do as well .

[mystical oyster]

Ive been wanting to get into this aswell lately, plenty of good setups on ebay with affordable prices, although the ones im looking at are on a much smaller scale then what your interested in.. ill be ordering one as soon as my funds allow it

[LikeAshesWeFade]

WHAT a topic!

Can I just say to you all - I am a strict cancer researcher and studying neuroscientist. If you are interested in cancer reduction I URGE YOU to start researching FRANK INCENSE and MYRRH.

This kind of saves the need to write a new topic for essential oils so instead I'll direct it at cancer research and healers. ;)

PLEASE start using these 4 MAIN ingredients;

FRANK INCENSE

MYRRH

AMBER and

CANNABIS OIL

Please contact me for more info if you feel the need either via PM or Facebook - www.facebook.com/likeasheswefade

PEACE

Ashes.

Edited September 29, 2015 by LikeAshesWeFade

[grandawood]

We use high pressure water distillation for our agarwood oil. The yielding is better but quality wise is not as good as steam.

Thanks

http://www.grandawood.com.au/collections/agarwood-oil/products/agarwood-high-grade-oil

[ghosty]

I like you Grandawood, Love honest people

good business.

[Pat Uri]

Shorty - you still here? - I must admire your tenacity! Your apparatus really depends on what you are refining.

For a beginner's exercise I can recommend Corymbia citriodora - lemon scented gum - leaves. Stuff a 4L "paint" tin half full of leaves and young tips and cover with water leaving it about a quarter empty for head space. Take about 1 metre of 8mm - 10mm copper tube and bend it into an L shape with one limb 100mm long. Drill a hole in the lid of the tin and insert the short limb sealing it in place with silicone - inside and outside - so-called - mushroom seal - this will be a basic condenser. Seal the tin with the lid, "condenser" pointing away from the fire's radiant heat.

Now build a little fire under the tin. As it boils collect the steam condensate that drips from the copper tube into a jar. Doesn't matter than the waters are steaming hot. You'll notice globs of yellow citronella oil floating on top of the jar's collected water. Steam distilled essential oil.

If you want to get a bit more "high tech" you can wrap a wet bandage around the long limb condenser end out of a suspended bucket of water so capillary action keeps the bandage wet and the condenser cool. Watch out - steam is f*cking hot.

Don't let it boil dry, but you will have to shut off the fire, allow to cool to open the lid and top up the water. Let the tin go dry and you'll rediscover destructive distillation. Always keep the tin with some water.

To harvest your oil you can wait until it floats on top of the collection jar and draw it off with a piece of paper - oil sticks to the paper, but not the water; suck it off with a eye dropper; or put the jar in a deepfreeze until the water ices solid and the oil can be poured off.

You can use a baster to suck off the lower water layer from collection and after a few recharges of the leaves the oil will be so thick a layer you can decant it off.

"Eucalyptus" essential oils have such low vapour pressure and the trees are so rich a source it can really be that easy and primitive.

I've seen the oil come off so thick you could use it as lamp oil but it is useful as a repellent for "scabies dreaming", that is, scrub itch mite.

You can get even more "sophisticated" with a "thistle funnel" into the tin going near to the bottom to top up water without breaking the assembly for continuous production until the leaves are extracted. "Foaming" can be stopped by adding a few drops of "Infacol" a polysilicone antifoaming agent available from the pharmacist to stop babies farting. Using several small bore copper tubes - known as a heat exchanger bundled condenser - improves yield too.

Camphor laurel is another easy one and its oil can be more interesting.

Things like Damascus rose petal don't have much oil - but their watery distillate is fine as is, as "rose water". "Mint water", "lavender water", "orange flower water" and "orange peel water" are just as good fresh from the 'still - as their essential oils have high vapour pressure and potent without further concentration.

It gets tricky when you go for essential oils that have low vapour pressure - then you start to need "steam superheaters" and "steam injectors" but I'll mention them later. You might wanna look at water jacketed condensers and other super efficient condensers before you go to those.

There's a principle in engineering we call Carnot's Efficiency where the efficiency of a still depends on how hot the input is (steam) and how cold the output is (the waters) - but that'll come later.

Others are trickier because they have properties that lock them into the water phase. Free base alkaloids will never steam distil from an acidic solution but come out in abundance from an alkali solution - then you WILL need antifoaming agents. Some free bases are heat sensitive like nicotine and need azeotropic steam distillation or like khat need functional group protection to come over - but start at simple basics for easy success until you have confidence to go for the great stuff.

I thoroughly recommend you design off fire heating - it takes a lot of electrical energy to turn water into steam and you'll be needing loads. Plus cheap, flexible fuel fires gives you byproducts of ash, bio-charcoal, etc. and steam is quite safe around fires - electricity and water don't mix - well they do, but you don't wanna know about it.

Notice you have some big forum members posting in to help you out - so you'll see far standing on the shoulders of such giants.

Steam can even run venturi vacuum pumps...haven't I seen your face before?...

Looking forward to more of your efforts!

Phaemon'sDog with Scabies.

(Postscript - Sorry there Mountain Goat - just reread the thread and made the mistake of thinking Shorty was OP. If I knew it was you I would have written something useful. p'sDog - what'can'i'say? when you are right 99.99% of the time you are wrong 00.01% of the time)

Edited November 6, 2015 by Pat Uri

[trucha]

Essential oil distillation is not hard and an apparatus can be a lot of fun to make. I stopped doing essential oil distillations only due being unable to develop an adequate market to sustain it and having too many other projects ongoing.

Something that I found mentioned online which proved to be of value was including a three-way ball valve between the steam source and the extraction column. Examples https://www.google.com/search?q=three-way+ball+valve&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CDMQsARqFQoTCLfKhNWN_MgCFQH7YwodlPsOtA&biw=1197&bih=606

I drilled and threaded a hole in the top of a steel pressure cooker and installed a three-way ball valve on top of it using a nipple and a nut.

It permits actively generated steam to be disconnected from the distillation column by being vented elsewhere with no chance of creating a closed system. It is simple enough to just shut off the heat but this comes in really handy sometimes.

[ghosty]

I will advise folks to make their own distillation gear!

After following the law and trying to do things right, as normal, I now get harrassed almost every year by ... I once respected. they destroy my birthday, christmas, and new years almost every year since.

because "everyone that gets lab flasks IS making drugs..."

Since i bought actual glass gear (and not much) i have been raided 2 times in as many years.

If you follow the law, notify and purchase expect to;

*Be assumed to be making drugs.

*Be raided every year or two.

*Be subjected to your house being declared a "crime scene" (of the worst kind).

*Be refused over the counter pain killers and PUSHED to buy pills you never do (containing pseudoephedrine) perhaps to justify a raid being then possible.

*Be subject to new "neighbours" as police invade your personal space to watch you (and listen, and make you subject to any idiot that happens to be there).

*Be subject to repugnant accusations as police try to understand basic logic.

*Be asked questions relating to you personal sexual life and your private STD status (don't know how that relates to a glass flask??)

*Stay away from hospitals (normally not an issue) as if you fall sick somehow you MUST BE MAKING DRUGS, And then get raided 3 days later.

*etc. etc. etc I could go on all day based on the last 2-3 years....

Make your own condenser from tube of radiant heater, pvc pipe pvc cement, two rubber grommets and 2 pvc end caps.

Drill hole to fit grommet in the end caps, allowing room to fit the tube through also. glue on the end caps, slide the tube through, some lube will help. drill two hole in the side of each end for water flow. Water cooler (fridge not peltier) $5.00 tip shop to keep things cold. Steam cleaner will work. There would be little point in a recycling system unless you have a way to close off and refil one "extraction tube" at a time. You do NOT want your oily thingy stuff to be in the water or the boiler pot / pressure cooker. fill a tube with whatever, and force steam throught it, cool it. done. Whats hard about that. confused? here's a KISS for you! keep it simple.

Edited February 2, 2016 by ghosty

[woodwoman]

Essential oils are one way of ingesting the life force of the plant without having to consume piles of produce.

Another way I learnt of recently is by placing an earthen vessel of water by a patch of plants in a heightened state of maturity and moonlight, the vibration/essence of the plants permeates the water creating a powerful elixer of exceptional vibrational quality.

Yet another way is to eat the pollen or to catch it and mix it with water for amazing health benefits. Pollen is never poisonous and is full of all necessary nutrients for sustained cell growth and division.

No plants are killed during these processes and the benefits may be equal to if not more extraordinary than essential oils.

As Masaru Emoto proved the effects of thoughts on water, so too the effects of thought on essential oils or other plant elixers are important. Are your thoughts for making it, for money or joy?

[Change]

After spending 10 mins searching google ive found a number of examples of pollens and nectar's that are either toxic to Humans or Bees, So i think its a good idea to research what you are going to consume first rather then assume everything that is organic is safe.

&

I used to think Masaru Emoto work was interesting untill i read about how he fails to prove his claims, even when offered a million dollars to do so.

Emoto was personally invited to take the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge by James Randi in 2003, and would have received US$1,000,000 if he had been able to reproduce the experiment under test conditions agreed to by both parties. He did not participate.^[19][20]

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto}

[naja naja]

Azalea honey can bee toxic.

Wasn't there a place kodaphytorium or sumthing similar who can do sexy la b gla ss? Places who keep ur info only need to give it up upon request, but some do it as common practice. Funny, you'd think they'd want business. But I do agree. Make ur own. Very little needs to be professionally made.

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

Woodwomen, have you used brugmansia pollen in your elixirs ?

[grandawood]

copper apparatus will do

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pdmc7f2szyc81f5/f6fc303bdc1e2b1bc10a0c38a89010d6f79287051ad77acffd257a89aa48c410.jpg?dl=0

[Smiling]

You can make an essential oil still cheaply from an open top 44 gallon drum.

Buy an open top 44 gallon drum, should cost about $10-$30. Fit a tap to the bottom so you can fill it with water. Put the drum on top of some bricks so you can heat it either with fire or a big gas burner.

Get a piece of rebar and cut it into a circle. Cover that with chicken wire. Throw a besa block into the bottom of your 44 gallon drum and put you chicken wire covered rebar on top. Fill with water (record the amount). Dump all your herbs on top.

Make up some flour dough to the consistency of wet pizza dough. Put this all around the rim of the 44 gallon drum (this will act as a seal). Attach the lid making sure the dough gets squished (the dough heats up and cooks into bread acting as a seal). Attach you condenser (google copper liebig for plans or search pot still on ebay and get one of the still makers to make one for you)

Fire up your still and let it run till most of the water has come out. (thats why you record how much water you put in)


When its empty fill it with more water in the tap and then start again. If you want to make the process quick have another pot full of boiling water so you dont have to wait for it to heat up.

Some oils take a long time to come out so collect some product into a 2L glass jar every couple hours, once the oil coming out is not worth it for you refill with herbs and start again.

To make it more efficient you can wrap the whole thing in fireproof roof insulation, saves you a bit on gas.