homeslice
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essential oil hydrodistillation general questions
Ok so im getting ready to steam distill some essential oil from a large quantity of recently acquired roots and rootbark and i have a couple general
questions.
Im planning on pretty much boiling the chunks and then collecting the distillate. Is a wood chipper necessary for the smaller roots? And for the
stumps, how big should the chunks be? One inch thick? Two inches thick? Does it really matter?
I would imagine that the larger the piece of root the longer it will take to give up its oils, but is this the case or not?
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Poppy
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You'll have a high probablity of success. Distilling oils is an ancient method for extracting aromas as the case of vanilla.
Wish you luck!
[Edited on 6-27-2012 by Poppy]
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homeslice
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Yep im fairly optimistic that it should work out.
Im just not sure how thick the pieces of root should be. And then im also not sure if ill know when to stop. Ive never distilled anything on this
large of a scale before.
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Zan Divine
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The rule is "the smaller the better". If it were all sawdust it would be ideal.
You'll know you're done when the amount of oil in a recently collected distillation sample appears too small to be worth further effort.
[Edited on 27-6-2012 by Zan Divine]
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of some of the pain of being a man. --HST
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Qualitative
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Why not use a pressure canner like a big all American? Hypothesis, fill the canner up to the bottom plate with distilled H2O, ~2-3 cups depending on
size, 21qt, then fill up 1/3rd with your root bark. Seal the wingnuts, set the reg weight at 15, and bring it up to temp, ~240F. Once the weight
starts to bounce and release steam, scale it back to a point it release about every 5-10 secs, hold it there for 45 min. Turn off the heat and let it
come back down to stp, may take several hours, do not pull off the weight even when the gauge is back to 0 psi, let it sit for another 30 minutes.
Then lift the weight, undue your nuts and remove the lid. Using a large spoon, ladle, place your bark in a large bowl (optional: after placing in
the bowl transfer to a metal strainer, pasta type, and use a bowl, cup, small lid, to force the excess liquid back into the canner). Pour the
water/oil mixture in the canner into a large beaker, filter using med flow paper, then sep in a funnel, should be a fairly straight forward
extraction, set aside, and repeat. Expect ~3% oil recovery from said bark weight, fresh is best, don't let it dry out.
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homeslice
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Are you saying a 3% return on the rootback? Im under the assumption that the root itself is around 1% with the bark being around 8%. Maybe that would
average out to 3%? The rootbark from some of the roots from the larger trees is awfully thick and heavy.
My plan is the chipper shredder the entire root, bark and root, and distill all 200 pounds of it. Im thinking more along the lines of using a home
made whiskey still made out of a stainless steel keg. Its almost ready and when its all said and done, ill report back the findings.
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