It starts with a still …
When I decided that essential oil distillation sounded like a fun hobby to get into I knew that a still was one of the first decisions. After a fair amount of research, I decided on a copper one for the excellent heat transfer characteristics. One of the companies that caught my eye was Copper Pro out of Ukraine. Their stills are copper, look solidly built (they are), lots of sizes and accessories, and in the price range I had set for myself. I chose the 5L version shown below.
I went with the extra column, which I have used a number of times. It certainly added to the flexibility of the still. Be sure to browse all of their selections as there are many different sizes and options.
For a heat source, I used a hot plate that I had in the shop for other projects. It has worked excellent for the still, heating the 1.5L of water I start with to the boiling point in about 20 minutes (+/- depending on the starting point). My experience with the boil off is 0.5L per 25 minutes. Since my typical distillation time (at boiling) for a load is around 20 minutes, starting with 1.5L gives me 1L at turn off, plenty for me to feel I stopped with plenty of water. As there is no sight glass, you will want to run your own experiments with only water before you reach your own conclusions.
Cooling the still was a major consideration as my shop has no running water . I went with the solution of ice in a 5G bucket, with a water pump. For the ice, I use old water bottles that I keep in a freezer. I will admit that in a day session of distilling I will go through several loads of ice, so I keep 3 to 4 batches in the freezer. I recommend going with silicone tubing, as plastic tends to allow for some leaking, especially when there is side pressure on the connection. I have had zero leaking issues since moving to silicone. I do keep a digital thermometer in the water stream (note the silver on the right side of the picture) in order to tell when I want to change out ice blocks … or even start over with fresh, cool water if I am between batches.
Keep good notes. I keep a log book of all of my distillation activities, mainly to learn from (and remember what I am supposed to do a year after the last batch!) There is a table for each run that covers what I consider the minimum information:
- Date / Time
- Material, including amount and source
- Quantity of water in the still
- Time I turned on the hot plate
- Start of boil time and cooling water temp
- Time of first output
- Shutdown time and cooling water temp
- Time hydrosol stopped dripping
- Amount of resultant oil
Conclusion
As is probably pretty obvious, if you want to get into distillation of essential oils, three things are pretty critical … the still, the heat source, and the cooling. Next time I will discuss my first distillation using real materials.
