Copper Alembic Still

 

Just look at this beauty. My heart stopped the first time I saw one, and I knew I must add it to my home crafting supplies. Lest you think I'm ALL about the superficial eye candy, rest assured that it was the combination of usefulness and aesthetics that spurred me to covet and acquire this piece of functional art from Copper Brothers in Portugal.

There is a distinct aroma that says Home here in Central Oregon. Over the years I've identified different factions of this smell. While nordic skiing the sun comes out and warms the pine trees, sap, and Manzanita bushes. There's one. While hiking, my foot would crush a bit of pinecone and juniper berries, stirring up smooth yet sharp notes. That's another piece. More recently I discovered the extremely heady, perfumey fragrance of Ceanothus Velutinus or snowbrush. There's that sweet part of the Home scent. We have acres of natural sage, pine and juniper trees on our property, and planted lavender to add to the mix. I wanted to distill these and other native flora into a scent to share with others who may never make it to my neck of the woods or to enrich any environment with lovely natural aromatherapy.

My research into distilling essential oils and hydrosols led me to this striking still. Here I am a few years later firing her up and experimenting with an assortment of vegetation. For all of my research, I came up with only a few nuggets of pertinent information. My best resource was from Erin Stewart over on her website, Floranella. Her site led me to a few local lavender farms; and Youtube is always good for a smattering of useful (and not so useful) videos. There is so much I want to learn. I had intended to take a class with Erin that was offered through Wildcraft Studios, but then the pandemic hit. I just found another excellent resource and video from Mother Earth Living. I highly recommend watching their video. I am a total newby, but I will gladly share with you my limited knowledge and any tips that I've gleaned.

The base of the still is called the pot. The column is next, and is often optional. The top part is called the cap or the onion or the swan neck lid. The lyne arm is the connecter to the condenser, where the coiled tubing is. 

I've heard from a couple sources that you shouldn't use the same still for both essential oils and alcohol. I guess I won't be making any moonshine. It was suggested that 3 litres to 10 litres would be good sizes for home distilling. The column needs to be pretty packed with plant material for making oil. That's a lot of plants to pack the 10L column! The smaller 3L size seemed perfect for me because I only had a few large lavender plants. I didn't want to use all of my lavender for one distillation. I wanted to combine it with other plants and try different blends. 

When you receive your still, check the box, packaging, and still for any damage. In my case, there was a three-day time period in which to file any damage claim, which was clearly stated on the website. I hadn't noticed this reminder, and with Covid I let my box sit for a while before I opened it up and really checked it out. Unfortunately, the box was damaged in shipping and my still had a dent in it. Luckily, I've taken many metal smithing classes and felt comfortable doing as Copper Brothers customer service suggested, and used a rubber mallet to gently tap the dent out. Phew, disaster diverted! And by the way, I found Copper Bros customer service to be prompt and helpful. Also, I received my still within the week of ordering! Yes, that was an international order.

Besides the still, you'll need a heat source. I chose a 1500W electrical burner. You'll also need to cool the coils in the condenser unit by keeping a flow of cold water. I didn't want to be wasteful with free flowing water, and opted for recyling it. A bucket or container for the water, aquarium pump, and some tubing does the trick. I bought a very inexpensive pump for $12. I wish I had gotten a better pump that had a knob to control the flow of the water instead of twisting the tubing to control the flow. The knob would have been much easier. It's worth the extra $10 to get this feature, and you'll probably get a stronger pump to boot. 

I found setting the still up took some time and finagling. You need to find the right height of supports for under the condenser unit to match the burner and still height. The cooling water system has to be just right. And how to catch the hydrosol is another conundrum. Have lots of bricks, tiles, bowls, stools, etc around to figure this all out. I took a picture when it all worked to refer to the next time I set up. 

I like having the thermometer built into the still. You'll want to seal any joints that might let vapor escape with either a paste of rye flour and water or with teflon tape. It's not actually "tape" in that it doesn't have adhesive on it (Thank goodness! I mean, who would want to get this gorgeous copper all sticky and gunked up???) Plumbers use it to seal pipes. It clings to the metal and doesn't allow any steam to escape. My still was pretty air tight, but I did notice one tiny spot that needed the tape.

You can use the still without the column and put plant matter in the pot with the water. You can pack the column with plant matter. You can also do both in combination. If you put plant matter into the pot, it's suggested to put a strainer or something on the bottom of the pot to prevent the plant matter from resting on the pot bottom and getting scorched from the heat. I mostly used just the column. 

It takes a long time to get the water to boil, so it's much quicker to pour boiling water into the pot right from the beginning. Once you reach 100 degrees celsius or 220 degrees fahrenheit you should soon see tiny spurts of hydrosol come out of the condenser. I would run the still anywhere from one to three hours, getting one to two pints of hydrosol. 

The essential oil floats to the top of the hydrosol and can be removed by a variety of methods. I would guess there is only one to two tablespoons of essential oil in one batch. I decided this year to just leave the oil and hydrosol together and not bother with removing the oil. I found the hydrosol to be very long lasting and fragrant. In fact, my sage blend was REALLY sagey, and smelled like Thanksgiving. I sprayed about four spritzes and it lingered for weeks! Perhaps a little too long to smell like Thanksgiving dinner in summer.

I distilled rabbit brush blossoms, which has a very green, lightly pineapple like fragrance. I also tried juniper berries and pine blossoms. My favorite, of course, is the lavender. I tried fresh and dried and love them both.

I've put my still away for the year, but look forward to next season. I hope to plant additional fragrant plants to try along with my native growers. 

If you keep your hydrosol in the refrigerator, it should last about a year. I've purchased some pretty cobalt glass sprayers from Amazon in different sizes to fill for gifts. 

I'll be putting together sets of hydrosol, handmade linen towels, and wax wraps for Christmas gifts this year. I'll try to put up a post on the wax wraps soon. For now I'll enjoy the lingering scents of summer with my hydrosols.