Rose Hydrosol ** Q for Butch

[Guest guest]

Hi Shivani,

 

> Describing the processes of making EOs and hydrosols, you said:

 

> > " there are still village folks around even here in Turkey, who use a

> > crude form of stove-top distillation to obtain these aromatic waters

> > we call Hydrosols/Hydrolates - but what they are getting is not really

> > a true product of distillation but rather the condensation of steam

> > following heating the plant material in water. "

 

> I have a stovetop distillation unit. If I set some plant material on a

> rack above the boiling water will I be doing what the villagers are

> doing?

 

Not really. They use a pan called a " kazan, " which you could make if

you wanted to .. think of a pot with a concave lid on it .. of course,

you'll need to set the lid at an angle so the top doesn't blow off. As

the heat the water the roses or oregano or whatever is in, the steam

rises and then again turns to liquid and runs back down the concave lid

(top the center) where the EO falls into another little pot that is

weighted down and sitting in the center of the larger pot. The EO will,

of course, float on top of the condensed water in that smaller pot .. so

you wind up with a small bit of EO and a small pot full of condensed

steam that is the nearest thing to a hydrosol that can be obtained using

that method. This form of home distillation has been commonly used in

the Middle and Near East for thousands of years.

 

> Why is it not a true hydrosol?

 

When the water boils, the steam and the EO vaporize and move through the

escape coils in the still .. they then go through a condensor where they

are again converted to a liquid. So you wind up with a Florentine Flask

or other type of catch basin that has a heavy, oil-bearing hydrosol at

the bottom and the pure oil floating on top of it. The short of it is

that a true hydrosol is the water-soluable portion of that vapor that

results from the steam or hydro-steam distillation of an aromatic

plant. The EO is the portion of that vapor that was not

water-soluable. Without true distillation, you cannot obtain a true

hydrosol and a GC/MS will show the difference.

 

> Thanks for your patience will all our questions. I really appreciate

> all the knowledge you share with us.

 

Thankee m'am .. it's my pleasure. If folks wanna see this operation for

themselves, they can get a better idea of what I was describing - check

out URL http://www.AV-AT.com/distillation/rosadamascena1.html this

will take you from the Rose fields through the distillation process.

You will see the hydrosols and the Rose Otto in a flask. Lots of photos

so it might download a bit slow depending on your server .. but those

pictures are worth a thousand words .. and there's even a few thousand

words to go along with the pictures .. ;-)

 

At the bottom of the first page, click on the part that takes you to the

second page .. that is where the actual distillation is shown.

 

On the bottom of the second page - you will see it written:

 

" More pictures of the distillation process can be seen by clicking

here. "

 

Don't bother clicking it cause it goes nowhere - Chris lost that website

and is redoing it at http://www.av-at.com/stuff/triptoturkey.html ;-p

 

Do click that one and you can find lots of nice photos .. it's gonna get

better as soon as the Cybergoober List Mom puts back all the nice stuff

that used to be on that site afore Home.com blew it and lost the site.

 

> Thanks,

> Shivani

 

Welcome you are .. and y'all keep smiling, Butch http://www.AV-AT.com

 

PS: Gonna have 12-15 new oils around 7 February or so ... didn't wanna

add new ones to the end-of-year inventory as it would have made the IRS

smile .. and I knew we were moving .. ;-p Got a bunch in for testing

now and I expect most all of them will prove to be pure and maybe

75%-80% of them will be acceptable to me from a quality standpoint - as

y'all know, purity and quality are two different animals ... there are

many pure but mediocre quality oils .. based on an evaluation of their

chemical profile, they lack that maximum value that some folks unwisely

call " therapeutic " and which I prefer to call " aromatherapy " grade .. if

they are not AT grade, I classify them as commercial grade .. fine for

soaps and other processes where the original identity of the oil will be

modified anyway. I have never dealt in commercial grade. Hard enough to

keep up with what I do now ..