Essential Oil Distillation

Apothecary shops or traditional drug stores existed throughout historic Portsmouth New Hampshire by the 19th century. Just as we visit pharmacies today to source medications and health products, locals here in Portsmouth throughout the 1800s visited apothecary shops to bring home various mineral and plant based mediations for minor and severe ailments.

Join Erik Wochholz, Curator of Historic Landscapes at Strawbery Banke Museum, as he gives a short demonstration of essential oil distillation. As novice and expert practitioners created plant based medications over time in Portsmouth, many of them utilized distillation sets to extract essential oils which were often the foundation of many medicinal recipes. Enjoy a connection to history and current practice as Wochholz explains the process of steam distillation with the museums organic lavender.

Track info:
Creative Commons - Attribution 3.0 Unported - CC BY 3.0

[robkunkel]

The music loop drove me crazy at 3:49. Thank god for close captioning. A good video. Thanks.

[Srelus]

Water should always flow in from the bottom of the cooler (the end closest to the flask) and flow out from the top of the condenser. Doing it this way always guarantees that your condenser will be filled with cooling water. If you set it the other way around, and if for some reason the speed of the water flow into the condenser decreases and becomes slower than the speed of the water leaving the condenser, the condenser will not remain filled with water. If the reaction were unattended, this could cause problems.

[daniel.farkaswolf]

Next time the cooling is reverse..
Water in the bottom out to top. ;)

[terrymckensey]

Like someone said, switch your pumps intake and outtake. The condenser vwill fill all the way if switched. And will remove air bubbles

[tim_sears]

The condenser water flow is reversed. It should be input on bottom and out at the top.

[MudGuardian]

Organic lavender essential oil goes so well with techno

[michaelmcarthy]

You Set the water pump up the wrong way round bro :)

[biokemist]

Who assembled the set up? The water in the condenser should flow from bottom to top😅

[A-Ls]

This was so fun to learn. I’m going to do this! I love plants and science. Herbs, flowers, stems, roots, seeds, everything is fun to find out how the functions are cooperating. Thank you 🙏🏾

[TheXenocorpse]

I grew up in Portsmouth and I love Strawberry Banke! I’m an herbalist and one of my main hobbies is distillation! This video was great, I really enjoyed it. I have always used copper stills but I’m just beginning to get into using glass.

[KittyzandCream]

Loads of people have already mentioned the condenser thing, but I also wanted to point out that the essential oils aren’t the only product you get from the distillation. The “water” that you probably tossed is full of hydro sold that you can also use. Just something to keep in mind

[SerahBay]

AWESOME, thank you for sharing! this is straight out of my alchemist life dream 😍

[lisawoodard]

This was great, thank you so much for uploading! I cant wait to try!!

[Tootnscoot]

This guys obviously a supervisor with no idea how the job is actually done.

[douglascarlson]

The hoses on your double condenser are mixed up. You switched the inlet hose for your outlet hose. Easy to fix, just swap the 2 hoses.

[vrtsgme]

Water in at the bottom and out the top of the condenser. Great video thank you.

[alexshepko]

You've connected the water pump in a wrong way. Cold water should rise frome the bottom of the condenser, fill the condenser and get out on top of it. Otherwise, even if there are a few bubbles left, the apparatus might break because the temperature difference is too big. I'm not sure if it can do so in this specific case, but setting cold water at the bottom is traditionally correct and more efficient.

[gooblysgaming]

Dudes talking like he has a clue what he's doing but he doesn't even pump the water in the right way to the condenser column

[helenyoung]

I have researched info on how to distill to get essential oils. What I don't understand though, is why can't you just put the plant material in the boiling water? I figured it would do the same thing. I know the videos I have seen of making essential oil from resins are done that way. The apothecary either smashes the resin to powder or they put the resin pieces in whole and just allow it to boil together. I guess I just want to know if there is any different thing you do with the resin distillation as compared to plant.

[KMoWearableArt]

Kill the annoying music!! You can circulate water in copper stills as well.