Experimentations in Cheap Oud

[roflwaffle]

I blended some quite aromatic/loud oud in with some (cheap) CK oud, mostly just to see what would happen. At first, it seemed very promising, big bold opening that was slightly softened by the honey camphor of the CK CO2, exactly as hoped. However, after given time to meld, the CK has dampened it... quite a bit. Too much. Instead of the oud raising up the CK, the CK beat it down to it's level of faint skin scent.

I am curious if the chromones or waxes are acting as a heavy fixative of sorts (with CO2 oils, as I understand it being lousy with them). So instead of writing off a failed cheap experiment, my mind went to work on how I'd prove that out. Fixatives are great, in known quantities, of the right types, but I don't know that these are really doing this oud any good, so... let's remove them!

Briefly, I think I can target mostly the chromones and the waxes by diluting them in ethanol, and freezing them. Winterization. Cold temps will crash out a portion of the waxes, chromones, and likely some collateral damage, and then cold filter them out quickly with a Buchner funnel, and I should be left with a less viscous, higher proportion of sesquiterpenes, stronger, less fixative base after evaping off the alcohol. I hope?

I'm wondering if anyone sees any glaring issues here, apart from wasting my time on silliness. Other option that seemed potentially viable would be to just run the CO2 in water through distillation, which should leave the heavy molecules behind, but, even with a small, not locked in wood matrix solution, I imagine will still take... a long run.

@Mr.P - have you ever tried to run a followup distillation on your CK resin extracts for luls? I imagine you've at least considered it. The remaining ethanol would come out as a foreshot, clean, or rotovap out the alcohol, then distill out the lighter compounds via conventional hydro distillation. Would it be oud oil? of course not. But potentilaly an interesting subset of compounds. Really only makes financial sense for CK as it's essentially free. (for commodity grade, not all chinese a. sinensis, obviously).

I suppose I'll know in a day or so. I've diluted 10ml of CK, and I can see a healthy crashed out portion after being in the chest freezer for 24h. I'll give it another day or so to ensure it has the time needed, and then see if i can filter as fast as possible (got the Buchner in the freezer too). Will be interesting to see if the crashed out part has a scent of is own or what the division ends up being. Keeps me off the streets I suppose 😀.

Any feedback on incorrect assumptions on my part would be appreciated! I'm certainly no expert here.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Seems to be improving a bit, still was small yield. However, I've ordered a clevenger, heatsink, fan, and the rest i think I need to make it safely self sustain over a long period without babysitting. When the pieces all arrive, I'll take a detour to distilling cheap sinensis CO2 as that should be more of a 'known' quantity, and I have like... 100ml of the stuff. So running maybe 30ml of it should yield, not a pathetic amount and less time monitoring. Prob another 10 days before it all arrives though, its on a slowboat from china.

Not for any real expectations of quality, but more just to prove out a hypothesis, expand my own understanding, and the answer to that unlocks a few interesting things in mildly unrelated future thoughts.

Slowboat giving you some time to figure out how the deal with the open end of the condenser in that setup, if you haven't already. Volatiles are eager to escape trough that wide open door to the world..

 

[roflwaffle]

Slowboat giving you some time to figure out how the deal with the open end of the condenser in that setup, if you haven't already. Volatiles are eager to escape trough that wide open door to the world..

For sure. At least when running it not vertically, the condenser/pump was only about 10-20% utilized at my running rate on average, even though overtime, the reservoir heated up quite a bit and needed cooling.

My hope is that the very large radiator and active cooling fan will add a few hundred watts of cooling equivalent, so that should well overpower a vertical condenser. If not, I can look at like the 'wavey globe' shape condenser or other workarounds, but I think just keeping ahead of cooling rates and not pushing it too far should *hopefully* make it a non issue. I can certainly add a larger reservoir as well to sink a even more. Basically just overpower that steam trickle being the cheapest path to continunous operation without needing like a tap off the water main like i'd do with my 14gal.

Also, I'd generally just put a loose fitting cap on it. it'd blow off if any buildup, but gives me a general visual check, and often where i'd put another thermometer to see whats goin on up there.

PS, I did reclaim all the 'goop' back down to a mobile ethanol solution. Pain in the bum, as in water it went down to a very thick sludge, so needed to dilute a bit for mobility, and then clean all the glasswear and filter out pumice grit, etc. It still smells quite strongly, so i'm guessing there's still things trapped inside that i just didnt run long enough. I'll come back to it after the CO2 run ... probably. Time and patience are a given here, but for expected small yields there, at some point the juice isnt worth the squeeze at this scale batch. For CO2 the yields should be more reasonable for microscale though.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

For sure. At least when running it not vertically, the condenser/pump was only about 10-20% utilized at my running rate on average, even though overtime, the reservoir heated up quite a bit and needed cooling.

My hope is that the very large radiator and active cooling fan will add a few hundred watts of cooling equivalent, so that should well overpower a vertical condenser. If not, I can look at like the 'wavey globe' shape condenser or other workarounds, but I think just keeping ahead of cooling rates and not pushing it too far should *hopefully* make it a non issue. I can certainly add a larger reservoir as well to sink a even more. Basically just overpower that steam trickle being the cheapest path to continunous operation without needing like a tap off the water main like i'd do with my 14gal.

Also, I'd generally just put a loose fitting cap on it. it'd blow off if any buildup, but gives me a general visual check, and often where i'd put another thermometer to see whats goin on up there.

PS, I did reclaim all the 'goop' back down to a mobile ethanol solution. Pain in the bum, as in water it went down to a very thick sludge, so needed to dilute a bit for mobility, and then clean all the glasswear and filter out pumice grit, etc. It still smells quite strongly, so i'm guessing there's still things trapped inside that i just didnt run long enough. I'll come back to it after the CO2 run ... probably. Time and patience are a given here, but for expected small yields there, at some point the juice isnt worth the squeeze at this scale batch. For CO2 the yields should be more reasonable for microscale though.

With a standard straight glassware you could do some makeshift extention rod and fill it with pulled apart steel scouring pads. That gives a big surface area for escaped vapor to condensate on. Like 2 foot or so. That should be cheap enough even for a onetime experiment. Just wrap 1 end in some cotton tape (as found in first aid supplies) to make it fit.

Did the goop fully dissolve? Some times depending on who-knows-what such goop is makings strong bonds and will not fully dissolsve but eventually sink to the bottom, which leaves you with a clean alcohol extract.

 

[roflwaffle]

With a standard straight glassware you could do some makeshift extention rod and fill it with pulled apart steel scouring pads. That gives a big surface area for escaped vapor to condensate on. Like 2 foot or so. That should be cheap enough even for a onetime experiment. Just wrap 1 end in some cotton tape (as found in first aid supplies) to make it fit.

Did the goop fully dissolve? Some times depending on who-knows-what such goop is makings strong bonds and will not fully dissolsve but eventually sink to the bottom, which leaves you with a clean alcohol extract.

I have copper mesh I use for column packing that may work better than steel. I've seen reference on here that copper helps somewhat with some off aromas, but great idea, def adds surface area for droplets to collect and fall!

Yes, goop fully redissolved overnight in ethanol. In water, no, certainly not. But with heat it was lava lamp like and would rise and fall in large drops. I was rather surprised it seemed to go readily back into ethanol solution. I'm sure some is still in the water, but I saved that in the fridge for when I restart, should keep a bit til the. I hope anyway, will judge it then, though I suppose it's stuff that'd just go into the hydrosol anyway, minimal reclamation into oil