Looking for ideas for a castorum maceration.

[roflwaffle]

It takes me no time to hit the limits of my knowledge on this topic but I'm sure I have read online somewhere in the last couple of years about a distinction between the absolute extracted from fresh or still wet castor versus that which has been thoroughly dried. I'm not sure what "wet means" in this case… but the gooey one produces more of a fruity aroma I think I saw a reference to berries.

I wonder about drying practices and if there are traditional drying methods being used or how that happens, I know in some regions it's pretty common practice to dry things using heat from a fire which can impart some smoky / phenolic notes and I think i read that this may influence the bouquet of certain types of castor.

Eager for corrections if I have anything wrong here because some of the sources that I've used to learn about some of these more exotic materials are quite "quaint" - a lot of of those old manuals of perfume available on project Guttenberg and archive.org

I think you have the right of it. Fresh is sold by apothecary garden, as is cured, and powdered, and fresh is more fruity per AG, though I thought historically, 2 year cure was used to remove some off notes, not sure how to explain both being true

And yes some smoke can come from fire drying, but I think some phenolics/smoke can come naturally as well.

Though I'm still not sure about cured/cured meat jerky dry and cracker dry/ground

AG uses the former in eth and latter in oils in the above recipes, but I'm not sure if intentional or just showing off their productlines

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

You could also ethanol rinse the wet powder remainder after pressing, evap off if you wanted to reclaim as much as possible. I'd be curious if the marc is fully extracted. If you don't want ethanol or don't want to lose any notes, id consider just rolling the powder/sandal into a new tincture, e.g. refill with patchouli and have a mildly 'contaminated' but pleasant second run

Re-using the marc is definitely a good option. I'm yet to buy any patchouli for my other experiment. @Mr.P, I'm surprised more people don't tinker around really. But I guess, plenty of people just prefer a finished product whatever that may be. For me, it put's in an extra layer of exploration and experimentation. Getting to feel and see the material and most importantly smell it in it's most rawest form can be inspiring. Learning how materials then bond with each other as a composition progress's is exciting.
I mean, surely a lot of this stuff was discovered by accident way back when?
Dan from AG has just released a very good video on this very subject. Well worth watching.

 

[Mr.P]

Re-using the marc is definitely a good option. I'm yet to buy any patchouli for my other experiment. @Mr.P, I'm surprised more people don't tinker around really. But I guess, plenty of people just prefer a finished product whatever that may be. For me, it put's in an extra layer of exploration and experimentation. Getting to feel and see the material and most importantly smell it in it's most rawest form can be inspiring. Learning how materials then bond with each other as a composition progress's is exciting.
I mean, surely a lot of this stuff was discovered by accident way back when?
Dan from AG has just released a very good video on this very subject. Well worth watching.

I am likewise surprised there isn't more tinkering because for me that's pretty much the origin of all of the interest, if it was like collecting stamps I think I would have moved on a long time ago.

I think modern society in some ways kind of conspires to keep people busy all the time and some of these leisure activities that used to define people's identities (think amateur scientists in the Victorian era) have fallen by the wayside. I think a lack of leisure and lack of a need to search for creative solutions to fill free time have resulted in a kind of die back of what could be a major part of our culture.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

I am likewise surprised there isn't more tinkering because for me that's pretty much the origin of all of the interest, if it was like collecting stamps I think I would have moved on a long time ago.

I think modern society in some ways kind of conspires to keep people busy all the time and some of these leisure activities that used to define people's identities (think amateur scientists in the Victorian era) have fallen by the wayside. I think a lack of leisure and lack of a need to search for creative solutions to fill free time have resulted in a kind of die back of what could be a major part of our culture.

Actually engagement in our and related hobbies is higher than ever. The idea we have about Victorian amateur scientists is more fed by the fact that there was much to discover and such discoveries were often catching headlines.
Leisure time was limited at least for us working men back then, with 60 hr workweeks being the norm. Access to equipment, information and raw materials was also very restricted. The pros in Grasse and similar upcoming industries were even more secretive than today.
Within the current 18% of adults with a science related hobby, ours ranks less than 1%. Apparently the chance of a rewarding outcome per 'unit of invested effort' is quite low compared to other science hobbies and we kind of becoming more and more wired for instant gratification as everything is presented as easy, fast etc. That might be the pitfall, not leisure time.

 

[roflwaffle]

Actually engagement in our and related hobbies is higher than ever. The idea we have about Victorian amateur scientists is more fed by the fact that there was much to discover and such discoveries were often catching headlines.
Leisure time was limited at least for us working men back then, with 60 hr workweeks being the norm. Access to equipment, information and raw materials was also very restricted. The pros in Grasse and similar upcoming industries were even more secretive than today.
Within the current 18% of adults with a science related hobby, ours ranks less than 1%. Apparently the chance of a rewarding outcome per 'unit of invested effort' is quite low compared to other science hobbies and we kind of becoming more and more wired for instant gratification as everything is presented as easy, fast etc. That might be the pitfall, not leisure time.

Yes, I agree that leisure time and access and information has increased.

And with the world at our fingertips, the gap between 'good enough answer' and 'let me move the bar or figure things out myself' has widened immensely. If running an experiment at home was around the same time as getting in your car and driving to the local university and looking through a card catalog and then reading many dense research journals, over days, then the experiment often wins. And even if somewhere in the world, someone had done something similar enough to answer your thought, the odds of finding it were sometimes low. Lots of parallel innovation in that era.

Now, its quick search or ask AI, vs hours or days or weeks of work, and the 'instant gratification' part of the brain says 'meh, pass'. Sure with more tools, knowledge, ability to reach others for discussion,experimenting has gotten faster as well, but not to the same orders of magnitude, so it's lost ground

Social media and short form communication contributes as well, as people have gotten used to getting bite sized pieces of information to stimulate their lizard brains, and even reading a 6 month journal log is failing to meet the bar for many but all the most personally relevent topics, even when there is value or information to be gained.

I'm not sure its all some consipiracy or anything intentionally malicious, or even necessarily all bad, one can ramp up on a topic faster than ever, but there's casualties as well. I want to think it also has contributed to or is related to a lot of collecting skewing heavily towards quantity not quality, similar fast feedback endorphine rush, FOMO etc. Also not terrible in itself, but still a weird more modern conundrum.

time still remains the only non-renewable resource.

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

All very relevant food for thought.