"Low temperature distillation"

[Mr.P]

Sorry you feel that way, as I said, if I assumed wrongly that you were referring to yesterday's threads, then I apologize. Thought I'd been keeping up on all the recent threads here, and that was the only low temp conversation this week that I recalled, and you explicitly didn't mention oud in your post and mentioned recency..

My bad. Honest mistake.

It's all good - i was hangry - i think i need to remind myself that i can state what i want to state, and let misinterpretations stand, without having to create a side conversation about the misinterpretations.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Its confusing.
Imagine being a novice like myself, trying to learn to distill properly.
Its amazing how much talk there is about it and how little usefull info is actually shared.
Like how fast should the thing run anyways? So you go look at footage of folks distilling something. There's the lavender videos. Usually with the hydrosol pooring down. Theres the artisanal footage where you happy if you see something drip down at all in the 10 second shot.
One guy setting enough fire under the still to go for a coffee on mars, the other showing a thermometer on top of the still pointing at 70°c (distilling 5kg agarwood for 5 days)..
Slow pace advocates without any stirring device mounted.
Steam distillation same story. Tight pack, layered pack using grids.
Heating profile? Zero useful information.
But as a novice, how do you distinguish between rubbish and info? You go looking for info because you do not know how it is done properly, after all.
In the end you just throw something cheap in and run your own experiments to find answers. Are those answers correct? Idk..

 

[Shampoo_Dream]

Btw, just chiming in, under the description of Kangiten’s jasmine oil, they do specifically mention the use of a vacuum during the distillation process.
Also, as one who has their jasmine oil, it is interesting to note that it is of extremely low viscosity - almost water like. So much so that it is necessary to pipette out the oil instead of using the dropper as it all would gush out.

 

[Adweeya Mufriha]

Oooh, I always assumed one of the accepted uses of "low temperature" was by opposition to industrial stream distillations parametres, so for example 100 celsius, versus, say 120-140 for insustrial steam distillation of sandalwood, just to take one example)...
... is that totally erroneous ?

Beyond that my other understanding is more literal : when you distill in altitude. For example we hydro distill for our hindu kush rose distillation at above 2000m / 7000 feet for the main orchard (we have subsidiary fields in an adjacent reasgion, with their own stills up from that at two different altitudes, up a good 500 metres +)
At 2,200 meters (7,200 feet), pure water boils at approximately 93 degrees celsius
Many sandwalwood we produce are hydrodistilled around 1500m / 5000 feet high, where around 95 degrees celsius is the boiling temp.

So without any vacuum techniques (not really familiar with their use in practice) you can distill at a literally low temperature compared to the commonly accepted reference point.

I didnt read all the answers to the thread, so I am sure I am missing something hahah.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Oooh, I always assumed one of the accepted uses of "low temperature" was by opposition to industrial stream distillations parametres, so for example 100 celsius, versus, say 120-140 for insustrial steam distillation of sandalwood, just to take one example)...
... is that totally erroneous ?

Never looked at it that way and i think it makes sense if it is common practice to push things to 120-140°.

Are there any disadvantages to distill at the high altitude you mention and the lower boilingpoint of water?

 

[Adweeya Mufriha]

Oh, and also I usually imagine the expression joined with "low pressure" so "low pressure and low temperature" becasue you can have higher pressure and low(er) temperature but the process can be rash, were a slow gentle extraction at no added presure is usually much more desirable for artisan hydro. That difference can add entire days to the procedure for sandalwoods.

I know what I have learnt from specilaized distillers I work(ed) with (so the gentle approach) , the rest comes from readings, comparisons of oils and trade discussions.

 

[Mr.P]

Oh, and also I usually imagine the expression joined with "low pressure" so "low pressure and low temperature" becasue you can have higher pressure and low(er) temperature but the process can be rash, were a slow gentle extraction at no added presure is usually much more desirable for artisan hydro. That difference can add entire days to the procedure for sandalwoods.

I know what I have learnt from specilaized distillers I work(ed) with (so the gentle approach) , the rest comes from readings, comparisons of oils and trade discussions.

Absolutely! Just for the record in bringing this up I was talking about claims to be hydrodistilling at temperatures below 100 C without vacuum. Indeed ambient distillation is lower pressure and temperature compared to pressurized steam.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Absolutely! Just for the record in bringing this up I was talking about claims to be hydrodistilling at temperatures below 100 C without vacuum. Indeed ambient distillation is lower pressure and temperature compared to pressurized steam.

I dumpt insta, otherwise i could pull up several images of conventional rigs with temperature gauges pointing at 70-80°c while running. Makes you wonder whats going on, maybe simple lying to look more artisanal?

 

[Mr.P]

I dumpt insta, otherwise i could pull up several images of conventional rigs with temperature gauges pointing at 70-80°c while running. Makes you wonder whats going on, maybe simple lying to look more artisanal?

The thermometer is not in the right location is the most likely explanation if it's at ambient pressure and water is the medium though I wonder at what elevation you would have to be for water to boil at that temperature? It would be 83.3 at 15,000 ft...

Alcohol boils in the high 70s. you can pull a vacuum with water, but as you know you can't just turn the flame way down and suddenly water is going to boil at a lower temperature.

 

[roflwaffle]

I dumpt insta, otherwise i could pull up several images of conventional rigs with temperature gauges pointing at 70-80°c while running. Makes you wonder whats going on, maybe simple lying to look more artisanal?

Could be more benign, the probe could be touching the stainless column and it acting like a heatsink is giving bad readings, or other bad setups. would be a bit embarrassing for them, but its possible. I dont know that i'd expect a 20C gradient there, but i'll admit i've never measured the outside of the bungs. Could be janky aliexpress thermometer, or calibrated to give lower reading as you said to 'look more artisinal' though i'm not sure why one would go through the hassle.

could be its refluxing like mad, and only a small portion is remaining at temp to actually get oud out (like walls are 80c, center of path is still 100 due to heat sinking from the tube), but i'm not sure why one would consider this desirable or artisinal. Maybe its pics from the very beginning of distillation, and whats coming out at that point is just the methanol or other wood alcohols and not oud yet. (I assume with that much wood load that there is some negligable foreshot, but i could be wrong there). i suppose they could have also just recycled some hyrdosol and that dropped temp temporarily, but most folks should be running continous setups, and not sure why that'd be the photo moment they chose.

my bets on bad readings from some heatsinking/poorly understood setup, as pessimistic as that is. Still think there's likely sufficient vapor pressure at 90 to get something to come out likely, and minor elevation variance (but not sure why that'd be desirable), but 70 no.