MFH - Experiments & Materials

[MaxFromHolland]

For some reason the oil from the vacuumpump got sucked into the coldtrap 🤬 Guess next i'll be evaporating 80ml of ethanol from some 150ml of brand new oil 😕
Oh well 🤷

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Woke up with the birds
View attachment 54058to get started. Dutch cherry wood, Vietnamese agarwood powder and a handfull of cherries, fermented for 5 days.
View attachment 54057
And no, I don't know what i will end up with. Time will tell (multi-day run)..

Day 2. Got a bit alarmed by some rotten fruit scent near the still, but that's from elsewhere in the neighbourhood apparently..

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Frankly #1
Based on agarwood- and some propolis extracts, with a few drops of both frankincense and papyrus. I love how those 2 complement and expand eachother.
A small blob of port extract adds turns the base more suede than woody, keeping a powdery dry profile* top to bottom.

* Which is rather unusual, given my preference for anything dark, damp and funky 😁

 

[Mr.P]

For some reason the oil from the vacuumpump got sucked into the coldtrap 🤬 Guess next i'll be evaporating 80ml of ethanol from some 150ml of brand new oil 😕
Oh well 🤷

i've heard this is always a possibility with those inexpensive vacuum pumps and the chambers but am not clear on exactly what happens. Was this the oil mist that these pumps produce getting pulled into the chamber or actually liquid oil flowing through the tube? How did it happen?

 

[Mr.P]

Frankly #1
View attachment 54087Based on agarwood- and some propolis extracts, with a few drops of both frankincense and papyrus. I love how those 2 complement and expand eachother.
A small blob of port extract adds turns the base more suede than woody, keeping a powdery dry profile* top to bottom.

* Which is rather unusual, given my preference for anything dark, damp and funky 😁

Port extract!? is this from liquid - liquid extraction into jojoba oil?

 

[MaxFromHolland]

i've heard this is always a possibility with those inexpensive vacuum pumps and the chambers but am not clear on exactly what happens. Was this the oil mist that these pumps produce getting pulled into the chamber or actually liquid oil flowing through the tube? How did it happen?

Yes, oil flowing through the tube. I did my business as usual, shut the valve on the chamber switch off the pump and continued minding the extract. Then later when i went outside to recover the alcohol and put the top of the coldtrap back in the freezer i found the oil - alcohol mixture. Guess from now on i shut the valve between pump and coldtrap before switching off and let the air in straight away.
Never happened before. Normally the pump holds the vacuum just fine when switched off.
Fortunately vacuum pump oil and alcohol dont mix, so i could seperate them and recover the oil. Its like 25 eur for half a liter and i just refreshed it so i went frugal there 🙂
Pump still pulls the normal vacuum but i did notice a tiny bit of fume lingering, normally that stops when vacuum is reached. Maybe they're not designed for my level of activity 😬 though i use high grade oil, not the vague stuff that came supplied with the pump..

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Port extract!? is this from liquid - liquid extraction into jojoba oil?

No, its reduced the 'culinary way'.
Doesn't dissolve in the oil btw, so i macerated for 24 hrs @ 37°c in a closed bottle, shaking several times.
Then filtration into clean bottle. Scented my hands with the filtration paper and enjoyed the scent for hours 🙂 still being frugal, i guess..

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Day 2. Got a bit alarmed by some rotten fruit scent near the still, but that's from elsewhere in the neighbourhood apparently..
View attachment 54079

Done.
Fresh from the receiver i mostly smell aldehydes, more nutty/ oily than floral and a strong camphorous, minty scent. Almost completely hidden below all that noise there is some red wood. If i smell trough my mouth i pick up some cherry but more mint.
Either the idea or execution* seems wrong, unless the scent will change a lot. Time will tell.

*Most likely, too may questions marks to deal with

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Done.
Fresh from the receiver i mostly smell aldehydes, more nutty/ oily than floral and a strong camphorous, minty scent. Almost completely hidden below all that noise there is some red wood. If i smell trough my mouth i pick up some cherry but more mint.
Either the idea or execution* seems wrong, unless the scent will change a lot. Time will tell.

*Most likely, too may questions marks to deal with

View attachment 54109View attachment 54110

Funny how the hydrosol has a faint but very deep cherry scent.
At some point i give it another try or use another technique maybe.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

When you scoop off the chilled jojoba and find the liquid below not having much scent left, still fun.

(some tea liquid-liquid extraction)

 

[MaxFromHolland]

I've been experimenting with both extracting and infusing some Vietnamese agarwood incense powder. I like it a lot to use as a base oil. While the extract is a bit more pronounced and its scent is a bit more complex, the infusion method wasn't that far behind.
I'm now doing a new infusion and added the previous batch to it as well. I will leave it on a stirrer to improve the infusion - compared to giving it a daily shake or two.
Only downside is that it's not easy to remove the powder afterwards. Maybe i just put it in a measuring cylinder and let gravity assist (or finally invest in something like this https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005006922217806.html 🤔)

 

[MaxFromHolland]

There is a sweetspot when evaporating alcohol in the vacuumchamber. It doesn't really matter how far you open the valve because there will always be an equilibrium at some point.
But from an aroma point of view you want to open the valve just enough to remove the vaporized alcohol with as little 'pulling' on the liquid as possible. I try to adjust to just have a little bit of condensation on the glass lid. Then i know there's proper evaporation in progress, yet gentle.

 

[Mr.P]

I've been experimenting with both extracting and infusing some Vietnamese agarwood incense powder. I like it a lot to use as a base oil. While the extract is a bit more pronounced and its scent is a bit more complex, the infusion method wasn't that far behind.
I'm now doing a new infusion and added the previous batch to it as well. I will leave it on a stirrer to improve the infusion - compared to giving it a daily shake or two.
Only downside is that it's not easy to remove the powder afterwards. Maybe i just put it in a measuring cylinder and let gravity assist (or finally invest in something like this https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005006922217806.html 🤔)
View attachment 54260

what's in the bottle more or less? A fixed oil and wood powder?

 

[Mr.P]

There is a sweetspot when evaporating alcohol in the vacuumchamber. It doesn't really matter how far you open the valve because there will always be an equilibrium at some point.
But from an aroma point of view you want to open the valve just enough to remove the vaporized alcohol with as little 'pulling' on the liquid as possible. I try to adjust to just have a little bit of condensation on the glass lid. Then i know there's proper evaporation in progress, yet gentle.
View attachment 54287

I've only used mine a couple of times so I'm not really tuned into it's operation like the other gear. So you're talking about the valve between the chamber and the vacuum pump? Is what you were saying that you don't like to leave the valve wide open while the pump is running? When I used it, I removed the air and closed the valve completely and just let it sit overnight with the pump turned off - there was still a good vacuum the next morning. I'm not sure if that's the ideal way to go or not

 

[MaxFromHolland]

I've only used mine a couple of times so I'm not really tuned into it's operation like the other gear. So you're talking about the valve between the chamber and the vacuum pump? Is what you were saying that you don't like to leave the valve wide open while the pump is running? When I used it, I removed the air and closed the valve completely and just let it sit overnight with the pump turned off - there was still a good vacuum the next morning. I'm not sure if that's the ideal way to go or not

That depends on how much alcohol you need to evaporate. It will do so, with closed valve, until a equilibrium is reached and then it stops.
This is what "fits" in a 1 gallon chamber if nothing condensates on de walls, that is:

(AI did the math)

So to remove some last traces, a closed valve is a nice and gentle way.

If you need to get rid of more, a running pump is needed and then setting of the valve determines how fast vapor is removed. If you go to fast the liquid cools down more than the hotplate can compensate, so it slows down because of the temperature. You can reach that same rate with the valve opened just enough to remove the vapor but not so far that the liquid cools down. Thats pretty much the point where you do-do not see vapor condensing on the lid. Its much more gentle and not that much slower.

 

[Mr.P]

That depends on how much alcohol you need to evaporate. It will do so, with closed valve, until a equilibrium is reached and then it stops.
This is what "fits" in a 1 gallon chamber if nothing condensates on de walls, that is:
View attachment 54366
(AI did the math)

So to remove some last traces, a closed valve is a nice and gentle way.

If you need to get rid of more, a running pump is needed and then setting of the valve determines how fast vapor is removed. If you go to fast the liquid cools down more than the hotplate can compensate, so it slows down because of the temperature. You can reach that same rate with the valve opened just enough to remove the vapor but not so far that the liquid cools down. Thats pretty much the point where you do-do not see vapor condensing on the lid. Its much more gentle and not that much slower.

Thank you for explaining, I need to keep in mind you are using this as your bulk evaporator. I think at some point you may run into some issues with the impact of the solvent on your vacuum pump unless you install some kind of a trap between the chamber and the pump. Woulff bottles is a name for one type if I recall. And mine specifically came with a warning against using it for solvents / flammable materials I forget the exact details. I figured it would be OK for removing traces of alcohol but you may want to do a little research on that just to make sure it's safe.

An alternative is to get a membrane pump which doesn't use oil, these will not pull as strong a vacuum but I was told are better suited for the continuous movement of solvent through the pump when evaporating larger amounts of alcohol

 

[MaxFromHolland]

what's in the bottle more or less? A fixed oil and wood powder?

That is 100 ml previously infused jojoba +
100 ml fresh jojoba +
25 gr powder with only 'tram huong - incense powder' on the label 🤷

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Thank you for explaining, I need to keep in mind you are using this as your bulk evaporator. I think at some point you may run into some issues with the impact of the solvent on your vacuum pump unless you install some kind of a trap between the chamber and the pump. Woulff bottles is a name for one type if I recall. And mine specifically came with a warning against using it for solvents / flammable materials I forget the exact details. I figured it would be OK for removing traces of alcohol but you may want to do a little research on that just to make sure it's safe.

An alternative is to get a membrane pump which doesn't use oil, these will not pull as strong a vacuum but I was told are better suited for the continuous movement of solvent through the pump when evaporating larger amounts of alcohol

I have a coldtrap installed.
I think with good oil and warm pump most of the alcohol leaves the pump. But even if it doesn't hurt the pump much, you end up with quite a lot of alcohol vapor of which you never know which way it goes, indeed potentially dangerous.
I used to place the pump a bit further down the garden because of that, which was far from convenient.
Plus that it makes sense to recover the alcohol, rather than to blow it into the environment.

Edit: i poor all recovered alcohol in a jerrycan and use it for cleaning, roomsprays and small testbatches.

 

[Mr.P]

That is 100 ml previously infused jojoba +
100 ml fresh jojoba +
25 gr powder with only 'tram huong - incense powder' on the label 🤷

This seems like an extraction that would benefit from some heat - get the resin flowing.

I don't know how jojoba responds to heat but with oil as the carrier you could get up to temperatures high enough to do something interesting with the oud.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

This seems like an extraction that would benefit from some heat - get the resin flowing.

I don't know how jojoba responds to heat but with oil as the carrier you could get up to temperatures high enough to do something interesting with the oud.

I could try that. Any suggestions about temperature and duration?
I was going to sit the jar on the cold stirrer for 2 weeks.