Oud Distillation

Mr.P said:
I think the subjectivity of scent perception is an important thing to focus on here. Let's not get into personal attacks, etc. that is something we cannot resolve in a public forum.

More interestingly, if Ensar cannot distinguish a short ceramic soak Malaysian oil from a long plastic soak Thai oil, what does that tell us about OUR ability to assess the purity, origin, quality, etc. of agarwood oil? I mean, if someone with as much experience as Ensar has trouble with this, how can we possibly rely on our own noses!?

Now, I have to say in my limited experience I can detect the effects of some of the changes in variables that the distillers are applying. For example the 3 bio chan ouds from Adam. They are all from the same wood but each has a very distinct odor profile. One of them smells like a Borneo oil. The others more Thai. I have some samples of wood chips labeled as from one region but there are at least three very distinct odor profiles among the chips. I wonder how the variation in the scent of chips from a single tree or region compares to the variation that exists between different regions? To what degree distillation and soaking methods might impact and even overwhelm geographic factors? Being a rank novice relative to taha, Ensar, Adam, A shareef, of course i really have no idea. I've smelled a few dozen chips and oils... trying to make sense out of all the complex scents... yet I am such a novice and have zero ancestral knowledge to draw on.
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agreed. you make a good point
 
Oudamberlove said:
@PEARL
I prescribe you a double swipe of Oud to alleviate your inner conflicts😀

I'm a Realist not a Purist.
People will say all sorts of things about Oud, from raw materials, distillations, costs, marketing, reviews or no reviews, etc.
That's precisely why we have forums, to hear what other people have to say, and to offer our 2 cents.
Everything written will undergo scrutiny.
Some have chosen not to participate anymore, and some lurkers will never even join.
We're one big family, and you know what they say, "you can choose your friends"😛

We have Moderators 😎 to keep these forums in check, if anyone gets outta-line their post will be deleted, and they could even be banned!😱
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i agrree. i wish we could all be really close knit. one big oud family and always get along. will that ever happen? probably not. but i hope so
 
Santal Claus said:
I am not much of an oud expert, but I don't think one needs to be to comment on human nature. This area of perfumery attracts nerds and nerdy vendors, and since I have been following this for a decade I have noticed quite a bit of passion about the topics. I appreciate cultural and religious references, but at the end of the day we are all human beings and should govern ourselves according to basic human principles. I really do not like vendors subtley downing other vendors. In the States, we call it being a jerk. I have read the sites, blogs and competing advertisements, and I think it is unfortunate. There is a culture of poo pooing the other guy. And yes, all of us notice that sometimes some of those in this business are coming off as arrogant jerks and can post things that make him/her come off like a jerk, even though said person is a mix of jerk and very cool. But, as we all see on posts, no one is immune to emotional responses. I propose that people stop playing a charade and just be straight forward if one finds something off color, like @PEARL finally did . Oh, and also stop being jerks to each other. This is basic human respect. Sorry to come off high and mighty, but I really hate the idea of this turning into Basenotes, an amazing gem we lost.
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totally agree
 
Al Shareef Oudh said:
To keep it brief, soaking can be used to aid in two different aspects of the oil. Yield and Abundance of known oudh compounds.

The Yield,

soaking alters the wood morphology, causing the cell wall to break down easier for the oils to escape. If we were to imagine the oil pockets inside the wood as little sacks, the normal distillation process will force out the oils from this sack, with parts still remaining in the sack. When the actual sack breaks apart all the oil leaks out. This assist the yield.

When every bit of oil from the wood is distilled out, this also adds to the quality of the oil, increasing the abundance of the compounds that give oudh it's oudhyness. Such oils smell and measure in gcms to have more favourable compounds.

The graph below produced by Veronica Alexandar Jok et al, at the university of technology in Shah Alam Malaysia, demonstrates that the yield increases with the right amount of soaking. The vast majority of the data places that duration of 'perfect' soaking for yield at 14 days.

View attachment 219
Abundance of Known Compounds,

Abundance is a term utilised in measuring how many of a specific compound exists in the oil. When soaking goes beyond 21 days, the known compounds that contribute to the oudhyness decreases but other compounds increase. Oudh oils have been known to have between 30-100+ different compounds in them, depending on how long they have been soaked, the temperatures that they have been cooked in, and the length of the cook. for example according to Jutarut Pornpunyapat et al, changing the temperature from 80 C - 120 C nearly doubles the number of positive contributing compounds in A.Crassna samples and also the quantity of each compound is increased significantly. Please see the attached tables.
View attachment 220
As such it can clearly be seen that soaking can be used to increase the yield, manipulate the abundance % of compounds i.e longer soak reduces the abundance % ultimately changing the scent profile.
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loving your posts at the moment akhi
 
Ammar said:
Continue to my prior post...
There is also difference between experience and gifted ability. I was just reading and only if it is true that Roja Dove has the ability to discern over 800 scent notes blindfolded. This is a gift that doesn't come mainly by practice, instead it is an inherited ability that needs highly developed and specialized areas of brain with exceptional neuronal connections only few people have the luck to have it, and only partly the environment and practice will lead to flourish it. Few are prodigy like Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn...I recall reading that Paganini at certain time early in his life was never seen practicing on violin to the rest of his life. How we know these few pepole have this ability? Because they have showed us their impressive capability! I haven't seen a person with such olfactory gift here or anywhere. Maybe somewhere but not here or there, so mistakes are always possible and people need to know their limitations.
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When I read this name I really feel happy , Mr Roja dove are really Genius !
 
Ammar said:
Continue to my prior post...
There is also difference between experience and gifted ability. I was just reading and only if it is true that Roja Dove has the ability to discern over 800 scent notes blindfolded. This is a gift that doesn't come mainly by practice, instead it is an inherited ability that needs highly developed and specialized areas of brain with exceptional neuronal connections only few people have the luck to have it, and only partly the environment and practice will lead to flourish it. Few are prodigy like Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn...I recall reading that Paganini at certain time early in his life was never seen practicing on violin to the rest of his life. How we know these few pepole have this ability? Because they have showed us their impressive capability! I haven't seen a person with such olfactory gift here or anywhere. Maybe somewhere but not here or there, so mistakes are always possible and people need to know their limitations.
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to pass givaudan perfumery school.. one needs to discern 3000 scents.. 😛~~
 
i would leave scent perception as something extremely subjective. have you noticed a trend for many higher end ouds of recent times to contain a "band-aidy" note, or what some of the asian/chinese noses would regard as a mishmash of hospital disinfectant (pine based like dettol?). the distillations are pure, but the ability to pick out a Note does not mean that a bandaid or pine substance is inside the oil. the same for grapes, lilacs, florals, fruits.. leather.. its just the combination of notes that fools your nose, none of these materials made it into the pot (hopefully). although the human nose is great for some, the human nose of the general population is constantly "fooled". we do a lot of tea and incense, that is both a mix of intra olfaction and retro olfaction, and both ways... it is important to accept and understand the limitations. our nose is different from an MS detector, we use a population of g-proteins that are bound at various degrees and amounts to trigger the nervous response. so a mixture of molecules sometimes can fool our nose quite impeccably 😀
 
firdaous said:
I don't have the chance to smell ASII so I cannot give my personal point of view but even if in this case the question is not about the purity GCMS testing is something that we have to think About seriously in the future.
I remembered a very hot discussion between Taherg and a well known seller on the other oud forum.
By the way still waiting for KZ85 and Sultani report!
Click to expand...

well, the report for the KZ 1985 has been out for quite a while, and since the data belongs to ListensClosely, we've been in discussion on how and when, and most importantly where to publish it! but the data is quite in line with some of our maldi profiles (which is a more inferior technique due to molecular fragmentation in TOF). 😀

with that being published I hope that can be a nice closure for Mr Lee, and his reputation so that probably he can really rest in peace already. i've been prompted by some of my team mates and friends whether I would be working on a project of GCMS/fingerprinting of all accessible ouds, i have to say i currently do not have the time/mental space, and not something i would enjoy doing although i have very many samples. my interest in the fingerprinting of the ouds is just to work out a map, but at the same time such an approach will open a can of worms, i.e. what if some of the ouds of some vendors are shown to be adulterated? it will hurt their reputation, and affect their business which is needed to sustain them and their operations. been involved in the trade for a while, the biggest lesson learnt from the veterans in the trade, live and let live.

been travelling and i've been also prodded by friends saying that there are some storms brewing in the virtual oud world...and what is my stance etc. perhaps i'll take the opportunity to mention that KZ is a neutral party.. as a team, we dont like to be involved in taking sides, and to remain objective, we have our own directions, motivations etc. i see everyone as friends/acquaintances, even if there is disagreement in our perspectives to some subjects, thats perfectly normal, i don't believe in proselytizing or discriminating anyone due to different beliefs. i heard the heart of the issue was something about oud reselling and profiteering... but that is a small matter maybe? because.. somewhat everyone's reselling and making profit from oud, whether from source or at the end consumer level. on a positive note, people could be glad that their ouds have good resale potential, which means the monetary value of it is truer and more realistic.
 
Some time ago i read an article of one of my favourite vendors, agaraura.
Oud ‘Generations’: Get to know your (Agar Aura) Oud Oils
( https://blog.agaraura.com/?p=1237#aging )

"...Not getting into the scientific aspect, practically speaking aging is the ‘fixing’ of distillation error(s). Period...."
"...Time is needed to ‘fix’ the errors.
Controlled and sophisticated extraction [...] results in an aroma that doesn’t require fixing. It doesn’t require ‘aging’."
"Gen3 oils show absolutely no change once settling+tightening are complete (again, that’s 2-4 months for hydro and 7-10 months for steam distilled oils)."
Have you noticed changes in your Gen3 Oils?
How can the process of aging be seen in general.?
From the information that i found it´s said that the top notes of aged oils are getting less strong or even
'disappear'.
Also in the article it´s mentioned:
"...2) but most importantly: I discovered a way to revert some of the agarwood resin inside the wood back into distillable oil, as well as unorthodox (but FAR superior) ways to rupture wood lignin and expand oil pockets."
Ho does resin reacts, when it is heated?
Are resins the term of concentrated essential oils in agarwood?
Does these procedures still sound natural?
 
Jimmie Taylor said:
Some time ago i read an article of one of my favourite vendors, agaraura.
Oud ‘Generations’: Get to know your (Agar Aura) Oud Oils
( https://blog.agaraura.com/?p=1237#aging )

"...Not getting into the scientific aspect, practically speaking aging is the ‘fixing’ of distillation error(s). Period...."
"...Time is needed to ‘fix’ the errors.
Controlled and sophisticated extraction [...] results in an aroma that doesn’t require fixing. It doesn’t require ‘aging’."
"Gen3 oils show absolutely no change once settling+tightening are complete (again, that’s 2-4 months for hydro and 7-10 months for steam distilled oils)."
Have you noticed changes in your Gen3 Oils?
How can the process of aging be seen in general.?
From the information that i found it´s said that the top notes of aged oils are getting less strong or even
'disappear'.
Also in the article it´s mentioned:
"...2) but most importantly: I discovered a way to revert some of the agarwood resin inside the wood back into distillable oil, as well as unorthodox (but FAR superior) ways to rupture wood lignin and expand oil pockets."
Ho does resin reacts, when it is heated?
Are resins the term of concentrated essential oils in agarwood?
Does these procedures still sound natural?
Click to expand...

Thank you for this post !
As far as I know I never distilled yet but it's clearly a dream.
Cellule wall break = absorbtion of wood lignin with the help of a biomatter It's still natural and the wood is cleaned.
For the agarwood resin turned into oil is done with a secret technic. I can only garantee you that it does not affect the purity of the oil.
This process is needed to release the deep resin in the wood because if you don't do that, you need to fire fire up at high temps and resin become solid when you fire up to much at the end of distillation process.
The rest is secret.
 
[Ouddict.com] Oud Distillation

Also there are ways to rupture resin and release heavy oil which is generally either left inside the wood or never quite manages to release itself from the distillation pot. Here you can see literally sinking oil! This will add a dynamic quality to the oil, which you guys can try when we release our next Sri Lankan oil 😉
 
Thanks
Faizal_p said:
View attachment 236
Also there are ways to rupture resin and release heavy oil which is generally either left inside the wood or never quite manages to release itself from the distillation pot. Here you can see literally sinking oil! This will add a dynamic quality to the oil, which you guys can try when we release our next Sri Lankan oil 😉
Click to expand...
F4R1d0uX said:
Thank you for this post !
As far as I know I never distilled yet but it's clearly a dream.
Cellule wall break = absorbtion of wood lignin with the help of a biomatter It's still natural and the wood is cleaned.
For the agarwood resin turned into oil is done with a secret technic. I can only garantee you that it does not affect the purity of the oil.
This process is needed to release the deep resin in the wood because if you don't do that, you need to fire fire up at high temps and resin become solid when you fire up to much at the end of distillation process.
The rest is secret.
Click to expand...

Thank you guys.
I trust my vendors and having just fun in speculation ^_^
I´m not sure what is meant with biomatter, but it sounds interesting.
So there could be minerals or baceteria used for this process?
Or maybe they use some kind of electromagnetic field to force oscillation in the cells.
We can only speculate of course.
I think the resin is ruptured of course when the wood gets shredded 'a bit'.
I read that some say, that more oil could be produced when the wood gets stamped instead of shredded.
Another thought is, when you shred for example bananas or apples in a shaker, many of the vital elements und nutrients are getting shredded to 'death'.
But when u use a juice exractor with a press roll, that kindly extracts the juice from the pomace,
cou get a much more vital product.
But i don't know how this could be applied for the agarwood distillation in terms of the terpenes
and other compounds that make medicinal benefits.
But it must make for sure a difference, may it be a good or bad one.
Good for sure in terms that one does not need to heat up too much.
 
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