What DIY project did you tinker with today?

[Mr.P]

How about a "DIY project of the day" thread? I'm imagining projects related to incense or perfume making but I suppose any DIY will do!

Today I was checking on my five second year Clary sage plants, they will flower this year and I'm going to make an extract - very excited about this one. There's nothing like good fresh clary.

just a couple of days ago I extracted some cannabis resinoid from flower I grew a couple of years ago. This has a nice aromatic pungency, smells a bit like hash but with a variety of other notes as well.

what have you all been up to?

 

[roflwaffle]

New El cheapo co2 CK arrived today. Now, I thought the co2s ive had were generally bottom barrel, decently usable, generally all smell about the same with only a few exceptions, but always hunting for better. But this latest purchase leads me to believe maybe the stuff I have isn't all that bad by comparison.

New stuff, 50g of it, is darker than my others. Viscosity is also a bit lighter than others, normally has been fairly honey like, this one is still a bit thick, but mobile. Scent is cheap co2 like, but dialed down even further. Even a thick swipe still needs the nose close to smell it.

So, the plan, or what makes it a project then? Well, even my general co2 finds use in blends, and while cheap, I tend to not want to wantonly waste it. But this stuff, gotta make lemonaid. I'm noodling over trial and erroring what things in small doses will end up working with it without overpowering entirely. I've also considered mixing it up some ck eth resin, or otherwise trying to find some use for it other than as a largely neutral carrier with fixative properties. Maybe even testing that fixative claim vs other neutral carriers. Not sure, but I've pulled some aliquots and will be trialing stuff. Open to other ideas. Might be interesting to redistill it in the small lab glass still, as I've wondered if that concentrates aromas in a co2 as it leaves waxes/chromones behind, as I've only tried winterization to date

 

[roflwaffle]

New El cheapo co2 CK arrived today. Now, I thought the co2s ive had were generally bottom barrel, decently usable, generally all smell about the same with only a few exceptions, but always hunting for better. But this latest purchase leads me to believe maybe the stuff I have isn't all that bad by comparison.

New stuff, 50g of it, is darker than my others. Viscosity is also a bit lighter than others, normally has been fairly honey like, this one is still a bit thick, but mobile. Scent is cheap co2 like, but dialed down even further. Even a thick swipe still needs the nose close to smell it.

So, the plan, or what makes it a project then? Well, even my general co2 finds use in blends, and while cheap, I tend to not want to wantonly waste it. But this stuff, gotta make lemonaid. I'm noodling over trial and erroring what things in small doses will end up working with it without overpowering entirely. I've also considered mixing it up some ck eth resin, or otherwise trying to find some use for it other than as a largely neutral carrier with fixative properties. Maybe even testing that fixative claim vs other neutral carriers. Not sure, but I've pulled some aliquots and will be trialing stuff. Open to other ideas. Might be interesting to redistill it in the small lab glass still, as I've wondered if that concentrates aromas in a co2 as it leaves waxes/chromones behind, as I've only tried winterization to date

So. I messed up a bit here, figured it might have been diluted, did a quick water wash, and got back about 60%, so ok, cool, its DPG diluted, then did the whole shebang, and got back... well 96% of it, so losses were just due to process and not dilution, or at least, not a water soluable dilution. Big waste of time essentially. Oh well.

I did find - 2% (!) of a vintage assam mixed with it yielded actualy really pleasant results. The assam I had kinda given up on as not very enjoyable, but I've learned its actually super potent and I just go instantly nose blind to it. I am surprised it is notable at 2% dilution. I could probably, and will probably continue to increase %s to see if it continues to improve.

I'm also considering that 50g is enough that would be worth (finally) seeing what a redistillation would yield. If anyone has done a CO2 distillation, I'd be super curious your results. Separating out the chromones and concentrating the sesquiterpenes sounds like a good idea on paper, and as this 50g owes me nothing, seems like a great candidate to dial in the process. I'd def use my microscale setup as its still far too small scale for the larger still, and seems perfect for it. I imagine since my microscale is a round bottom, and to avoid any scortching I'd setup a bain marie in ... i dunno.. mineral oil? and just yolo it. I have no return system on my microscale currently, so it'll probably be run til it gets low, then refill and start over as needed, recycling the hydrosol.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

So. I messed up a bit here, figured it might have been diluted, did a quick water wash, and got back about 60%, so ok, cool, its DPG diluted, then did the whole shebang, and got back... well 96% of it, so losses were just due to process and not dilution, or at least, not a water soluable dilution. Big waste of time essentially. Oh well.

I did find - 2% (!) of a vintage assam mixed with it yielded actualy really pleasant results. The assam I had kinda given up on as not very enjoyable, but I've learned its actually super potent and I just go instantly nose blind to it. I am surprised it is notable at 2% dilution. I could probably, and will probably continue to increase %s to see if it continues to improve.

I'm also considering that 50g is enough that would be worth (finally) seeing what a redistillation would yield. If anyone has done a CO2 distillation, I'd be super curious your results. Separating out the chromones and concentrating the sesquiterpenes sounds like a good idea on paper, and as this 50g owes me nothing, seems like a great candidate to dial in the process. I'd def use my microscale setup as its still far too small scale for the larger still, and seems perfect for it. I imagine since my microscale is a round bottom, and to avoid any scortching I'd setup a bain marie in ... i dunno.. mineral oil? and just yolo it. I have no return system on my microscale currently, so it'll probably be run til it gets low, then refill and start over as needed, recycling the hydrosol.

Dont know how big your larger still is. Mine is like 20L and had no issue to put 1 liter of water and just 15 ml of amyris in to re-distill into 2 fractions. If i recall correct it takea a while to do that co2 so without return that be a pain in the backdoor..

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Dont know how big your larger still is. Mine is like 20L and had no issue to put 1 liter of water and just 15 ml of amyris in to re-distill into 2 fractions. If i recall correct it takea a while to do that co2 so without return that be a pain in the backdoor..

 

[roflwaffle]

Dont know how big your larger still is. Mine is like 20L and had no issue to put 1 liter of water and just 15 ml of amyris in to re-distill into 2 fractions. If i recall correct it takea a while to do that co2 so without return that be a pain in the backdoor..

larger still is 60L, with 50A 220V heating element mid side with relay installed, so def wouldnt be practical. The bench lab still is def the move for me.

I could prob work in a return, but for a trial run, seems best to just run what i got to figure out lay of the land. if it means stopping as it gets load and manually recharge, not the end of the world for a single run, and after even one-two charge, I'd prob have at least enough to validate the process is promising or not.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

larger still is 60L, with 50A 220V heating element mid side with relay installed, so def wouldnt be practical. The bench lab still is def the move for me.

I could prob work in a return, but for a trial run, seems best to just run what i got to figure out lay of the land. if it means stopping as it gets load and manually recharge, not the end of the world for a single run, and after even one-two charge, I'd prob have at least enough to validate the process is promising or not.

Yeah for small 5ml trial 1.05 kg of steam is needed, that should be doable.

Creeps you can distill concrete with that beast 🤣

 

[roflwaffle]

Creeps you can distill concrete with that beast 🤣

It's certainly large enough to do as much as i'd want to do. Wish i had like a 5-10L alembic or something along those lines, i've just got the extremes right now, but enough to limp along for most things.

 

[Mr.P]

Interesting things on the horizon, I met the head of a local private school at a party last night. He is very familiar with the history of the area and is aware of this town's history as the first major pharmaceutical plant and herbal extraction facility in the United States. They recently acquired a really nice massive campus from an older institution, and in the expanded facilities he is looking to teach the students about local history and using it as a entry point to studying certain scientific things… he was asking me about helping with setting up extraction and evaporation rigs /labs and some instructional units for the kids to do their own processing of plants. So it looks like I may have found another outlet for my fascination here… I'm a retired teacher so the idea of working with students in some capacity brings a smile to my face. We will see what this turns into…

 

[Mr.P]

Been doing my best to carefully dry this burley tobacco. I have been adding new leaves as the season progresses and mixing the fresh ones in with some of the dried ones to moderate the rate of drying. Very sticky resinous leaves. Don't really know what I'm doing but from the little dried bits it's already decent tobacco with a very pleasant sweet aroma when burned. I think the consistent steady browning of the leaves is a sign that is drying slowly enough. When dried quickly it ends up green.

 

[Mr.P]

Drying more valerian and elecampane. For some reason the valerian this year has an especially nice aroma, it hasn't developed a strong stink foot smell yet and it's very cedar-like and almost evergreen over the typical spikenard aroma and a hyper sweet benzoin type scent. Pretty surprising - an easy plant to grow with very strong fragrant musky roots, I would think it has potential in animalic accords.

elecampane is a unique material that fills an interesting niche in the natural perfumery palette. It has some of that beautiful warm sweet lasting maple quality of fenugreek but paired with beautiful sweet airy light floral and orris like opening, as opposed to the harsh phenolic notes that you typically get in fenugreek oils. Beautiful stuff, I don't know how common it is that it gives someone a rash but like costus this is one that can irritate skin and that some people can acquire a more serious allergy to overtime. It's like poison ivy… The first time you touch it it doesn't affect you but the second time you have this itchy red immune reaction; for some people this plant will eventually cause some kind of skin irritation maybe not the first or second or third time, but eventually.