Why steam distillation instead of solvent extraction?

[C-Sauce]

I’m curious. Why soaking and steam distillation instead of solvent extraction? Yesterday I ground up some kinam chips and immersed them in perfumers alcohol. This morning, I filtered the dark extract, then placed the open bottle on a warm surface for the alcohol to evaporate. This evening, I came home and found that the evaporation was complete, leaving behind a viscous, brown oil that smelled pleasantly of vanillic kinam. I’m wearing this now and liking it a lot! No harsh petroleum notes, just the essence. So why distillation?

 

[Ahmaoud]

If you're asking about kinam specifically I don't think anyone's interested in distillation for it (apart from some occasional artisanal runs, eg. mesOud, AlHindOud, EjayB), there's a post by RPP where he shared the approximate yield from it and distillation and it was like 5 times more, IIRC. When AlHindOud did his distillation I remember EjayB commenting how much of a mess distilling kinam leaves in the pot, that's another known downside to it. Those large scale cultivated kinam oil producer are, for the most part using CO2 extraction. As for the benefits of distillation, it usually captures a wider array of aromatic profiles, and with soaking you have another variable to play with. Would love to hear what other pros and cons there are in both methods.

 

[Mr.P]

I’m curious. Why soaking and steam distillation instead of solvent extraction? Yesterday I ground up some kinam chips and immersed them in perfumers alcohol. This morning, I filtered the dark extract, then placed the open bottle on a warm surface for the alcohol to evaporate. This evening, I came home and found that the evaporation was complete, leaving behind a viscous, brown oil that smelled pleasantly of vanillic kinam. I’m wearing this now and liking it a lot! No harsh petroleum notes, just the essence. So why distillation?

I made myself a bottle of this! I very much enjoy it

 

[C-Sauce]

Perhaps kinam is too subtle for the heat of distillation? But then again, many high-quality distilled oils are exceptionally subtle. I know very little about either method (steam distillation vs solvent or CO2 extraction). It would indeed be fascinating to learn the pros and cons of disparate extraction methods applied to disparate woods.

 

[Al Shareef Oudh]

When I distilled CK the oil was not as complete for my liking. So then I did another run and distilled the oil together in a unique method I have devised, where the distilled oil + non denatured 100% ethanol is used to distill a new batch of wood. That's how we did our CKR

 

[C-Sauce]

When I distilled CK the oil was not as complete for my liking. So then I did another run and distilled the oil together in a unique method I have devised, where the distilled oil + non denatured 100% ethanol is used to distill a new batch of wood. That's how we did our CKR

This is interesting. What is the advantage of combining the distilled oil and ethanol to extract the second second batch of wood instead of using ethanol on the second batch and then blending the two oils?

 

[Al Shareef Oudh]

This is interesting. What is the advantage of combining the distilled oil and ethanol to extract the second second batch of wood instead of using ethanol on the second batch and then blending the two oils?

The oil acts like a catalyst in holding the resin and oil that is being extracted from the wood, so they don't split. I also find that the oil it produces is much more complex.

 

[mesOUD]

I’m curious. Why soaking and steam distillation instead of solvent extraction? Yesterday I ground up some kinam chips and immersed them in perfumers alcohol. This morning, I filtered the dark extract, then placed the open bottle on a warm surface for the alcohol to evaporate. This evening, I came home and found that the evaporation was complete, leaving behind a viscous, brown oil that smelled pleasantly of vanillic kinam. I’m wearing this now and liking it a lot! No harsh petroleum notes, just the essence. So why distillation?

Ck or orher kinams have heavy resins than others about 10-15% net weight of wood is resin,when i distilled 1 kg sinking ck,i got about 10-11 grams oil and i collected about 150 grams resin from pot(also made absolute of these resin,and got more than 20 grams absolute from this,i could add some of it to oil,i didnt prefer)
About your question
-steam also becomes a solvent
Or co2 under a heat and pressure it also becomes a solvent,like ethanol pr hexane,
Point is what they are solving,agarwood has many compounds some are about odour some are not and composition of these compounds are related with being complex or linear.
But ck is an exceptional product with its huge resing,may be next time i can use ists resin too

 

[-Renton-]

Ck or orher kinams have heavy resins than others about 10-15% net weight of wood is resin,when i distilled 1 kg sinking ck,i got about 10-11 grams oil and i collected about 150 grams resin from pot(also made absolute of these resin,and got more than 20 grams absolute from this,i could add some of it to oil,i didnt prefer)
About your question
-steam also becomes a solvent
Or co2 under a heat and pressure it also becomes a solvent,like ethanol pr hexane,
Point is what they are solving,agarwood has many compounds some are about odour some are not and composition of these compounds are related with being complex or linear.
But ck is an exceptional product with its huge resing,may be next time i can use ists resin too

Question on here for once, Met. Can you use that resin and burn it like wood? Kinda of roll it into a ball or several balls (like some bakhoors are) and burn it on charcoal or whatever preferred method?

 

[mesOUD]

Question on here for once, Met. Can you use that resin and burn it like wood? Kinda of roll it into a ball or several balls (like some bakhoors are) and burn it on charcoal or whatever preferred method?

Burning post distilled resin wont five you a result
But absolutely you can predistilled resin,and wont get any harsh smell like burning wood(when resin finish in wood,you will burn wood and it is some harsh) but if you burn a predistilled resin,you will only burn resins

 

[-Renton-]

Burning post distilled resin wont five you a result
But absolutely you can predistilled resin,and wont get any harsh smell like burning wood(when resin finish in wood,you will burn wood and it is some harsh) but if you burn a predistilled resin,you will only burn resins

Hmm. When you next to a 'still, can you show a picture of pre distilled resin? What is it like, texture wise etc? Is it like, lets say, gooey hash, as an example?

 

[mesOUD]

Hmm. When you next to a 'still, can you show a picture of pre distilled resin? What is it like, texture wise etc? Is it like, lets say, gooey hash, as an example?

😂
These are what i collected after ck distillation,

 

[-Renton-]

😂
These are what i collected after ck distillation,
View attachment 32513
View attachment 32514

Looks like hash as I suspected haha 😂😂😂... what would it smell like if you put around 0.5g on a charcoal burner without a mica plate? Would it be just pure oud aroma? That is what I am guessing, if so, next time you get some, I will possibly buy some at whatever price you want to put it at... this is something I want to try 100%!!!

Ofc pre-distilled version.

 

[mesOUD]

Looks like hash as I suspected haha 😂😂😂... what would it smell like if you put around 0.5g on a charcoal burner without a mica plate? Would it be just pure oud aroma? That is what I am guessing, if so, next time you get some, I will possibly buy some at whatever price you want to put it at... this is something I want to try 100%!!!

Ofc pre-distilled version.

This is post distilled,and doesn’t have much odour,so not good for burning.
İ tried with a small piece on coal,it boiled 9 minutes nonstop.
But as mentioned if you want,you can do yours,with predistilled woods

 

[Goodness Nose]

😂
These are what i collected after ck distillation,
View attachment 32513
View attachment 32514

wooahhh id love to see how that builds up. and you run this with alcohol to make a purer absolute? thats fantastic!

yeeah i can definitely see that full of oil being easy to sell. sticky ball of oudh hashish that you can play with and break off bits for the sub? sign me up

 

[mesOUD]

wooahhh id love to see how that builds up. and you run this with alcohol to make a purer absolute? thats fantastic!

yeeah i can definitely see that full of oil being easy to sell. sticky ball of oudh hashish that you can play with and break off bits for the sub? sign me up

This is absolute of this resin
İt is suitable to be a fixative in blends now
Not for burning or 100% performance oil
Bcz as mentioned,this is a postdistileld item,means mostly juiced

 

[Goodness Nose]

This is absolute of this resin
İt is suitable to be a fixative in blends now
Not for burning or 100% performance oil
Bcz as mentioned,this is a postdistileld item,means mostly juiced

good looking stuff! id like to sample a lot of the stuff you're doing lately. loving all the pictures and videos. really makes this even more interesting than it already was

 

[Mr.P]

wooahhh id love to see how that builds up. and you run this with alcohol to make a purer absolute? thats fantastic!

yeeah i can definitely see that full of oil being easy to sell. sticky ball of oudh hashish that you can play with and break off bits for the sub? sign me up

It’s a manageable home project as well for the DIY oriented. I have some resin from wood which has not been distilled and it’s great to burn - very intense aroma. I used some pretty pale shavings and got several ml from maybe $30 worth of shavings

 

[Goodness Nose]

It’s a manageable home project as well for the DIY oriented. I have some resin from wood which has not been distilled and it’s great to burn - very intense aroma. I used some pretty pale shavings and got several ml from maybe $30 worth of shavings

how'd you make it? that sounds like fun 😁

this thread is getting really interesting. im starting to see why distillers do what they do for certain things!

 

[Mr.P]

I just took fine shavings, ground them up a bit, and covered them in alcohol. I let them soak until the liquid stopped getting darker (plus a bit of extra time). Filtered, poured into a petri dish to evaporate, scraped up with a flat blade when it was the consistency i wanted.