ESSENTIAL OIL Distillation System. This is the original design, created by me the inventor, made with subtle detail, quality construction, and actual, helpful customer service that you will not get from copies made in China, Hong Kong, or elsewhere. So please read this, it’s a bit long but following my little rant is finally the item description of what I’m offering you… I had no idea what one was so I asked her to show me something similar on the internet that I might use as a springboard to launch an idea how it might be done. She Showed me a website of someone who made them, basically three flasks in a row one to boil water, one to hold plants and receive the steam from the first one, and a third one to catch the results. So I built one just like the one she showed me, basically copying classic textbook steam distillation designs similar to ones that my competitors currently use, except I used all glass and glass taper-joints instead of rubber hoses and stoppers: The “classic-textbook” design goes like this; You boil water in a flask and it creates steam. The steam is piped into the bottom of a second flask which holds the biomass or material to be steam distilled. The vapors from that rise, go out the top, thru the angled condenser and to a third flask that catches the resulting distillate. After the distillation is complete, the results are poured into a separatory funnel and the oil & water are allowed to separate, then drained off into their respective containers. I decided that since I was making this for her I ought to test it first and make sure it all worked properly. So I filled a bioflask with Rosemary, fired it up, and a couple of hours later saw a tiny blob of oil floating on top of the catch-flask. I then used the standard routine of pouring all the condensed water and oil into a separatory funnel and letting it sit a while, then I drained all the water out and finally the two drops of oil that were in there. In the end, the bioflask was still 1/4 full of water, the room smelled horribly strongly of Rosemary, the process had taken forever, produced very little oil, and was entirely frustrating. I immediately thought to myself, “nope, this can’t be the right way to do this”. And I also have an ethical side,,, I don’t like copying anyone or stealing. If I’m going to make something for sale, which I have done all my life, I want it to be something special and better than everything out there. I have NEVER copied anyone’s designs and I’m not about to ever do so. It’s just simple matter of integrity and respect for others. So I embarked on a few months of trial and error, redesigning the system from the ground up, and making it better and easier to use. I’d noticed in the first setup that the bioflask had condensed about 1/4 full of water by the time the run was over, and that was not good because it covered plant material rendering it undistillable, and wasted the boiling water. It (the bioflask) also took forever to get hot. So I decided the bioflask should sit right on top of the steam generator, so it could receive it’s steam directly without messy hoses, and any condensing water would just flow back into the boiler and be reused. This would also keep all the plant material from being covered with water thus undistillable… So on to the next round: I modified a separatory funnel by adding a side outlet, so that it would constantly (and automatically) separate condensed water from the oil, allowing me to distill for much longer times without having to change the catch-flask, and more important, I wouldn’t have to transfer the water/oil to a sep funnel once I was done- it is now already there! . It was beginning to work extremely well!! I obtained a LOT more oil this time, and the sep funnel modification worked perfectly.. But I realized that the new sep funnel design should be small in diameter, so there wouldn’t be such a big glass wall surface for “my precious” oil to stick to and be wasted on. But at this point I realized I was on the right track, because the yield was now in the neighborhood of 3-4 mL instead of 3-4 drops of the first attempt. The next trial was very funny… Once I figured out that the bioflask should sit on top of the steam generator instead of next to it the dawn of vertical steam distillation? , I thought that it’d be neat to make a completely vertical system so it didn’t take any counter space at all. So I created a 3 foot long vertical condenser that had a side-drain for the condensed liquids, and a top vent. It sat right on top of the bioflask. I loaded up the bioflask with a full charge of rosemary, turned it on and called my wife down to see it go for the first time, and… The entire batch of vaporized oil went straight up and out the top, and not a drop of it condensed!! Talk about having to learn to love Rosemary the hard way… I figure I let almost 4 mL of pure vaporized oil out into my workshop… Well, at least that experience taught me to like Rosemary, which until then I didn’t… Because I had to live with it smelling VERY strongly in my daily workspace for almost two months!! The Final Design: With that, I realized that since running the condenser straight up didn’t do a thing, and that running it at the angle you see in the photos above worked “kinda” ok but a lot of vapor escaped, that the way to do it was run the condenser straight down. This does three things: (1), the unit gets small again and doesn’t sprawl all over the kitchen counter; (2), it minimizes the connections required- no more angles and bends necessary because the receiver can just hang on the bottom of the condenser; (3), and most important, It creates the maximum turbulence inside the condenser making it extremely efficient… Steam wants to rise but I’ve now forced it to go down, so it gets agitated and much more of it hits the condenser walls in a smaller space. This means more oil gets caught and condensed and less escapes. HERE IS A MOST ABSURD RESULT AND IT SHOWS HOW STUPID THESE people ARE: Back about ten years ago I was making my boiling flasks out of round flasks with flat bottoms. I thought, these make the distiller look artistically nicer and they work, so I’ll keep using them. The chinese COPY this, without even knowing why, which blatantly points out how they are ruthlessly COPYING me. REALLY this is outrageous. This is CHINESE THIEVES raping AMERICA and getting away with it. LAST, Don’t get me wrong… Legitimate Chinese products are amazing… There’s a BIG difference between innovators and copiers. In China there are an AMAZING number of excellent innovators. I have no issues with anyone from anywhere taking an existing product, applying brains thought and hard work to it and coming up with something better, that changes the game with improvements. And not just little improvements… For example, I have found that there are a LOT of things chinese companies have created, leapfrogging from existing things, that are amazing products, much better than anywhere in the world. I honor the folks who create these, no matter what country they are from. China designs and creates some of the best electronic items on the planet. Some of the best machinery on the planet. The difference here is that the folks who INNOVATE rather than STEAL are very cool and should be rewarded for helping humanity, regardless of the country they come from. Ok enuff said, I’ll get off my soapbox now and just say, I don’t approve of copycats and I do approve of innovators, no matter what country they come from. Here’s photos of just a few of them that are NOT mine, notice the similarity… Mine does not come with crappy rubber hose… On to the last bits of ouch and then to the real thing… It’s because I’m an American, I live here, I work here and I pay my helpers real wages… If I could pay my workers 50 cents a day I probably could lower my prices to match the chinese. But that’s just not how it is here in the USA… With what’s left I’m making enough to keep food on the table… (Or you can google heartmagic distillers and contact me that way). NOW ON TO THE REAL THING…………. 2 LITER ESSENTIAL OIL STEAM DISTILLATION KIT. The perfect system for making your own STEAM DISTILLED essential oils! This is a true vertical steam distillation unit made from scientific-grade borosilicate glass, specifically designed for easy steam extraction of essential oils from plant materials by the non-chemist at home, resulting in the highest purity essential oils Unlike other steam distillation units on the market, this system offers true “dry steam” distillation in an all glass (Pyrex) system. Coupled together with ground glass joints, there are no hoses or rubber stoppers in contact with your product… It’s ALL glass! This system’s underlying design addresses a number of problems associated with competitive stills, Because of it’s “vertical” design, the biomass flask stays dry, none of the “boiling water” is wastefully condensed and trapped in the biomass flask, and because it uses separate flasks for boiling and biomass, there’s no risk of overheating or possibly burning your plant material. Our UNIQUELY DESIGNED RECEIVER. When the distillation is complete, the receiver then doubles as a tapered separatory funnel, allowing you to easily separate your prized oil from the remaining water. Here’s a link to the instructions for this kit, along with loads of photos and setup possiibilites… HERE’S WHAT’S IN THE KIT: New heavy duty hotplate with built-in flask support rod (for EUROPE we make this in 240 volt at no extra cost to you) ALL NEW PYREX (Borosilicate) GLASSWARE: 2 liter boiling flask, 24/40 sized ground glass joint 2 liter Biomass flask, 24/40 joint on bottom and large 45/50 almost 2 ID! Here’s some practical considerations of other units on the market and this system Problem: Lots of water always condenses in the biomass flask- it’s unavoidable, and it accumulates and eventually covers up a lot of the plant material I’m trying to distill. Solution: In this vertical system, that water simply drips back down into the boiling flask to be reused, instead of accumulating in the biomass flask being wasted and causing plant material to become flooded and no longer in contact with steam. This system’s vertical design insures that the biomass stays dry. There’s a ground glass stopper in the side of the boiling flask to make water addition very easy, in case you need to. Problem: The distiller takes up the whole room, it’s so big and spread out Solution: This system’s vertical design is very compact and doesn’t take up the whole kitchen sink! Problem: Uncondensed steam occasionally comes out of the end of the condenser… Isn’t this potentially loosing precious oil? Solution: Unlike systems with vertical “up-going” or traditional 105 degree angled condensers from which uncondensed steam can often escape, this system has a vertical “down-going” condenser in which the steam is forced straight down. This insures excellent agitation of the vapors and complete condensation, with no chance of steam or product escaping, even when using room-temperature tap water for cooling instead of ice water and a pump, which is often recommended in other systems. Here’s a photo of the system set up and ready to distill some freshly picked ROSEMARY The yield in this setup was aprox. 3mL (3/4 of a dram) Here’s some oils I’ve recently distilled with an identical kit, from herbs and things in our garden NOTE These vials are the result of ONE distillation of the herb, ie we packed the bioflask full and this is what we were rewarded with! The quantities vary with the actual type of herb, when it’s picked, where it lives, etc, but this is a good representation of what you can expect! Here’s the receiver in operation- note the oil layer Here’s all the individual parts: (hotplate is included but it’s not in this photo) Here’s a diagram of it and here’s how the receiver works. Note: Boiling stones are no longer included. They are not necessary for steam distillation with this kit. The item “ESSENTIAL OIL STEAM DISTILLATION KIT STILL DISTILLER” is in sale since Tuesday, November 04, 2014. This item is in the category “Health & Beauty\Natural & Alternative Remedies\Aromatherapy”. The seller is “qazxcdew” and is located in 92110. This item can be shipped to United States.