Solo Cleaning and Preparing an Alembic (Job Thread)

[Nasrin]

2nd of Fall, 512 AV Nasrin sighed at the veritable mountain of work before her. It was her first official day on the job in Scintillating Scents, and Tika had wasted no time setting her to task with some of the less...glamorous work that went into the production of perfumes and philters. The first and foremost of which was to clean and prepare Tika's brand new copper alembic still, which had arrived some days ago and had yet to be done by the Konti. As gifted as the woman was at her work, which was considerably so, she did not share Nasrin's enormous work ethic, and the Eypharian knew it was going to cause her some annoyance in the future. However, it was not really her place to question her teacher. That would come when Nasrin had surpassed her skills. The still seemed so out of place here in the spires, the gleaming brushed copper seeming so inorganic compared to the sprawling plantlife, but somehow she could see an echo of nature in its form. It was obviously crafted by a master, and he had imbued the thing with curves that were almost sensual in their naturalness, and the shape of it seemed to suggest the importance of the qualities of delicacy and subtlety. It was built in the traditional method, using riveted unions instead of the entire device being moulded together as one piece. This was the center of her trade, really, the tool that made all of her work possible. She looked at the device with affection shining in her stone grey eyes. She ran one hand over the cool metal, though she could not truly feel its smooth texture through the fabric of her gloves, the pretty but durable cloth protecting her marred skin from the eyes of strangers. She began first by disassembling the alembic, as each piece would first need to be individually cleaned.

[Nasrin]

She first removed the onion and bird's beak, detaching them from the pot and the condenser, and set that piece aside. The bird's beak was difficult to clean by hand and would be dealt with later. She would start with the easiest of the pieces, the retort. It was simply a brushed copper pot with attached handles, the lip of it designed to fit snugly to the bottom of the onion. This was where the fruit mash or wine would go, if she were to prepare a spirituous brandy, or more likely where she would place the herbs or flowers along with water to produce a hydrosol. She lined all three pieces of the alembic up on the wooden workbench and quickly fetched a rag, dipping it into a large basin of water Tika had provided for her use. She quickly and efficiently wrung out the cloth so that it was only damp instead of soaking, and started working. Almost lovingly she ran the cloth over the outside of the retort, feeling the need to be thorough even though the surface seemed clean enough. She the used her lower hands to flip the pot on its side, so that her upper ones could reach inside with the rag. It was important to clean out the inside of the alembic before using it, as it was common that they contained residue from the process of producing them which could seriously mar the quality of whatever was distilled in them. She ran the rag over every nook and cranny of the innards of the pot, rinsing the rag periodically in a separate bowl of water, which quickly turned murky with residue. There had been a particularly large amount of soot inside of this retort, and Nasrin clucked her tongue, irritated.

[Nasrin]

Once Nasrin was satisfied that the inside of the retort was spotless, she gave the rag a final rinse, making sure that all of the soot and metal dust was shaken free from its folds and into the water. She took that water to the one of the windows, which were always kept wide open in Scintillating scents, giving Nasrin as well as any customers that wandered in a feeling of still being outdoors. She tipped the wooden bowl slowly, letting the sooty water cascade out of the window, presumably to trickle down and water some thirsty plant far down below on the ground. The ash would be nourishing to whatever greenery it managed to encounter. Hopefully there was no one passing beneath the window on a lower petal at that moment, not that she cared much. Moving back to the workbench, she set the retort aside to air dry before moving on to the condenser. This piece was a bit more difficult to clean, as she had to twist her small hands in order to help the rag reach in between the twists of the coil, and she had to take nearly double the amount of time on it than she did on the retort. Once again the small bowl of water began clouding and swirling with soot, and she had to empty it once again after she finally had the condenser clean. Finally she repeated the process with the onion, reaching her finger, wrapped in the rag, as far as she could down the thin canal of the bird's beak. There wasn't much she could do to clean that part of the alembic by hand, but anything caught in the long, twisting beak would be removed by the next step in the cleaning. Leaving all the pieces of the alembic to dry in the slight breeze that was wofting through the shop, she turned her attention to creating the mixture that she would be running through the contraption in order to clean it. It was an exceedingly simple mix, one part rye flour to eight parts clean water. She hefted the heavy bag of rye flour off of the floor, having to use all four arms and a considerable amount of effort to get it onto the table. She had to rest for a moment to catch her breath, wiping a hand across her brow to banish the trickle of sweat that beaded there.

[Nasrin]

Using a small bowl, she added one scoop of the rye flour to the retort. It sent a pleasant aroma into her nostrils as it poufed out over the lip of the copper pot, reminding her somewhat of the flatbread her mother used to bake at home, in a large clay pot very similar in shape to the retort. The thought brought a wistful smile to her lips; though she enjoyed many aspects of life in The Spires, it would never be truly home to her the way Ahnatep was. At least she had Ayana to keep the images and sounds of her homeland fresh in her mind, and could speak Arumenic to her every day. Though the two Eypharian women shared an intense rivalry, Nasrin had come to think of her as perhaps a cousin or an older sister, and Ayana was indeed the closest thing to family she had in this place. She trusted her implicitly, a strong bond born of the long and arduous journey from their homeland. Shaking the thoughts from her head, as they were distracting her from her work, Nasrin attempted to regain concentration on the cleaning process. From the basin, she used the same bowl that she'd dipped in the flour to scoop eight parts of the cool, clear water into the retort, which she then swirled vigorously to combine well. She peered into the pot, wrinkling her nose; it was not full enough. She'd underestimated the amount of water it would take to fill it to the proper level. No matter. She added another half scoop of the and four more of the water, until she could see the greyish mixture as she peeked over the lip of the vessel. Briskly she attached the onion to the retort and then fixed the delicate bird's beak to the coil inside of the condenser. Some would begin distillation here, but Tika had instructed her differently; if she sealed the edges where the pieces of the alembic met each other, more of the liquid distillate would be preserved, instead of lost into the air as steam.

[Nasrin]

Sealing the seams of the alembic was apparently just as simple as creating the mixture to run through it. It was even comprised of the exact same ingredients, rye flour and water, though in much different measurements. Clearing a space on the smooth wooden table, she scooped out two bowls of the rye flour. She then used two fingers to poke a small well in the middle of the pile, careful not to poke all the way through down to the wood beneath. Oh so slowly she dribbled water from the basin into the tiny flour well, until it was full. Using the same two fingers she agitated the water until it absorbed into the flour, then repeated the process until nearly all of the flour was moist, darkened to a stone color by the water, and had created a putty-like paste. She had to be quick here, and took a wad of it into her upper palms, first rolling it into a sphere, the out into a snake, much like when she and her siblings had played with clay when they were small children. She used this 'snake' to wrap around the joint where the retort connected with the onion, sealing it tightly so that no precious steam could escape. She also did this where the bird's beak met the coil. She had been concerned that the putty, which hardened much quicker than she expected, would be difficult to remove from the alembic once the brewing process was finished, but Tika had assured her that as the rye mix cooked form the heat of the still, it became brittle and was easily chipped off. Once the joints were sealed, Nasrin could finally begin the distillation process. She scooted the alembic over a gap in the table that was specially built to house a fire, and began stoking the flame, adding a bit of kindling when it seemed not to be burning quickly enough. She would have to stand constant watch over the still, adding cool water and draining it from the condenser when it became warm from the boiling substance that ran through the coil. The water in the condenser had to be kept cool at all times or else the whole process would not work.

[Nasrin]

Nasrin set a basin beneath the spout of the condenser to catch the liquid that would soon be dripping from it, and began waiting. And waiting. And waiting. There was a reason that the expression 'a watched pot never boils' was coined. The longer she stared at the still, the COOLER the damnable thing seemed to get. She growled; Nasrin had never possessed much patience, and this part of the process always irked her to no end. She knew that if she were to leave the still and pursue some other activity it would boil in no time flat, but she was not yet skilled enough at philtering to know exactly when she ought to return and check on it. So she was stuck, standing in boredom in front of the worktable, tapping her feet and huffing frustratedly every few seconds until finally, finally she heart the alembic rattle slightly, indicating that the rye mixture inside was frothing and bubbling up. Soon it began to spurt out from the distillate outlet at the bottom of the condenser and into the basin below. She quickly drained half of the now heated water in the condenser and filled it again with cool. She continued to drain and refill the condenser for the entirety of the distillation, until the slurry stopped dripping from the spout. This meant that the cleaning was finished, and she put out the fire and allowed the alembic to cool before moving it off of the heat. Now it was only a matter of removing any rye paste that may have congealed inside of the retort, giving all the pieces a rinse, and then polishing the outside of the still. Tika had been correct. The rye paste cracked easily under the pressure of Nasrin's gloved fingers and was discarded, no longer of any use. She overturned the retort pot, shaking out as much of the leftover rye slurry as possible, then dunked it in the water basin, moving it back and forth to allow the water to rinse away the rest. She also did this for the onion and the condenser before drying all the pieces with a fine cloth.

[Nasrin]

All that was left now was for Nasrin to polish the outside of the copper pieces, brushing them to a bright and attractive sheen. Her father at home had always used the traditional mix of lemon juice and salt, but here in The Spires, lemons were not commonly available; instead, Nasrin would be using the paste of an unusual fruit that Tika had called a tamarind. The things were quite ugly in their raw form, looking much like an enlarged and brown version of a bean pod. It looked quite a bit less than appetizing to Nasrin, but she had found it quite delicious in flavor after some preparation; sweet and sour in exactly the right ratio. Tika had informed her that the raw pulp of the unripened fruit was often used as a pickling agent, while the more ripe version was made into all manner of desserts and preserves. It was also used medicinally, to cure scurvy and as an antiseptic. With a slightly guilty look on her face she swiped one of her lower, ungloved hands through the bowl of tamarind paste, lifting it to her lips to savor it; immediately upon the substance of her tongue her mouth seemed to flood, watering at the tangy flavor. This would be her only chance to sneak a taste of it before the flavor was ruined by the next addition. Sadly she combined it with the same amount of salt, then a small amount of water to form a thin spreadable paste. Again handling the paste with her ungloved hands she spread a small amount of it onto an are of the retort about the size of her palm, using a clean cloth to buff the copper to a lovely sheen. It would take some time to do all of the alembic's surface this way, and it was not even truly a necessary step, but Nasrin was nothing if not absolutely thorough in her work. It would be worth it in the end to see the alembic gleaming proudly in the work space. She pored over each piece, giving every square inch the love and attention she felt for her entire craft. As hard of work as it was, Nasrin truly was passionate about it.

[Reaper]

The Fruits Of The Harvest Nasrin : Skill XP Rewarded Philtering 3 Lores: Preparing an Alembic Alembic: Parts and How to Put Them Together More of a Passion Than a Work Ethic A Watched Pot Never Boils: A Firsthand Experience Other: None Notes: I thought her little distractions and that one guilty pleasure were entertaining. A good work thread should be at least a little bit so, and you managed it. Good work! Keep up the good work! Questions? Comments? Something important that I missed? Please do not hesitate to PM me and we will discuss it.