Tazrae and Tegan put in a Philtering Lab.
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Syka is a new settlement of primarily humans on the east coast of Falyndar opposite of Riverfall on The Suvan Sea. [Syka Codex]
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by Tazrae on November 30th, 2020, 4:20 am
Timestamp: 80th of Fall, 520 A.V.
Tazrae assisted Tegan in moving the huge crate into her office and setting it up on the desk. Tegan had volunteered to set the distiller up for her. And of course, Tazrae had questions. While Tegan carefully removed the components of the lab and laid them out carefully on the workbenches, Taz took the opportunity to ask him.
“It’s called a distiller… what exactly is distilling?” She said carefully, knowing in a general way what distillation entailed. She wasn’t stupid, but she had a limited amount of education and even more limited experience in chemistry and she was only going by what one or two other people told her that she needed to start making perfumes. “The only thing I know about them is that I need one to make perfumes.” Taz admitted, hating her own ignorance.
Tegan smiled, glancing over his shoulder at her as he pulled another piece from the crate and laid it out. “Its really easy. Distillation is a process of separation…. You can absolutely separate one liquid from another by heating the combined liquids and transferring the vapor to its own container leaving the essential part… the non-water… in a separate container. It’s really good at separating water from oil… every living thing – plants especially – have a pure oil that makes up their beings that contains all the elements the plant holds… healing properties, scents, any sort of element. It’s also the best way to purify water. You can distill any precipitate out of impure water and have something drinkable. Once you understand how this distiller works, you can improvise out in the wilds and make clean water.” He added.
Taz nodded. “So what’s all this?” She asked, moving up next to him and peering at the contents laid out.
Tegan looked serious and smiled. “Let’s see… I’ll explain it all as I set it up. With this particular one that James got you… it looks like you can purify like I talked about, distill, separate liquid mixtures into more core mixtures, and determine boiling points of compounds. You can also recover participates, and enrich solutions. Compounds are two or more things combined to form one thing…” He said then began pointing out the name of things as he set them up.
“This is an iron stand. It holds all the components via these clamps. We have two of them… This is a pear separating funnel… a distillation flask, snake condenser…. That’s where the steam goes to be turned back into pure water. This is a simple beaker, an Erlenmeyer flask, a couple of spare bottles to put essential oils in when you distill them out of plant material… looks like James got you a case of those… in the trunk over there. Glass eyedropper, a flask brush for cleaning the glassware… you always have to keep your glassware clean… exceptionally clean… an alcohol wick, an alcohol burner… tripod, mesh, waterstop clip, and tubing… looks like cat gut to me. This is a nice apparatus set up.” He said, and began fitting the components together.
“This all looks like annealed glass too so you can put direct flame on it to heat it… that’s a good thing.” He said as he sat up the tripod, rested the alcohol burner on it, then rested that next to the stand. He set the distillation flask up by clamping it to the stand with a nice neck clamp, then lowered it on its clamp so the flask was held securely above the flame if the alcohol lamp was lit. Next, he added another clamp, attached the snake condenser to the stand, and attached the condenser to the distiller flask. The pear separator was attached to the snake condenser also and then hung from the stand via a different clamp. Beneath it a beaker was placed. He tapped the big round bottomed distillation flask…and told Tazrae
“You add your raw ingredients here with water… say you are making essential lavender oil, you’d fill this flask with lavender and water. The heat is going to slowly work on breaking down the plant material into its very key components, and the condenser will take the steam given off from the water and run it through the coils here and divide it into pure water and pure oil… that’s what collects in the pear separating funnel. Now back in the distillation flask, I would recommend you put some broken pottery or ceramic... in a pinch a few small pebbles in the flask with the material or else the mixture of whatever it is you are distilling will do what’s called bump… its like when you hiccup so hard the contents of your stomach erupt and you taste bile? Bumping is not good in distillation because it means your heating too fast too high. So that little trick keeps the liquid from bumping, which honestly, often causes lab equipment to explode.” He added as Tazrae cringed.
Last edited by
Tazrae on November 30th, 2020, 4:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."
Garden Beach ❖ Syka ❖ The Protea Inn
"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
-
![User avatar](./download/file.php?avatar=136711_1683823678.jpg)
Tazrae - Be savage, not average.
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- Posts: 1336
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- Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
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by Tazrae on November 30th, 2020, 4:21 am
“Explosions are bad... we don’t want any of that.” She added, looking more than concerned, even anxious having the still in her home.
Tegan chuckled.
“Taz, its fine as long as you follow directions and common sense… don’t heat anything to close to the flame, too fast, or pack the flask too full. Do small batches, especially if all you are interested in is the essential oils. Low and slow. It’s the mantra for philtering.” He said with a chuckle.
“So, fill the alcohol burner, light it up, adjust the beaker above it so that it hits at the tip of the inner intense flame with the bottom of the beaker…. Then watch it… might be a few hours, or you might be watching it all night. Make sure the ingredients get worked, keep the distillation flask full of water… if you don’t, you can run the risk of exploding it also. And around here if this thing explodes, your Inn isn’t made of stone… it’s made of wood… so it would be a really hard fire to get put out, Taz.” He said thoughtfully.
“Are there steps to prevent explosions?” She asked, not wanting this to be her fate.
Tegan nodded. “Never burn the alcohol burner with the distillation flask empty. The glass will explode. Never heat the mixture in the distillation flask hotter than the boiling points of its components. That means you’ll start to keep a boiling point log and watch your thermometer here… measure temps on everything, Taz. And note at what temperature they boil. That will help you identify substances acutely… if something boils at seventy-four degrees and you’ve noted it… and you get a mystery substance that also boils at seventy-four degrees, then there’ s a better than average chance your mystery item is whatever you have recorded at that same boiling point.” He said, looking thoughtful. “That trick has saved my bacon in Philtering time after time.” He admitted, shaking his head and giving her room to examine the device now that it was assembled.
Taz nodded. “I feel like I should be taking notes.” She added, then approached the apparatus as he had it assembled. “Let me see if I understand this…” She confessed, and began tapping parts. “So, this whole thing extracts essential oil from plant material mixed with water. It cleans the water and makes it pure as it does so. And honestly, this looks simple. There’s a heat source… the alcohol lamp. The book calls it a furnace. I thumbed through my perfume book before you caught me unpacking. The heat source boils the water in this distillation flask. The book called it a retort or holding tank. Then the condenser, you called it a snake condenser, which collects and cools the steam… its attached to the separator, which separates the essential oil from the water vaper. Let’s see… the separator or essencier…. It looks like the most important piece of the distiller. It works… passively… just by the boil... the addition of heat instead of active manners, which involves other compounds. I guess active distilling can taint the essential oil on the far side, right?” She asked, nodding.
Last edited by
Tazrae on November 30th, 2020, 4:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."
Garden Beach ❖ Syka ❖ The Protea Inn
"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
-
![User avatar](./download/file.php?avatar=136711_1683823678.jpg)
Tazrae - Be savage, not average.
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- Posts: 1336
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- Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
- Location: Syka
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by Tazrae on November 30th, 2020, 4:22 am
She walked to her book, flipped it open, and tapped the page where it talks about how to make an essential oil. “Here it is…”
How To Make An Essential Oils
- Set up the Still
- Harvest your raw material.
- Dry the plant material.
- Add water to the tank of your still.
- Add your plant material and pack it tightly in the still.
- Close the still and boil the water.
- Keep an eye on the still.
- Filter the collected oil.
- Pour the oil into a container for storage.
- Decide what to do with the hydrosol.
- Clean the still.
|
“What exactly is an essential oil, Tegan? I mean I think I have an idea, but can you tell me for certain?” Taz asked him and the man smiled. He nodded, gathered his thoughts and told her what he knew.
“Taz, an Essential oil is just a concentrated liquid containing the volatile aromatic compounds distilled from plants. I don’t know of any other form of distilling for essential oils that doesn’t involve poison or say using an animal substance like a venom.” He said, then continued on.
“They are known as volatile oils, ethereal oils, and often called ‘oil of’ followed by the name of the plant that created them. So… “Oil of Basil” Means it is the essential oil came from Basil.” He added. “It’s considered ‘essential’ because it carries a distinctive scent from the plant it was made of. They are often used in soap, lotion, candles, makeup, even perfumes like you want to use them in.” He added. “Or they can be used as flavorings like ‘Oil of Orange’ and on and on. So once you get a nice stash of these oils, you can cook with them too.” He added, knowing she’d be interested. “Oil of Almond and Vanilla are very commonly used. So too are cinnamon oils, lemon, and orange.” He affirmed.
“Can they be used as medicine?” Taz asked.
Tegan nodded. “You can use the oils to sooth skin issues, such as rashes, or add them to massage oil or even apply them to a sore tooth. I believe clove oil is traditionally really good for a tooth ache. You can check your healer over at the Panacea and he can give you a list I suspect.” Tegan answered looking thoughtful. The young Innkeeper certainly asked a lot of questions. He liked the intelligence but thought she might do better reading deeper into her books before she got started on her projects.
“So, I know what an essential oil is now, but what exactly is the Hydrosol?” She asked, turning to look at Tegan.
He nodded. “That is a good question. You have water going through this apparatus. You have the plant material that also has water in it… and the herb itself and so when you get done distilling the essential oil, the used plant material that is just good for perhaps fertilizing your garden, and then you have pure water and hydrosol. Hydrosol is the liquid left behind after you extract the essential oils. You can then run it through the distiller again, get a tiny bit more oil, and more pure water. You can do this multiple times or you can use the hydrosol for other things. If you distill rose oil out of rose hips… you can take the rose oil, for example, and use it as hand cream or spritz.” He suggested, then laughed. “Not that there are roses in Syka, but you understand.” He added.
Taz nodded.
Last edited by
Tazrae on November 30th, 2020, 4:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."
Garden Beach ❖ Syka ❖ The Protea Inn
"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
-
![User avatar](./download/file.php?avatar=136711_1683823678.jpg)
Tazrae - Be savage, not average.
-
- Posts: 1336
- Words: 1917699
- Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
- Location: Syka
- Race: Human
- Character sheet
- Storyteller secrets
- Journal
- Plotnotes
- Medals: 5
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by Tazrae on November 30th, 2020, 4:23 am
Then Tazrae did something crazy.
She started carefully disassembling the distiller carefully and fully, then began to reassemble it thoroughly. Tegan watched her, making minor adjustments to her work like tightening clamps, and making seemingly micro adjustments to the stand heights. Taz wasn’t offended. She learned. And she knew that through repetition, she’d remember. The apparatus would always have to be taken down to be cleaned. When Tegan wasn’t here to fix it, she’d possibly set it up wrong or get hurt. Now… she simply was grateful the man was willing to be patient and watch her as she disassembled it once more then put it together again.
There was satisfaction in a job well done. And once it was fully assembled, Taz turned back to her list on how to make an essential oil.
“So… raw ingredients? Can you tell me what you know about them?” She asked Tegan, more than curious about all this.
“Your book will have good information, but if you want to make oils to make perfume with… you are going to have to understand plants, how to judge quality because honestly your oils are only as good as your ingredients. I know Botany well… I can provide you with a few ideas… but honestly each plant is different. The amount of essential oil and the potency of the oil contained in plants change over the course of the plant’s life, its stage of development, and peaks. Unfortunately, every plant is different so you’ll have to study the plant you want to use and learn as much as you can about it. Making perfume means harvesting blooms… and some scents I imagine will change over the course of the life of the bloom… newly opened blooms, prime blooms, blooms that are decaying… will all have a different odor. You’ll have to make a study of them if you want to be good at perfumery.” He added, smiling slightly.
“But there should be general things, right? Like… shouldn’t plants be freshly harvested? Not powdered, crushed or dried?” Taz asked, watching Tegan and only relaxing as he nodded. “Some plants bloom only at night… some only during the day… does time of day count?” She asked, sharing her observations of the jungle as she had seen it wandering with Randal.
Tegan looked thoughtful. “Yes and no. You have to understand that dehydration can and will decrease the amount of oil in the plants you are using. Fresh is better, but if you need a lot of essential oil in a hurry and you have a significant harvest, then drying the plants before you distill might be a benefit because you can fit more plants into a batch and get a greater amount of both oil and a higher concentration. That being said, I would dry slowly and not in direct sunlight. There is something about sunlight that breaks down the plant and makes the oil less potent. So… it’s absolutely useless if you have a great deal more oil, but it is less effective and potent than a smaller amount distilled from fresh plants.” He said thoughtfully.
“There is a lot more about this than I first suspected.” She said softly, looking at Tegan. “I’m not sure if this is my cup of tea. It sounds a lot like cooking, to be honest, but I know it’s a lot more dangerous than making dough from flour by adding water and salt.” The young Innkeeper added.
“You’re going to be good at this. If you cook… which is an art but also a science… and you bake. You’ll be able to filter. Who knows, if you get good enough at it, you might even be able to make scents like fresh baked cookies.” He joked, leaning a hip against the counter and watching her curiously.
Last edited by
Tazrae on November 30th, 2020, 4:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."
Garden Beach ❖ Syka ❖ The Protea Inn
"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
-
![User avatar](./download/file.php?avatar=136711_1683823678.jpg)
Tazrae - Be savage, not average.
-
- Posts: 1336
- Words: 1917699
- Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
- Location: Syka
- Race: Human
- Character sheet
- Storyteller secrets
- Journal
- Plotnotes
- Medals: 5
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by Tazrae on November 30th, 2020, 4:25 am
Then he looked thoughtful. “When your loading water in, make sure the distillation flask isn’t more than two-thirds of the volume but no fewer than one-third of the volume. Don’t overheat.. if you go over the boiling point of the material that has the highest boiling point in the mixture, you might get an explosion and that can seriously hurt you or at the very least ruin your apparatus and that isn’t easy to replace. Make sure when you set it up, that the cooling water inside the snake condenser is entering through the mouth.. and exiting out the wound entrance. Its an odd name, I know, but you want the cool water circulating that way or else you will be bringing warm water back into the snake and that will cause your condensing process to not happen.” He said, tracing the lines and showing her how things were always to be hooked up.
“And clean.. right? Keep everything absolutely spotless because you don’t want to introduce anything into your essential oil… like a mold. Mold is everywhere here… so I see how important that is.” She added, smiling at him. “You said the glass was annealed earlier. What does that mean exactly?” Taz asked, remembering what Tegan had said.
“Oh… simply when the glassblower blew this chemistry equipment, they let it cool very very slowly so it stayed hot for a long long time. When you do that, its considered annealed which means it can take on drastic temperature changes and not be prone to shattering. Ever have a glass fresh out of a hot soapy sink get filled with ice and liquid… say iced tea on a hot day... then have it just spontaneously shatter? That’s because the glass wasn’t annealed or cured right. Your lab equipment was.” He said confidently, tapping the Erienmeyer flask affectionately.
“Thank you so much for helping me set this up. It looks like I’m going to have to go read the rest of this perfume book and get some basic knowledge in me before I run this distiller. There’s so much to learn. Plus its getting late. You literally helped me all day, but now I have to go make some dinner for the residents. Once that’s done, I’ll do some heavy reading and maybe tomorrow make some essential oils… to maybe mix into perfume.” She added, hoping that was how it went.
Tegan smiled. “Well, if you are going to do that… I’m going to go get some of my own work done. I have to talk to Uta – I think her name is – about some walks I want to make in the jungle. I figured taking the resident herbalist along would be a good thing. So if I’m free tomorrow when you have time and enough knowledge to start your distilling… I’ll be glad to watch over you for your first round.” He offered, not at all put out that she was calling it a day on this philtering lab project.
“I’d love that… thank you, Tegan. You’ve been invaluable to me here.” She added, then smiled.
Tegan tapped the glass one more time as if he just thought of something and nodded. “Taz… its my pleasure. I want to be sure you know what your doing and you don’t get hurt. And if I can’t be here because Uta is able to do her walk when you are ready… please remember one thing. Distilling can be a long process. It might take you a half bell to two days’ worth of bells to get done with a batch. Most will average you a few bells only, but during that time… make sure the water level is adequate to complete the process… don’t add water since it will be too cold and don’t over water the flasks. Understand?” He said sincerely.
Taz nodded. “Thank you, Tegan. This… this whole afternoon has been very enlightening. I really appreciate the fact you’ve been here.” She said sincerely.
He bowed slightly, a grin on his face, and nodded. “I’ll see you at dinner, Taz. I look forward to it.” And with that, he slipped out of her office and off to his own room and where he had his poisoncraft lab set up. She had no idea what he was going to do the rest of the afternoon, but she knew she was going to go through the rest of her deliveries, put them away, and start working on dinner.
Word Count: 3325
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."
Garden Beach ❖ Syka ❖ The Protea Inn
"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
-
![User avatar](./download/file.php?avatar=136711_1683823678.jpg)
Tazrae - Be savage, not average.
-
- Posts: 1336
- Words: 1917699
- Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
- Location: Syka
- Race: Human
- Character sheet
- Storyteller secrets
- Journal
- Plotnotes
- Medals: 5
-
-
-
by Tazrae on August 23rd, 2021, 2:00 pm
Grading
Tazrae –
Interrogation +3, Philtering +5, Researching +1, Cleaning +1
Philtering: Distilling, Philtering: Def and Purpose of Distilling, Philtering: What Essential Oils Are And How To Make Them, Philtering: Parts of a Distiller, Philtering: The Components of A Philtering Lab, Philtering: What Annealed Glass Is, Philtering: The Use Of An Alcohol Burner, Philtering: How To Prevent Glass Exploding, Philtering: How To Make Essential Oils, Medicine: What Essential Oils Are Good For, Philtering: What A Hydrosol Is, Philtering: Difference Between Fresh And Dried Herbs, Philtering: Boiling Points and Their Importance, Philtering: All Equipment Must Be Clean
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."
Garden Beach ❖ Syka ❖ The Protea Inn
"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
-
![User avatar](./download/file.php?avatar=136711_1683823678.jpg)
Tazrae - Be savage, not average.
-
- Posts: 1336
- Words: 1917699
- Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
- Location: Syka
- Race: Human
- Character sheet
- Storyteller secrets
- Journal
- Plotnotes
- Medals: 5
-
-
-
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