Homedistillation pages:
Distillation of Matricaria recutita (German chamomile)
Dear visitor,
I receive a lot of questions about home distillation
of essential oils and hydrolats.
I would like to demonstrate with the following images
that it's not so difficult at all.
You need to make an investment in some distillation
equipment of course.
I will not explain the distillation theory
here
(you can find this on the Agora FAQ pages),
but simply show you some images.
.
.
You need some place in a kitchen to install your distillation equipment
first.
.
.
I use a inox steamer and was lucky to be able to easily attach a tube
to it, to bring the
steam to the alambic. I can add about 4 liters of water in it, enough for
a distillation
of at least two hours...
.
I add some weight (bottles filled with water) in order to stabilize
everything.
.
.
.
First the details of the cooling system, then deatails of the alambic.
.
.
I filled the alambic with dry Matricaria chamomillae (German Chamomile).
Then I need to
close the ring between the alambic and the top, in order to prevent the loss of vapour.
.
.
Details of the top of the alambic. Adding of the top, the connection
between the alambic
and the cooling system.
.
.
Once the top is added, a connection is added to keep everything together,
since the
vapours will exercice a certain pressure to the connections.
.
.
Details of the connections between the glass tubes.
.
.
Finally the closing of the steam producing unit and starting to heat
the water.
.
.
We open the van with cold water to condensate the vapours in the refrigeration tube.
. 
. .
.
We add a separation glass under the refrigeration tube to collect the
hydrolate and the
essential oil.
..
Distilling German Chamomile is a special event: the hydrolate is of
a milk aspect, you see
the blue chamomile essential oil floating all around...
Details of the chamomile essential oils... Other essential
oils form a nice oil above the
water (most oils are floating), clearly separated from the hydrolate.
.
We were only distilling 330 gram dried chamomile flowers, so the yield
is quit low and
difficult to separate.
.
Details of the forming of the essential oil within the refrigeration
tube (blue drops...).
.
Separation unit.
..
After the distillation, our yield of blue chamomile essential oil.
.
. 
We finish by separating the water from the essential oil.
This page is hosted by Michel Vanhove
