Distillation of the volatile Sulfur of Piper nigrum (Essential Oil of Black Pepper)
A few days ago I posted that I was Preparing to work in my laboratory, and today I am here to bring you the first part of this extensive process I have begun.
Distillation of the volatile Sulfur
When making a complete Spagyric Philosophical extract, one must separate the Sulfur, Mercury, and Salt; that is, the essential oil, ethyl-alcohol, and mineral salts, respectively. In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to properly conduct the correct processes in the right order. The purpose of this is to separate each constituent and purify it to its greatest degree, raising the mundane its closest to divinity.
First, we begin by separating the Sulfur from our Prima Materia, or our first matter/base material. This is done first because we will later be conducting a fermentation in order to retrieve the Mercury. Essential oils and ethyl-alcohol create a bond which is impossible to break without specific, advanced equipment. Thus, we must begin by conducting an initial distillation to receive our work's volatile Sulfur.
Sulfur is composed of both a fixed and a volatile portion, always in varied rations between different plants. The volatile Sulfur is that which readily releases with heat, thus a distillation with water shall suffice. The fixed Sulfur requires more work to separate and we shall revisit said subject after fermentation.
The first step in distillation is to allow your herbs to soak overnight.
Grind or crush your herb as best you can. Find a suitable sized flask and fill it about 1/3 full of your Prima Materia. Fill the flask to about 1/2 full with room temperature water, wetting all material in the vessel. Seal the vessel and let it set no more than 24 hours, after this point fermentation will begin and Sulfur will be lost to the Mercury::Sulfur bond.
If using fresh herbs, this is an unnecessary step.
Next, we attach the flask to the still and apply heat.
Using an oil bath, in order to avoid burning the herb, heat the contents of the flask to a boil. This will cause the Sulfur to use the evaporating water as a temporary vessel and raise from the flask. This soul carrying heated steam now needs to be recondensed so we may capture and separate the volatile Sulfur. This is done as the steam travels through a jacketed tube surrounded with a constant supply of cold water.
The cold glass cools off the hot steam, it recondenses as water, and it rolls down the condensor to the receiving flask. After a suffiencient amount of water has boiled off and recondensed, we then pour the contents of the receiving flask into a separatory funnel.
After several minutes, we can then slowly release the more dense water into another flask and separate the volatile Sulfur.
We take our volatile sulfur and seal it in an air tight container in order to save it for the reconstitution processes at the end of our work.
Once distillation is complete and no more, or minimal, Sulfur comes over, we can begin on fermentation.
Be sure to stay tuned to catch the next process.
Here are my notes I kept while performing these processes.
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LOVELAUGHTER&&XHAOS
Loser of Found Souls, Temple of Appled Thought
Erisian Ataxia Troupe
If you enjoyed this post, don't forget to Follow Me and check out some other interesting articles:
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Very cool. Thank you for sharing.
I enjoyed watching this. How did it feel while you were doing it under these cosmic conditions? Curiosity here...All this Mercury.
I wonder how the plants have been speaking to you as you've been initiating this distillation.
Up! I know symbols now. Thanks @alchemage!