This summer I added a new piece of equipment to our soap studio that I’ve wanted for a very long time—a copper distiller for herbs and flowers.
Owning a copper distiller has actually been on my bucket list for years, so getting to experiment with one this summer has been a bit of a dream come true!
With my copper distiller, I can take plants that I’ve grown in my garden or wildcrafted here in Alberta and use steam distillation to create my own hydrosols and, when the plant produces enough, essential oils. Of course, this means I’ve spent a good portion of my summer wandering around wondering, “Can I distill that?”
How Does a Copper Distiller Work?
The process is actually pretty fascinating.
I fill the still with water and fresh plant material—flowers, leaves, stems or other aromatic parts of the plant depending on what I’m distilling. As the water is heated, steam moves through the plant material and carries some of the plant's aromatic, volatile compounds along with it.
That aromatic steam then travels from the copper still into a cold-water condenser. The condenser cools the steam back into liquid, which slowly drips out of the still.
The resulting aromatic water is called a hydrosol (sometimes called floral water). If the plant contains enough volatile oil, a small amount of essential oil can also collect and separate from the hydrosol.
And when I say a small amount, I mean small!
A single distillation requires quite a lot of fresh plant material and about an hour of distilling for me to collect roughly two quarts of hydrosol. It has given me a whole new appreciation for just how much plant material goes into producing botanical ingredients and essential oils.
What Can I Make With My Hydrosols?
Now comes the fun part—figuring out how I can use these homegrown and wildcrafted hydrosols in Prairie Soap Shack products.
I think they will be most successful formulated into products like lotions and botanical body sprays, where their more delicate plant scents can shine. Be sure to be on our email list to hear first when these new products are available this fall. It will be limited batches for everything.
I don't think many of these scents will survive the chemical reaction involved in cold-process soap making. They are much more subtle than the essential oils I normally use to scent soap, so for now, I likely won't even try. I'd rather save these beautiful hydrosols for products where you can actually appreciate them!
Experimenting With Different Prairie Plants
This summer has been one big experiment as I've learned that some plants perform much better in a copper still than others.
So far, I've had the most success distilling pasture sage, wild bergamot, roses and peonies. It's been so interesting to see which scents carry through the steam distillation process and how the finished hydrosol compares to the scent of the fresh plant.
And then there were the lilacs.
The internet told me that lilac is notoriously difficult to distill because its beautiful scent doesn't translate particularly well through steam distillation.
But of course I had to try!
The outcome?
A hint of lilac mixed with... old vase water.
Definitely not the beautiful spring lilac hydrosol I had pictured in my head!
But that's part of experimenting with plants. Not everything works, and sometimes learning what doesn't work is just as useful as discovering what does.
What's Going Into the Copper Still Next?
I still have quite a list of plants I want to experiment with. Next up I'm hoping to try:
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Peppermint
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Eucalyptus
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Silver willow (next Spring)
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Yarrow
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White spruce
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Juniper leaf and berry
Some are growing right in my garden and others can be wildcrafted around our farm here in central Alberta. I'm especially curious to see which ones produce noticeable amounts of essential oil and which are better suited to creating an aromatic hydrosol.
There is still so much for me to learn about botanical steam distillation, and that's probably what I love most about it.
I've always wanted to own and use a traditional copper distiller, and now I get to experiment with the plants growing right here around me and eventually find new ways to incorporate them into the natural skincare products I make.
It's one more way I can take something growing in my garden or on the Alberta prairie and follow it all the way from plant to finished product—and I'm pretty excited to see what comes out of the still next.
