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Homemade Stills for Making Essential Oils

There are four essential components you need for a homemade still for making essential oil. You need a heat source, a holding tank, and condenser, and a separator. The process is basically the same procedure for making liquor but on a much smaller scale. Your homemade still is inexpensive and simple to make with items you may already have in your kitchen or garage.

  1. Heat source

    • The heat source for your homemade essential oil will be a metal tea kettle with a tight lid. The kettle is filled with water on a high flame. The goal is to seal the kettle spout with a rubber stopper that has copper tubing and a meat thermometer inserted in it. The copper tube goes from the kettle to the holding tank and releases steam to extract essential oil from your plants and flowers.

    Holding Tank

    • The holding tank can be a 2 liter soda bottle that is filled with plant substance. Steam comes in the top of the holding tank via the copper tubing from the boiling tea kettle. The steam begins to extract the essential oils from the plant matter as vapor, which is released through an exit copper tube in the bottom of the holding tank.

    Condenser

    • The condenser is copper tubing that is coiled 7 or 8 times. The vapor from the holding tank is fed into the condenser by the copper tube leading from the bottom of the holding tank. The coil sits in a bucket made from a gallon milk jug with the top cut off that is filled with ice water. As the vapor travels through the coil and is cooled the moisture begins to evaporate leave pure essential oil to drip out the exit tube.

    Separator

    • The boiling water will create steam that is sent through the copper tubing into the 2 liter bottle filled with plant substance. The steam will penetrate the plants and create a vapor of essential oil that will run out the bottom tube leading to the coil. The coil sitting in ice water cools the vapor, eliminating the water and creating the pure essential oil that begins to drip out the exit copper tubing into a waiting glass container.

    Tip

    • Dry your plant matter in advance of using it in your homemade essential oil still. You will be able to put more plants in your holding tank when they are dry, making your final product of essential oil more concentrated. Watch the meat thermometer and never let the temperature get higher than 175 degrees or your water will evaporate.

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