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I was hearing and reading about all kinds of uses for oil of oregano. I have a lush clump of Greek Oregano -- Origanum vulgare ... But I'm sure the real stuff is distilled essential oil and I can't make that.

When I looked around there were some people who implied that herbal oil extraction is just as good. Others recommended alcohol tincture.... So I went with both. I had about 1/2 inch of organic coconut oil left in the jar. I stuffed it with freshly harvested and washed oregano with flowers, packed tightly -- 1/2 filled the jar, then covered with spiritos. Left to steep for a few days, shaking occasionally.

I might have decanted a day too late... Because the liquid was brilliant Emerald green the day before. But the herbs had turned brown and brittle in the tincture.

I tried to capture the color, but this was the best I could do:
I shook to blend the alcohol and coconut oil which are separated into layers with the oil on the bottom. And tested by dabbing a sore spot on my gums with it -- someone said oil of oregano was fantastic and gives instant relief. Well it worked. So I'm going to keep some in an eyedropper tincture bottle. I will try other uses, too, and see if this will work as effectively.

Interesting... I think tinctures are great. Never heard of making a mixture of oil and alcohol.

The herbal oil extraction by itself, I think is pretty inefficient extraction. To make an herbal oil that way, pack a jar with the herb, then fill the jar with a neutral oil. Let it sit for a week or so, shaking occasionally. Then strain the oil out, pressing to get the oil back out of your herbs. Fill the jar again, with fresh new herbs and the already once infused oil and do it again. Now maybe you have enough herbal essence infused into your oil to make a difference.

Sounds like what you did worked!

With everything you do, applestar, I'm surprised you haven't gotten in to making actual essential oils. I found a new suggestion for how to do this at home:

The small espresso pots (that sit on your stovetop) that import/export shops carry are nothing more than a small steam still.They typically have a small lower chamber for the water, then a container that holds coffee grounds (the bottom is a perforated plate, keeping the grounds off of the water). Above this is a little spout that the steam (after going through the coffee) passes through, which empties out the espresso into the upper chamber. Look at what's available on the shelf at the store. Don't buy a coffee percolator- the thing I'm talking about allows only steam to pass through the coffee grounds (steam distilling the coffee). I bought one in the U.S.A. for $10 (it's a small 3 cup model), made of aluminum, and works great for steam distilling rosemary and lavender oil.

https://homedistiller.org/flavor/oils (the article is good and has other suggestions)

When I am ready to try distilling again, I may try this.

Ooh thanks! Definitely going to read that. I might actually have one of those espresso gadgets in the back of the fridge-top cabinet where all unused but (maybe I'll need someday) kitchen stuff are "disappeared" to.....

I was really surprised how well that mixture worked too. You describe squeezing the herbs -- I was going to do that, but they were like sucked dry somehow while still in the liquid. Dark brown, BRITTLE and crumbly.... I had to carefully pour out instead of trying to remove the herbs first to drain in a strainer.

Yes, because you had alcohol in there. I was talking about when you just use oil to infuse. Alcohol is a dessicant-- you get dehydrated from drinking alcohol and that is part of the damage it does to your system.

I was surprised about your mixture too - will have to try it some time!

Note that there are a couple different kinds of espresso machines. The fancier ones, more recommended for actual espresso and pricier, are pump action. You don't want that for herbs, I think. The cheap ones are steamers, that put steam through the coffee grounds (or herbs). That would be your distiller.

So I just ordered myself one of the little stovetop espresso machines from Amazon. I will keep you posted how it works for distilling essential oils.

Great! Looking forward to your -hopefully positive- results. I need to pursue this.

So I did get my little stovetop espresso maker and tried using it for steam distilling herbs.

It is this one:

https://www.amazon.com/100ml-Stainless- ... 84VP517X8Z

Definitely if you think about getting one, make sure it is stainless steel. There are aluminum ones out there and they get really bad reviews.

So good things:

it is nice looking, doesn't take up much storage space, it is very easy to use. Put distilled water in the bottom, put the herbs in the little basket, screw the top part back on, heat on medium until it quits making perking sounds. Pour your distillate off. It is flat bottomed steel, so I could set it directly on my ceramic cook top. Being small it heats up quickly, takes only about ten minutes to heat the water to boiling and run through the steam cycle. So it doesn't use a lot of energy.

Not so good:

It doesn't tell you when it is done, so you really have to be paying attention to when it quits perking. I managed to burn the bottom of mine a little already, when it boiled dry. But mainly the product, like everything I have tried is a hydrosol, the essential oil still mixed with water. In this case the hydrosol is mixed with pretty much water and isn't real potent. Better than the microwave version I tried, not as good as the actual stove top still I had - but the stove stop still required boiling for a LONG time.

The product can be improved by just putting the hydrosol back in the water chamber and running it through a new basket of herbs (the basket is very small, it doesn't use up a lot of herbs). And I presume I can just evaporate some of the water off. I left the hydrosols in open jars to work on that.

So for a cheap easy and energy efficient device, it is not bad. By running the hydrosol back through, you get a product that is definitely not an essential oil, but is fragrant enough for my uses.

But what I still really want is an actual steam distiller.



but I haven't nerved myself up to spend $250 on it!

Thank you Rainbowgardener

I love what you are doing. This definitely sounds like something I need to add to my kitchen gadget collection.

Thanks for finding this thread, too. I was just thinking yesterday that I need to make more oregano tincture ...


...and LOL I don't have the budget for the Mad Scientist gizmo either... But I want it

I bought this back in spring, but I finally got around to trying it today.

For this first experiment, I packed the basket with old (2014) dried peppermint leaves, then added old dried plantain with some seeds that fell in, and 4-6 fresh calendula leaves I harvested yesterday. I only used filtered water not distilled.



...the house smells wonderful now.

- this “6 cup” espresso maker brews about 9 oz, so when I thoughtlessly poured the result in an 8-oz canning jar, it overflowed even after pouring through a coffee filter to remove tiny bits. But this is actually perfect since I can store the result with a little bit to test with (as long as I don’t spill and waste the extra ) I waited until warm to touch this time, but if I pour into the canning jar relatively hot, it will vacuum seal a little bit, too.


...I wanted to make a hand sanitizer spray with this, so now I’m looking around for ways to remove the dark color a bit without removing the essential oils. So far, the possibilities I found for removing tea color are activated charcoal or lime, maybe diatomaceous earth, and possibly wine clarifying methods using bentonite clay, casein, gelatin, or albumin (egg white).

Of these, I’m pretty sure activated charcoal would remove the fragrance (=oils?), and diatomaceous earth would remove the oils. Wine clarifying methods discuss removing tannins, cloudiness and preserving aroma, and resulting in sparklingly clear wine, but I’m not sure about color....?


.... also, in the course of my search, I came across references to “pressure cooker” stills. Here’s one photo (https://www.tematy.info/openphoto.php?I'm ... ill-06.jpg)

40 yrs ago I use to fill a mason jar with herb then fill it with ethyl alcohol that is sold as PGA = pure grain alcohol at the liquor store. Wait about 2 week then pour off the alcohol onto a large pan, 9x12 glass cake pan worked good. Let alcohol evaporate away naturally. Volume becomes about 30% less very quick about 1 week but as the liquid becomes thicker alcohol evaporates slower. It takes about 2 months to get a thick oil.

I learned that if herbs are picked then put directly into mason jars they sometimes have a green grass chlorophyll flavor but let herbs dry 1 or 2 days the green grass flavor is gone. I also noticed herbs harvested in hot 100 degree weather no rain for several weeks were the best.

Last winter I built a still with a 1 gallon pressure cooker and copper tubing. It was about 25 degrees outside in the work shop I started out using about 20 ft of 1/4" copper tubing. This test was to determine how much copper tubing was needed to cool steam from boiling water to liquid with no fan just the cold air. I have 7 or 8 pieces of copper tubing I kept adding more tubing up to 55 feet. Steam turned to liquid at about 52 feet. If steam comes out the end of the tubing your loosing your liquid into the air. Inside the house is 72 degrees, 47 degrees warmer than the 25 degree work shop a 60 foot roll of new copper tubing from Lowe's will probably work perfect in the kitchen all I need to do is wrap it around a 6" diameter pvc pipe to make a 6" condenser coil with a cooling fan. Don't need the pvc for anything else just use it to make a nice perfect 6" coil of copper tubing.

I used a pressure cooker several times in the past my copper tubing was always too short it was had to get kitchen stove heat set low enough that the copper tubing in a bucket of water could keep up with cooling the steam. Soon the water bucket is boiling and it needs to be replaced with cold water.

Next I learned with kitchen stove set hot enough to get a continues boil inside the pressure cooker 60 ft of copper tubing will condense 1 pint of water in 30 minutes. Now all I need to do is build a nice self contained still that I can pick up and move from the kitchen to the work shop storage shelf. So far it seems easier to put the 1 gallon pressure cooker on the kitchen stove then tie the condenser coil up with string or wire to the cabinet door above. I have a problem getting the cooling fan set up the correct way so it does not cool the pressure cooker too cabinet door blocks air flow it blows back on the stove. Condenser coil needs lets that stand on the counter top. This was 1 of my winter projects last year it gave me something to do. I have not used it with herbs yet, I have 2 oregano plants that need to come in the house soon before first frost or first freeze.

Correct way to build a still, steam should do up to the top of the condenser coil. Steam should start at the top of the cooling coil and go down, as the steam slowly turns to liquid the liquid goes down too into the collection jar.

I had several short pieces of copper tubing rolled up under the work bench, I cleaned 5 pieces of copper tubing then rolled them all into a coil. I solder 5 coils together with lead free solder then mounted them on a wooden frame. I put 1 pint of water in the pressure cooker then connected it to the cooling coil. It took the electric 1 burner hot plate 10 minutes to start making water out of the cooling coil. Steam and hot water cleaned out the dirty copper tubing very well. Now I get clean water all the time. The coil is 7" diameter, 20" long, 40 turns, the lower 10 turns never got hot. I never needed to run the cooling fan I was hoping cooling coil will be long enough to provide natural cooling and the fan would not be needed. I have a 1 year old bottle of E & J Brandy this stuff has more sugar than Peach flavor pancake syrup, I have no clue how anyone could drink this stuff. I paid $18 for this bottle of Brandy no way am I going to throw it in the trash. I poured the Brandy into the pressure cooker, sugar stayed in the pressure cooker, now I have alcohol with water. Alcohol burns that means it has less than 50% water. I am sure alcohol is less than 90% on the first distillation. Second distillation can be as high as 95% alcohol.

Today I repaired this old pressure cooker the safety valve has been leaking. I distilled the water alcohol mix I made yesterday. Cooling coil worked better than before with good pressure from the cooker pushing the steam and liquid right on through. 39 of the 40 turns got hot and the alcohol all came out liquid within about 5 minutes. Wow I am a bit surprised how well this works.

Now I have alcohol to extract herb oil & flavor from herbs. I froze a bunch of basil leaves, I also have a bag of dry basil. I might try this with oregano leaves too. After herbs soak about 2 weeks I can remove excess alcohol and save it to use again. Concentrated herb flavor will be inside the pressure cooker. I have never tried to make essential oil I was interested in herb flavor for winter cooking since fresh herbs are only available in summer.