Rosemary extract

I started a soxhlet extraction of rosemary, now that I've finished distilling this batch of alcohol. With every batch of red wine I make, I get about 1.5 liters of 95% alcohol. The rosemary extract is being made for a close friend of mine. If this works for her, she might try the rosemary elixir.

Seven Tinctures, Alcohol distillation

I haven't been keeping up with my blogging, but that's because not a whole lot of interest has been going on lately. I have been working on creating my seven planetary elixirs, which does take a long time as I have to make the tincture, calcine the solid plant matter, leach, crystallize, etc. All this seven times over. Right now I'm in the middle of distilling and purifying fresh alcohol (made from my own wine, of course) as I ran out.
Once this is all done the seven elixirs will go into incubation for one or two months, maybe longer, so that the salt can fully combine with the tinctures. During that time I will be roasting some stibnite and galena (outside, of course).
This summer I plan on having a weekend alchemy seminar with some friends. So far the plan is we will be creating a silver tree, an everburning light, and doing one or two steam distillations of orange peels. All pictures will be posted on the website for your perusal. Should prove to be very fun and interesting!

First Stages of the Fire Stone

Here is the first step in this method of creating the Fire Stone: creating the Kermes mineral. A solution of water and sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) is mixed with ground stibnite (antimony ore). This "opens" the mineral for further work. The Kermes is precipitated out of this solution of caustic soda and stibnite using acetic acid (this takes a lot of work!). When the Kermes precipitates, it is washed in a soxhlet a few times to get rid of the sodium acetate that forms, then run through the soxhlet with purified vinegar or acetic acid. This may need to be done a few times, so it is a lot of work.

Calcining galena using nitric acid

In this small experiment I did about a week ago I tried to find the proper concentration of nitric acid to do the job of chemically calcining galena.
Right now I'm pouring my work into the creation of the Fire Stone (you can see some pics in my Gallery section), so I will continue with this work soon.