Random Joke

You know you're an alchemist when you have backups of everything cuz you know the first one's going to eventually blow up somehow.

Almost done 7 Basic Plant Elixirs

I just have one more extraction to go, and that's the basil tincture (doing all this by soxhlet extraction). The salts of each are almost done, just need to finish off the rosemary, then will do the horsetail (for the extraction I just finished), then lastly the basil salts. Once those are done I'm moving on to calcining/roasting some stibnite and galena for some projects.

Rosemary Salt Crystals

Last night I set my hotplate down to around 70C and left it overnight so that the rosemary salts would condense, and this morning I found these beautiful crystals had grown.

Cerussite!

I just bought a 528g chunk of cerussite for about 80 bucks off eBay; I'm very happy about that. Usually this stuff is horribly expensive. If you're wondering, cerussite is naturally occurring lead carbonate, which can be easily used in the Acetate Path. It's actually much easier to use than galena, as it doesn't require all the roasting.

Bugging neighbours... again

I may have gotten carried away a little with all the burning (calcining) I've been doing lately, even though it's all been done in the dead of the night. One of my neighbours had their window open last night and now their bedroom stinks :S Oopse. I guess I'll have to not only do my calcining at night but when there's also a wind or storm. Either that or just do very small quantities at a time. Ugh. It's so much easier in the winter to calcine - everyone's windows are closed no matter what during the night.
I had an idea about calcining/roasting the galena: Perhaps I could use the heat of a candleflame to roast it? I'll try a bit and see what happens. I'll have to be careful or I'll fuse the sulfur to the lead if it's too hot too soon, so I might have it a bit higher up where it's only warm, then have it closer when all or most of the sulfur is out. I'd have to do very small quantities at a time, like perhaps only a few grams, otherwise I don't think it would work (too much for the flame to handle). All this, of course, in addition to how I would normally do it (outside with the stronger hotplate).

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!