Oud Distillation

[powdernose]

I can recall a time in the mid/late 90's a site called Arabian Bazaar or something to that affect, they sold oil from the M.E. houses, names of oil such as Dehn Al Oud Qadeem, Seufi, Moattaq was there with price; no mention if blended, pure, wood grade, distillation parameter, etc.
us "oud geeky", clamor for more and more information, and we've actually gotten it. The irony is that for many, as more info is given there is more speculation and suspicion on it's validity.

And it has been proven, that products following the line of those 90's products, by and large, were impure and insufficient. Yet many are still blissfully unaware of such products' purity. And others still, remain proponents of their quality.
Have we progressed enough in our oudication that questioning should stop?
Have we run out of questions? Run out of doubts?
Or are you suggesting, that since we should be grateful that we are not still stuck in the 90s, that we should silence further doubts?

Regarding speculation and suspicion, these are not formed out of thin air.
To use one of your own analogies; where there is smoke there is fire.

Lastly, remember the oud game is a dirty game, so there's theivery, deceit, backstabbing, stealing of oils, wood, etc, of that I'm sure despite not having concrete evidence. But, where there's smoke....

Some will get it, some won't.

My repeated opinion on certain matters, however pragmatic, is not intended to confound or annoy but to share and provide my perspective and provoke thought, nothing more. Forgive me in advance if I'm wrong, but from the line of question as well as that below, I can only presume that you'd prefer my censoring of my contribution or that it align with your own. Is either the case?

No Pearl, I do not wish to censor or proselytise anyone.
By the same token that you inquired into Rasoul's etiology, I inquired into yours. The phrasing should have made the analogy clear.

Also, if your position on a matter is immovable, and your opinion on that matter well documented and well known,
why enter the discussion?

I took a panoramic view and found a solution that suits me and I'm not recruiting anyone to follow, just sharing.
Why not? My opinion on certain matters, however pragmatic, is not intended to confound or annoy but to share and provide my perspective and provoke thought, nothing more.

Because it doesn't answer any of the questions posed, and because it derails focus from these questions.

(re being in favour of buyer awareness)

Why?

I already answered that.
""
I know you mean well, but more often than not, it seems like you are laying blame on the 'gullible' for accepting the stories or on "irresponsible spending".
""
And because you seem more than willing to accept the status quo.


I believe we have both made our points crystal clear.
I don't wish to hijack the thread any further, if you'd like to discuss any of the above with me, please PM me.

 

[powdernose]

POSSIBLE solution, that does not align with your sensibilities, as derailment.

That's untrue.
I think I made my point out well. If you care to see it, you will.

The very second your line of questioning sought to have me justify or defend my opinion,

Also untrue. On all levels.

is the very second I should have realized that you don’t agree with it, which is perfectly fine, and that you also don’t respect my right to it.

No, I agree it is one approach which has its practical value.
I'm saying that there is no need to stop at one single approach, or to dissuade others who seek other approaches.

I respect your right to your opinions. I hardly thought it needed typing out. But if you need the re-assurance,
I'll say it twice. You have your right to your opinion.

Allow me to quote you:
"provide my perspective and provoke thought"
Seems you've set out double standards here.
Can others not provoke thought?

I also see no reason why you couldn't message me with this.

 

[Rai Munir]

Let me hijack this thread:

Dear powdernose, for the time being I have only one question: What is there in your avatar? It daily takes ten to twenty minutes of mine to decipher it.

 

[powdernose]

Respected Rai,
it is a wood sprite
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4Z2g4

Let me hijack this thread:

Dear powdernose, for the time being I have only one question: What is there in your avatar? It daily takes ten to twenty minutes of mine to decipher it.

 

[Oudamberlove]

@powdernose
Nifty looking Wood Sprite
Those are Double Super chips
on his back no doubt

 

[Abdullah]

Respected Rai,
it is a wood sprite
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4Z2g4

I am Groot

 

[Rai Munir]

How much sprite would a wood sprite sprite if a wood sprite could sprite sprite

Tongue Twister! Tongue Twister!

 

[Ouddict]

I am Groot

@Faizal_p... has @Abdullah taken his meds?

 

[Ouddict]

This thread is descending into farce. Let’s focus on @Abdullah’s fine “pre-Groot” contribution

Do any other vendors have anything to add?

@RisingPhoenix
@Al Shareef Oudh
@Habz786
@F4R1d0uX
@Alkhadra
@Taha
@AbasFrag
And any others I’ve missed out

 

[F4R1d0uX]

I won't disclose my yield boosting technics sorry lol, all I learnt are "natural way", sometimes surprising but always natural meaning no chemicals products used (I made the choice to not use it when I command a distillation).

I teached soaking technic like I learnt it to some very close fellow distillers who don't spread it.

Yield depend on too many parameters (material, apparathus, soaking, cooking temperatures and sometimes luck).

With classical hydro distillation, average yield goes from 0.1% for filaria (basicaly Merauke hence black long soaked and smoky oil) to 0.3% for a Crassna.

Walla Patta Gyrinops keeps water a lot and doesnt have such a good yield. Getting 0.2% with low temperature distillation @Faheem is already a good score.

Steam distillation tends to yield a bit more and CO2 extraction even a bit more (depending on if total or select extraction).

 

[Abdullah]

@Faizal_p... has @Abdullah taken his meds?

Lol. Apologies everyone.

How much sprite would a wood sprite sprite if a wood sprite could sprite sprite

A wood sprite would sprite infinite sprite if a wood sprite could sprite sprite.

But a wood sprite would cite a wood sprites plight whether a wood sprite should sprite sprite

So did the wood sprite, sprite sprite in spite of the wood sprites insight to incite

I know it's reaching.

 

[Rasoul Salehi]

if only it was that easy. to a certain point the above statement is correct. i have found that the better quality of wood you use, the better the resulting oil yield, up to a certain point. After that grade line is crossed the yield starts going down. what we like to do is test test test the smell of the wood in a few ways to try and judge what the scent of the resulting oils may be.

can you kindly elaborate on the grades that you mention above and at what point the yields go down? for sake of clarity when mentioning a grade "incense" or what not kindly shed more light on th appearance, look, feel, colur, amount of resin or lack or, etc. of that wood. one would say that what is reffered to as young Kyen is the highest yielding type of wood then. when the wood is totally saturated in oil but not enough time has passed to form resin or only very minor formation. from here on out the yields keep going down as more and more of the oil turns ot resin. kindly correct me if i am wrong.

if you compare oil "made from bunk wood (white) and lue" and then some made from "kyen grade wood" i believe that because you(@Rasoul Salehi) have a good "well developed" nose, you will be able to tell straight away which is which. Again oil made from sinking grade wood might smell "amazing" but it depends on what the wood initially smelled like. the yield will be very very low. This will add to the overall price of the resulting oil. 20g of oil per kilo of wood is being very very very very generous. but i know maybe you were just trying to make a point. i would also like to point out at this stage that there are so many other costings that go into a distillation. for us it's all about the scent.

as you pointed out, i meant to exaggerate and say even at these monstrous yield levels, the price doesn't add up if one was using super grade or even wood referred to as incense grade. now i understand when this level or even better grade wood is used, it is the dust, shavings, immediate area around it after cleaning that is used to make oil, hence a better price. like diamonds i guess. 1 carat single stud diamond price is not equivalent of 1 carat worth of 10 or 20 or 30 smaller pieces. this is soemthign i wasnt aware of as much as i didnt know the carving, agarwood art, statues, jewelry, etc. is so damn popular and prevalent.

i can only speak on behalf of Imperial Oud. when we conduct a distillation, we try and make sure everything is hyperclean and no white wood at all goes into the distillation (as much as humanly possible) because we don't like the resulting scent or the notes that creep in as a result.


"this guy is crazy", "he has lost his mind and is mad", "even ajmal and the big houses don't use this grade of wood", "he must have "saw carore"", "give me all this wood and i'll sell it for you for ten time what you paid for it guaranteed in uae and only take a small cut",. these are just some of the things that were said to me while distilling our recent offerings in assam india. people use to come from miles around just to confirm if what they had heard was true. so you are correct upto a certain level in what you say.

those of you who have distilled his/her own oils will know this already but when a true "artisan" distills some oils (the word is used too freely nowadays imo), they only want to use the best of the best. nothing else will do. regardless of cost or difficulty. in search of a heavenly result. reason being?

question: i have some of the chips used for shahjahan. they are eceptional but high in resin. was it that you guys kept the more resinous pieces to be sold as wood for heating and pieces with more oil and less resin was used in the actual distillation? if not and the same wood more or less was used how does that make sense? soooooo much of the wood is resin and that is undistillable that it would be a waste, no? is there a market for leftover material after? even in incense stick/cone making it doesnt make sense ot use this type fo wood b/c of the high resint eh stick will keep going out...

because he/she is offering you (the buyer) up part of themselves to be judged. All the sleepless nights, Backbreaking labour, blood, sweat and sometimes tears. maybe the artisan will have some type of maternal instinct towards the resulting oil. what should the price of that be?

Maybe it is similar for a vintner or carpenter

Imperial Oud's oils are priced based on cost of wood/distillation/oil. all of us have good income outside of Imperial Oud (so thankfully this is a passion we can indulge?) and we try and keep our margin as low as possible. there are oils we have sold in the past and are currently up for sale where we could charge so much more. We have sometimes sold oils just so the buyer can come along on the journey of progression with us and watch our "baby" grow, where we could have sat on them for a few years and again charge so much more. we COULD charge more but we sat together and consciously decided not to.

For us, it is not about making loads and loads of money. that is why you will notice that we do not offer sales very very often and when we do, our discount is reasonable but not very high. Sometimes that discount scrapes very very close to the bone.

something not many of you may know but, so far, nobody from Imperial Oud has ever taken any money from the company as a wage or dividend etc. it is a labour of love.

understood. your reputation and conduct speaks volumes.

if you know anybody who works to produce bio diesel, a biochemist or biochemical engineer etc or someone in a similar field, and ask them the right questions then you too might come to learn of the techniques @Taha talks about. i am only theorising to @Taha 's techniques but they are not outside of the realms of possibility. all i will say is there are natural and un-natural ways to increase yield and very few people actually know of them.



I agree

dear @Abdullah pls see above in green. ty

 

[Rai Munir]

I learnt it to some very close fellow distillers who don't spread it.

Respected Farid Bhai, now you can disseminate that information, that is actually not knowledge at all. If E=MC2 has been disseminated all around the world, increasing yield naturally can be done as well. . You know, this is the truth, if not you, someone else would do so.

Yield depend on too many parameters (material, apparathus, soaking, cooking temperatures and sometimes luck).

Luck, how many times? Rough estimate? Which one is to be selected if only one is to be mentioned?

I won't disclose my yield boosting technics sorry lol, all I learnt are "natural way", sometimes surprising but always natural meaning no chemicals products used (I made the choice to not use it when I command a distillation).

Yeah! It means you have been into distillation for long. Well, some people say that some chemicals are used to purify or cure oils, especially Rose; is it true?

@Abdullah
Well, some people say that some chemicals are used to purify or cure oils, especially Rose; is it true?

 

[F4R1d0uX]

Respected Farid Bhai, now you can disseminate that information, that is actually not knowledge at all. If E=MC2 has been disseminated all around the world, increasing yield naturally can be done as well. . You know, this is the truth, if not you, someone else would do so.

Shukria bahiajan and nice try but I won't lol !

Luck, how many times? Rough estimate? Which one is to be selected if only one is to be mentioned?

Basicaly, you could never know how oil your batch will juice. I found it even harder when it comes to wild. Personaly LMK's network works with "hope" to juice something nice with the most decent yield.

Yeah! It means you have been into distillation for long. Well, some people say that some chemicals are used to purify or cure oils, especially Rose; is it true?

I never heard of this, excepted once when I heard about anhydrous salt. I don't do such practices, I experiment crazy things but that would never involve any products inside my oils.

I don't know much about rose distillation excepted the double distillation with first cooking hydrosol to grab the most volatile compounds and that I would always look for a very liquid oil and not a solid that needs a bit warm up ...

 

[F4R1d0uX]

Yeah! It means you have been into distillation for long.

No that much I'm a humble and young student who had the chance to learn from amongst the best who are 1000x more humble than me and consider themselves as pupils lol !

You know I tend to believe IMO that you start to be an artisan when you understand what live and let live means.
I had a discussion some times ago with apak @Taha and I start to get it (he is more experienced than me).

Personnaly I'm not that much interested on who make x% sales or who use Y chemicals in his oils and more important I'm even less interested in involving customers into that because I sell oils, not rumors and that won't make me a better artisan.

Sometimes we can forget that such behaviour can hurt someone who maybe have helped you been able to go on the field and be known as an artisan.

@Kyarazen was right : live and let live ...

 

[Rai Munir]

No that much I'm a humble and young student who had the chance to learn from amongst the best who are 1000x more humble than me and consider themselves as pupils lol !

You know I tend to believe IMO that you start to be an artisan when you understand what live and let live means.
I had a discussion some times ago with apak @Taha and I start to get it (he is more experienced than me).

Personnaly I'm not that much interested on who make x% sales or who use Y chemicals in his oils and more important I'm even less interested in involving customers into that because I sell oils, not rumors and that won't make me a better artisan.

Sometimes we can forget that such behaviour can hurt someone who maybe have helped you been able to go on the field and be known as an artisan.

@Kyarazen was right : live and let live ...

Great, Farid Bhai.

Disseminating information is the foundation of the highest degree of humility. Share, and be shared. Live, let live. Yield: less yield, more yield.

Farid Bhai, after all, I am a commoner, and just a few members are who have pretty sound and authentic information and experiences. If you, the veterans, won't share, then who will.

Peace and cheers!

 

[F4R1d0uX]

Great, Farid Bhai.

Disseminating information is the foundation of the highest degree of humility. Share, and be shared. Live, let live. Yield: less yield, more yield.

Farid Bhai, after all, I am a commoner, and just a few members are who have pretty sound and authentic information and experiences. If you, the veterans, won't share, then who will.

Bahia I'm not a veteran, I'm a lol !
And I couldn't share or coca cola company should share his coca cola formula ...

The thing is to find a way to break the cell walls into wood lignins to free the oil trap inside and between theses wood fibers and the resin.

When not dry, agarwood fibers are very tansile and solid to make ropes with it lol.
And some subspecies hare more difficult to breakdown than others.

This is why I was upset when I heard some were able to transfrom resin into oil, the only thing you can get is the oil trap between the resin and the wood fibers, sometimes into the resin with controled high temperatures assuming you have already softened and/or break the cellwalls before distillation process.

This is what I know, how are we able to do this ? I won't mention. Are some magicians able to do better than this ? I would love to see t maybe we could be able to see real skinking wood oud oils at 250$/bottle ....

 

[Alkhadra]

This thread has been an interesting read, I can understand @Rasoul Salehi questions regarding the nature of Oud distillation. To some, they find certain aspects of Oud and Oud distillation to be paradoxical, where they expect sensibility and logic to be the forefront of decision making in the Oud world.

I personally don't like talking too much about myself, although I can see the benefits people reap by doing so. We have a saying in Arabic that goes like "مادح نفسه كذاب" Translation: He who compliments himself is a liar. As such, I'll try to keep my input limited to the discussion at hand, instead of my personal experiences and achievements within it.

To start off..

I now have a different outlook. i understand most distillers and most oils are made from lue and white bunk wood around it; what they call oil grade. maybe small inclusion of incense grade or just below it. higher resin wood yields less oil and the wood is so high in demand for carving, for being sold for burning, incense, etc. that no one except a fun small side project or in their right head would distill such grade wood. now some like taha say that they have found a way to distill the oil trapped as resin in such wood. others say that's not possible unless a chemical wash is done or the oil is first captured via extract, then distilled. it would be nice to get some clarity on this matter too. @Taha @Alkhadra @Al Shareef Oudh @Abdullah @Faizal_p .... pls help us with this.

There are many ways to distill oil trapped as resin, it's not rocket science, you just gotta figure out how to un-trap it.. The whole chemical wash thing is something I've found to be... a strange story at most. I've smelt some oils that were the results of such a chemical soak. Let's just say..I don't think anyone would wanna wear them. I don't know which vendors think it isn't possible to free trapped oil, I think all vendors are of the idea that it's a reality of Oud distillation.

The problem is that, as @Taha mentions, people are indeed at the mercy of their imaginations. They really are, everyone is. When people understand what yield boosting is, and the simplicity of the techniques involved, they'll be very surprised that it's not all that complicated. Any engineer could develop a method to un-trap oil from resin. Sometimes it doesn't even involve engineering ingenuity, logic alone is sufficient.

w

with ensar people's series is a marketing statement. a PR campaign. we do this in the wine world too. literally loss leaders. and i mean it. swear to almighty truth. not even sold at cost but below. just to hook new clients. younger clients with les discretionary income or in response to a certain influential critic that may say our wines are awesome, etc. but price is high. i am sure is true with most if not all vendors...

People are at the mercy of their imaginations. You've said something very true dear @Rasoul Salehi, to learn we must unlearn. This is where it starts.

Anyways, as to the sensibility of distilling higher grade wood. I'll just regurgitate what has already been said, as it's the truth. Cost goes up faster than anything else. Faster than yield or quality. There is a sweet spot to hit where the Cost to Quality ratio is at it's highest.

Yeah, you could get a calculator and perform a little reverse mathematics, given that the vendor told you the % yield and grade of wood being used. But guess what? You'll still find yourself within another paradox. The prices of Oud on our side are never stable, anecdotal evidence is at best good for marketing purposes.

I am Groot

We are Groot

 

[RisingPhoenix]

My 2 cents is short...

As many who have approached me over the years about details - I tell them not to get lost in the details. Smell the oil.

There's been so much information, misinformation, fantastical information, etc. that gets spread about distilling - and then folks come to me and ask for clarity - my response is always, "don't get lost in the details."

Just as I don't go to a restaurant and demand the chef to walk me through how my meal is cooked...I just choose to eat at places with exceptional food.

Don't get lost in the details. Things cost what they cost for a reason. Yields are better, cost is lower. Even when wood is more expensive - and visa versa.

 

[Grega]

My 2 cents is short...

As many who have approached me over the years about details - I tell them not to get lost in the details. Smell the oil.

There's been so much information, misinformation, fantastical information, etc. that gets spread about distilling - and then folks come to me and ask for clarity - my response is always, "don't get lost in the details."

Just as I don't go to a restaurant and demand the chef to walk me through how my meal is cooked...I just choose to eat at places with exceptional food.

Don't get lost in the details. Things cost what they cost for a reason. Yields are better, cost is lower. Even when wood is more expensive - and visa versa.

I resonate with this approach the most. Life is too short to become an expert in everything. When I try to enjoy works by other craftsmen I just go for the best that my senses and reasoning can provide (and my wallet afford). I trust in the expertise of these craftsmen and in the opinions of others who are interested in the same thing and if I don't enjoy the experience then I move on. That is why we have samples/previews, forums etc etc. Now another subject is pure curiosity. If you love something it is natural to be curious how it came to be so lovable. If this curiosity extends to distillation it is probably best to actually try distilling for yourself. All questions are thus answered. If you want to see a far away glimmering object you first ask the traveler that came from that direction about it and if still there is thirst for knowledge, you walk there yourself!