Basic Processes in Alchemy

There are a number of processes that you should become skilled and proficient
in if you wish to pursue laboratory alchemy. The ones listed below pertain mainly
to Spagyrics or Plant Alchemy, but can be extended to encompass areas within
Mineral Alchemy as well. Indeed, Spagyrics can be considered a precursor or
practice for Mineral Alchemy, and you will find only small to moderate differences
between the two, save for the fact that in the latter you work with much more
toxic substances, higher temperatures and longer periods of time.

The basic alchemical processes you should become proficient in are:

• Distillation
• Calcination
• Leaching
• Steam Distillation
• Imbibation
• Incubation
• Evapouration
• Soxhlet Extraction
• Circulation
You will encounter each of these very often in your alchemical work. The more
you do them, the better you you'll get; this is, after all, an Art more than it is a
science - not everyone will get the exact same results using the same
procedures, or even the same materials. That's one of the reasons why alchemy
was abandoned hundreds of years ago, because the results were not verifiable
or repeatable 100% of the time.

Distillation
The point of this process is to purify a liquid or separate out two or more liquids
from each other because they have different boiling points. Most of the time we
will be working with (in Spagyrics) water, alcohol, or vinegar. Alcohol boils at
78C, water at 100C, and acetic acid (vinegar) at 118C.

The setup is simple: A variable heat source, on which is the liquid to be distilled,
which is connected to a condenser, which then leads into a receiver. Try not to fill
your boiling flask more than half full, for safety reasons, and make sure your
receiver is large enough to handle the volume that will be distilled over, as you
don't want it to overflow. If you are distilling alcohol, do not use an open element
or a flame, or you could likely have a fire on your hands, maybe even an
explosion.

A thermometer attached to the distillation train on the boiling side is almost

always a must, as it allows you to gauge what is being distilled over.

Say, for example, you need spirit of wine (a very common necessity in alchemy),
but all you have right now is regular wine. This is what I normally do: In batches
of about a liter at a time, I extract as much alcohol as will distill over at 97C. This
usually yields 150 - 180ml of alcohol at around 60%. That which is left behind,
the "dregs," can be either tossed away or saved, depending on what you are
using it all for. When all the extractions are done, I then use a water bath at 90C
for six more distillations. The water bath is simply a pot of water in which sits the
boiling flask. This nearly ensures that the liquid inside the flask cannot reach
100C (but can still get very close to it) becaus of a slight thermal differentiation of
the pyrex glass. Unless you employ a cover over the pot (equipped with an
opening for the neck of the boiling flask), the water in the bath will need to be
replaced with hot water often, at least once an hour. Also, it is a good idea to
raise the boiling flask off the bottom of the pot somehow to make a good buffer,
perhaps using a small wire cooling rack or some other means.

As you progress with the distillations, the concentration of the alcohol increases,
and you will notice that the amount of dregs left behind (which will look milky)
decreases each time. Eventually, no dregs will be left behind: this means your
alcohol is at roughly 95 - 96%. After this, no amount of distillation by regular
means will purify your alcohol any purer, but for most alchemical operations this
is quite satisfactory. The reason for this is that the alcohol and remaining water
form what is called an azeotrope, where during the distillation the alcohol
vapours will carry with them a certain amount of water - roughly 5% water. If you
wish to have absolute alcohol, you will need some means of keeping the water
behind, such as a zeolite filter or employ potassium carbonate. The latter method
is the most common one used and can be found in a separate article.

In a wine batch of about 23 liters, I will get roughly 1.7 liters of 95% spirit of wine
(alcohol).

A vigreux column can be very handy for this same purpose. The nubs in this
column form a thin layer of water at around 80C, so when water passes over it
the water will condense and fall back down into the boiling flask, while alcohol
passes beyond into the condenser. It does in 2 - 3 distillations what a normal
distillation does in 7. Raschig rings also function the same way.

Allegorically, each distillation can be considered a reincarnation of the material,

each time evolving to a more pure state. The boiling liquid in the "bowels of the
Earth" rise into Heaven as it turns into vapour, then condenses down and return
to the Earth as a liquid once again, only in a more evolved state.

Cohobation, or cohobating, is simply pouring the distillation back into the boiling
flask along with everything else that didn't distill over. This is a very useful
process as it "trains" the matter to distill more efficiently, and is involved in a
variety of operations, including the Circulatum Minus.

Distilling vinegar is a little tricky. In another article I described the purification of

vinegar by the freezing/thawing method; this greatly reduces the amount you
need to distill, as acetic acid can be very smelly, even stifling. You should use a
setup that vents out through a window. In other words, a rubber stopper with two
holes can be used, one hole for the drip spout of the condenser, the other for a
small glass tube to which is attached a plastic tube leading out a window. The
rubber stopper is fit into the receiving flask.

Using a thermometer that can read up to 150C, boil the vinegar at 100C. Throw
away everything that distills over, as it is water. Then slowly raise your
temperature to 105C. What distills over is a mild solution of acetic acid and
water, perhaps at a pH of 3.5, and looks very slightly yellowish. You may find that
the rest of your vinegar distills off at this temperature, which is ok because we will
do several distillations of this acid. If your liquid stops dripping, increase your
heat so that it continues to distill, and until you get to the point where that left
behind in the boiling flask starts to eithr spit around violently or looks like a thin
honey. Stop the distillation, let everything cool, wash your boiling flask with
bleach, then dish soap, and then purify your acetic acid further by boiling off the
water at progressively higher temperatures. Eventually your acetic acid will have
a nice golden colour to it and have a pH of around 2 or less.

Calcination
This is probably the easiest of all the other processes to do, but it's also very
likely the smelliest and messiest.

This process is basically the burning of the material you are working with. You
can use a gas bbq, bunsen burner on low, or an electric range for this process. I
use cast iron frying pans and stainless steel porringers for this if afterwards it will
be leached, otherwise I stick with ceramic crucibles. The reason for this is at the
temperatures being employed, iron and steel tend to oxidize (literally rust), which
can then seep into your materials. Rust isn't water soluble, so it can be leached
(filtered) out afterwards.

Say you're going to calcine a plant. At this stage it should already have been
ground up, ie. from making a tincture from it or whatnot. Put it into the pan or pot,
take it outside, put it over moderate heat and let it burn. If the herb is saturated
with alcohol, you can light it on fire to help it along. The burning process will take
a few hours and will release a lot of smoke. It will also smell very very strong. I
could smell my calcining several blocks down the road. For these reasons, I
suggest you do your calcining at night and away from windows if you live in an
urban or suburban area in order to avoid neighbour complaints.

At first, a light blue smoke will escape. After a while, a more yellowish smoke will
erupt from the now smoldering matter. This smoke can actually be lit on fire, thus
speeding up the calcination process. I usually put my calcining on a timer for four
hours at night, then come back to it the next morning. At a certain stage, when
the material has built up enough heat, it will continue to self-combust, even when
the heat source has been turned off.
You will find, then, once everything has eventually cooled off, a hard and crumbly
black mass left behind, which has a very strong burning smell. What we are
doing is "burning off the dross," purifying our matter by fire. What we need to do
is burn the rest of the impurities off; grind up the charred remains in a mortar and
pestle (it would be a good idea to wear a mask for this), and recalcine the same
as before. Repeat this cycle until your ashes are white, or a very light gray. An
option at this point is, if you have a furnace, calcine your white ashes overnight at
550 - 600C. When leached, this will give you Salt that is whiter than snow.
Depending on what you will be using the ashes for, you can either use them as is
or leach them for the soluble Salts, which sould be only very slightly off-white if
not perfectly white.

At no point during this process should you let the ashes get too hot: 800C is the
red zone. Most alchemists stay within 300C to be safe. You do not want to
sublimate out your valuable Salt and lose all your work.

Leaching
Leaching is mainly used for the purifying of Salt. This is done by pouring twenty
times the volume in distilled water (can be warm if desired) over the volume of
ashes or Salt you have, stirring or shaking until it is well mixed and dissolved,
letting it stand for a few hours to allow any sediment to fall to the bottom of the
jar, then passing the liquid through a paper filter or a small ball of surgical cotton
using a funnel (I find a syringe is very useful for this, as it leaves behind all the
sediment). I prefer to use surgical cotton because it is very versatile, can
withstand very well liquids that are very acidic or alkalyne, and it's very cheap. If
you are leaching salts out of ashes, you can pour more distilled water several
times over the same ashes and filter it out to make sure you have every last bit of
salt out.

Normally at this point you proceed to evapourating in order to dry out the Salts,
and is described further on.

Steam Distillation
The idea behind this is that steam is passed through a quantity of plant matter,
which then carries with it any oil that plant may have. Not all plants are equal in
this regard: Some plants like rosemary, caraway, even orange have an
abundance of oil, others like sage have a moderate amount, while others like
lemon balm and mint have next to none. So don't be surprised if you don't extract
any oil; it's not necessarily a bad setup or mistake on your part (although it could
be!), it may just be that the particular herb you are using is low in essential oil.

There are three setups I know of for steam distilling essential oils. Both have
common elements, which are a boiling flask (containing distilled water an boiling
chips), an extraction chamber in which is placed the plant matter, a condenser,
and a separatory funnel to separate the water from the oil.
Please refer to the pictures below. Click on them to see a larger view.

When the steam distillation is done, simply drain out the water from the
separatory funnel and store the oil in an amber bottle.

Imbibation
Imbibation can be very tricky. It requires a lot of patience; too much and you
could literally "drown" your work.

For this you'll need an eyedropper. Drop by drop, add the liquid to the solid
(powder). For example, adding an oil to the salt. At first the salt will drink the
liquid right up. Keep going, very slowly, and eventually the surface will stay wet. If
you've done this properly, no liquid will pool to the side if you tip the vessel. At
this point you should stop. If you god beyond this, you run the risk of overdoing it
and losing your work, for then your matter will be out of balance and hence
cannot reach a perfect state.

An airtight container is almost always necessary between imbibations, unless the

matter needs to dry out. Sometimes a philosophical Egg with a spout for
imbibing, even a stirring mechanism is necessary, as is the case with the Stone
of Eternity. This Egg ensures that no other foreign Sulfurs (smells) come into
contact with the Salt, as at this point the Salt is extremely sensitive to it.

Incubation
Only a few points will be mentioned here, as this has been explained elsewhere.
Incubation temperature for the plant realm is 38C (for the mineral reals it is 42 -
45C). The material being incubated should be kep in the dark, and the heat
should be kept regulated as much as possible - think of it as a womb.

In the ancient days, alchemists would use dung hills, large piles of manure, as
their incubator. Luckily, we've come a long way since then!

Evapouration
For this you'll need an evapourating dish with a burner on very low heat. The dish
can be as simple as a pyrex dish. When evapourating, do not let the water boil or
you will lose some salt with the steam. Once relatively dry you can raise the
temperature to about 250C and completely dry it. The Salt can then be ground in
a mortar and pestle (I prefer glass ones for this), and then stored in an airtight
container. I find that a small brush helps to get every last bit of salt into and out of
containers.

Soxhlet Extraction
A soxhlet extractor is a great way to quickly make tinctues, both in the plant and
mineral realms. It also has a variety of other uses, including "washing" certain
materials with water or alcohol. It is a relatively recent advancement in chemistry
that modern alchemists have adopted. The Ancients didn't have them, and in our
work they aren't a necessity, although they are very handy to have.

It is composed of three parts all stacked up in a vertical line: The lower part is the
boiling flask; the middle part is the extraction chamber; and the upper part is the
condenser. The liquid being boiled travels in vapour form up a tube at the side of
the extractin chamber, condenses in the condenser, and falls onto that which is
being extracted or tincted in the extraction chamber. The liquid builds up in this
chamber, and when it reaches a certain level it flows back into the boiling flask
via a siphon tube. This cycle repeats over and over.

If you are using plant matter, it is highly recommended that you use a water bath
at 85C so that you do not burn it. An oil bath can also be used if you are using
acetic acid as the solvent. When you are filling the boiling flask, make sure that
when the extraction chamber is full that the boiling flask is still a quarter full,
roughly.

You can sometimes find cheap soxhlets on eBay at a good price. you can also
build one yourself (if you're brave enough!) using glass tubes, rubber stoppers,
and a torch.

Circulation
When you circulate a liquid, it will partially rise up as vapours from a boiling flask
(set at roughly incubation temperature) directly into a vertical condenser, then fall
back down again. This is particularly useful for "marrying" or combining two or
more substances to the point where they cannot be separated. This is a
technique used during incubation.

A Note on Glassblowing
Glassblowing your own equipment can be very rewarding and fun. All you need
is a propane torch kit to do most of the blowing and bending, as well as glass
tube cutters. You'll need to find a source of glass tubes (don't use plastic, trust
me), but if all else fails you can buy some from eBay. It takes a bit of practice, but
once you get the feel of it, it gets quite easy.

The more advanced stuff like blowing retorts can get very complicated, and the
equipment expensive, a college degree may even be needed somewhere in
there. I just stick with bending tubes and making my own Eggs at the most.

James Collins