Home Distiller

I live in the mountains of Northern California. Surrounded by Redwood and Douglass Fur trees. Periodically we need to trim or remove these large trees for safety. These trees can be over 100feet tall some over 200feet. I woke up to a chainsaw running down the street. I walked out in the back yard and saw this: These tree guys have my utmost respect. The term I would use to describe them is “Mas Macho”.
The opportunist in me kicked in. I grabbed my recycle bin and walked over to gather a bunch of fur needles. Yes they thought I was nuts. .
When I got home I dumped the small branches on the lawn and sprayed them down to clean off any dirt that may have been on them. I crammed my new e-oil still full with sprigs of fur. About 10lbs worth and fired up the still. I collected for about 80 minutes. The potential oil take for Douglas Fur oil is only .7- 1%. I got a little over 4mil. The problem was that I had not washed off all the dirt from the needles. The oil should be a bit cloudy and off white. I saved it anyway. This morning I looked at my take and it was clear of dirt. It had settled to the bottom. The oil smell is fantastic. Now I have Christmas in a bottle. I’ll save this for my new defuser. I’ll definitely do Douglas Fur again. But I’ll soak the needles first then wash. Better yet. Collect after a good rain.
JBC

With that amount of cutting going on there was probably quite a bit of sap flowing. Would you get a higher yield from that? Also, likely no dirt in that.

Can this be used like "tea tree" oil? Would it be safe on the skin?

Expat wrote:With that amount of cutting going on there was probably quite a bit of sap flowing. Would you get a higher yield from that? Also, likely no dirt in that.

This time of year the sap isn’t flowing. Also I can’t get up that high to get some. I read that you can get e-oils from sap but I’ve never tried it.
JBC

kiwi Bruce wrote:Can this be used like "tea tree" oil? Would it be safe on the skin?

Bruce: If we had tea trees like you do in Australia I’d be all over it. It’s suppose to have skin healing qualities. The oil is very concentrated. I would be careful applying full strength. Here are some properties of Douglas Fur:
Popular Uses of Douglas Fir Essential Oil. Add several drops of Douglas Fir and your choice of citrus oils to a diffuser for focus and clarity. Use in DIY skin care recipes or handmade soap recipes for its cleansing properties. Add a drop to your hand with eucalyptus or peppermint to promote easy breathing.
Thanks for asking
JBC

Dang I'm sorry about this one but I can understand fir oil, but if i wuz ta come home reekin' of fur oil the missus would have my ass in 10 seconds flat. Just sayin'.

Yonder wrote:Dang I'm sorry about this one but I can understand fir oil, but if i wuz ta come home reekin' of fur oil the missus would have my ass in 10 seconds flat. Just sayin'.

I understand. Especially if if it was Douglas’s Fur oil.
JBC

JellybeanCorncob wrote:I understand. Especially if if it was Douglas’s Fur oil.

Yikes! The mind boggles...

I only just saw this...see how many others get it
No. 1 THE LARCH

Man with microphone: Eric, do you think you could recognize the Larch tree?...
Eric: silence... I Don’t know?

Just trimmed all my hedges so I am collecting the fir needles and plan a first attempt at essential oil from the fir needles.

How close to turpentine would the essential oil of fir be?

kiwi Bruce wrote:How close to turpentine would the essential oil of fir be?

Not sure, I googled fir needle essential oil and noticed several uses.

Please let us know how it goes. I just had the defuser going with a combination of fur and lemon oil. Quite nice.
JBC

I could spray around my toilet, then it would smell like I sti# in the wood! my SOH would be pleased!

Bushman wrote:Not sure, I googled fir needle essential oil and noticed several uses.

I'm interested to see what there is to use it for. I have four giant Doug Fir's on the property and in the spring they have bright green sprouts at the tips of the branches that I have picked and used in brewing beer, it adds an amazing level to a winter ale. But only recently have I started to consider what I would get out of them for essential oil, or in a gin basket.

kiwi Bruce wrote:How close to turpentine would the essential oil of fir be?

Interesting Bruce: Turpentine is made from the needles of pine trees. The Douglas fur where I live is grown commercially as Christmas trees. I love the smell when we bring in our tree at Christmas. What I smell is different from turpentine. Pine oil and fur oil both are used for sore muscles and joint pain among other things.
JBC

JellybeanCorncob wrote:

kiwi Bruce wrote:How close to turpentine would the essential oil of fir be?

Interesting Bruce: Turpentine is made from the needles of pine trees. The Douglas fur where I live is grown commercially as Christmas trees. I love the smell when we bring in our tree at Christmas. What I smell is different from turpentine. Pine oil and fur oil both are used for sore muscles and joint pain among other things.
JBC

https://www.organicfacts.net/health-ben ... l-oil.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Just today I was just looking at essential oils in the store with my boy. Yuppy/hippy store that had a selection of 8 or 10 local tree types. They had Doug Fir, Lodge Pine, Western Ceder, and a few others I don’t remember. Most did not smell just like the trees I know; something was a bit off. Maybe their extraction process was off somehow. Too hot? Solvent residue? Not sure what was wrong, or if possibly that is what the oil smell like without the rest of the tree.

As previously mentioned, I know the spring buds are used for various products. Anyone know if it’s the buds or needles that produce the best oils? Also, anyone know if spring is the best time to collect materials for maximum oil content?

Otis

those fresh sprigs of fir, spruce, cedar, and pine all make interesting teas.

I have a hedge of grand fir that I trimmed today, the hedge is 100’ long so I have a lot of sprigs to work with.

The Turpentine we see most is nothing to do with pine trees.
It is Mineral Turpentine used by painters.

Geoff

The turps oil painters use in the fine arts is still refined from trees, Canadian Balsam, Ponderosa pine and my favorite...#1 the Larch...

kiwi Bruce wrote:The turps oil painters use in the fine arts is still refined from trees, Canadian Balsam, Ponderosa pine and my favorite...#1 the Larch...

U a funny man. Now I funny too!

kiwi Bruce wrote:The turps oil painters use in the fine arts is still refined from trees, Canadian Balsam, Ponderosa pine and my favorite...#1 the Larch...

That would be right. I was talking about house painters.

Geoff

Hi all,

I see that this thread is like six years old. I'm not sure if resurrecting a 6-year-old thread is more or less frowned upon here than starting a duplicative thread (I am brand new here), but I am trying to figure out how to extract fir essential oil, and my attempts so far have not worked, and I would love some advice from anyone who might be able to give it.

I have a small homemade boiler (I think it's 3 gallons) that I connected to a homemade worm condenser in a bucket. I put a bunch of fir needles in there and steamed them, then left the resulting condensate (hydrosol?) to sit for days so the oil would float to the top... but didn't get any.

I'm wondering if my temperature was too hot, too cold, I used too much water, too little...
I really don't know much here.

Any help is appreciated!

How much is "A bunch"? I did a limonene extraction with my kids in a 500ml still. I sadly don't have the notes of how much water to peel I had but from memory I collected a few hundred ml of hydrosol and after leaving it to settle i was able to pull maybe a quarter of a ml of limonene from the top!

I think you really need loads of base material. A few pine needles floating on the top will not cut it. You want your boiler filled (possibly with a false bottom) and then top up with water.

Collect your hydrosol in a narrow container so that the oil forms a thicker layer.

NormandieStill wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2025 10:37 pm How much is "A bunch"? I did a limonene extraction with my kids in a 500ml still. I sadly don't have the notes of how much water to peel I had but from memory I collected a few hundred ml of hydrosol and after leaving it to settle i was able to pull maybe a quarter of a ml of limonene from the top!

I think you really need loads of base material. A few pine needles floating on the top will not cut it. You want your boiler filled (possibly with a false bottom) and then top up with water.

Collect your hydrosol in a narrow container so that the oil forms a thicker layer.

My best guess is that this is indeed the issue... I just didn't use enough material.

For the first two attempts I put maybe 2000mL of water in the bottom of my pot still, then a steamer/strainer on top, then maybe 1000mL of fir needles into the strainer.

It seems like maybe I should reverse the two quantities! Less water, and more for material?

Also I've been hesitant to include any stems with the needles.... and stripping the needles off the stems is very laborious. Can I safely just leave the stems on and steam the needles and stems together?

Thank you!

CuriousGuy wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2025 1:11 pm Also I've been hesitant to include any stems with the needles.... and stripping the needles off the stems is very laborious. Can I safely just leave the stems on and steam the needles and stems together?

The only thing I've done with fir was a pine liqueur. I used the spring shoots (lighter coloured few cm at the tips of some branches) and included the stems. But I'm not sure whether there's stuff that you might not want in the older, woody stems.

The most difficult part of making essential oils is probably obtaining the materials. Picking petals, stripping needles from stems, it's all pretty laborious.

Keep us posted on your results. Good luck.