How it's Made
From bush to bottle, our products are harvested and distilled right here in Manitoba!
Interested in learning how essential oil and hydrosol are produced? Check out the 'how it's made' video and read a detailed explanation of the process below.
All material is sustainably harvested right here in the Swan River Valley in Manitoba. I chip the tree material prior to distilling to increase the surface area of material that will be exposed to the steam, and thus increasing the yield of essential oil.
All products are steam distilled in our food grade stainless steel still. We are able to distill about 25kg of chipped tree material per batch, which typically produces about 50-100ml of essential oil. Flower material such as yarrow, mint and rose have a much lower yield.
The distillate is collected and the oil floats to the top as it is lighter than the hydrosol (water portion of the distillate). In this picture you see yarrow essential oil, which oxidizes due to the heat of the distillation and turns bright blue!
The essential oil is separated using a 'Separatory Funnel' which allows the oil to rise and form a condensed layer on top of the hydrosol. The hydrosol is then drained from the bottom of the funnel until only the oil remains to fully separate the two products.
How it's Made Video
How it's Made- The Distillation Process
1) Harvesting
- All products are harvested from their natural growing locations here in Manitoba
- All harvesting is done under the supervision of the Manitoba Forestry department to ensure we are harvesting in approved locations in a way that is not detrimental to the land in anyway.
2) Chipping
- All tree boughs are chipped before distilling to increase the surface area that is exposed to the steam during the process. This increases the essential oil yeild as more of the volatile components of the plant are able to evaporate into the steam.
- This step is not done for floral oils such as yarrow, mint, rose etc. The oil from these plants are concentrated on the petals of the flowers and are therefore is already exposed to the steam, so chipping is not needed.
3) Distilling
-The plant material is loaded into the biomass kettle, which is then connected to the boiler, and the condenser is clamped to the top of the biomass kettle.
4) Condensing
- The steam from the boiler passes up through the biomass and into the condenser head. The condenser directs the steam and plant vapour through a series of small tubes that pass through a jacketed pipe that is cooled with circulating water.
- The change in temperature causes the steam to condense back to liquid form
5) Collection and Separation
-The liquid that has condensed is called the distillate. This is transferred into a separatory funnel which allows the oil to float to the top, and the hydrosol can be drained from the bottom, separating the two products of the distillation.
6) Packaging and Labelling
-All products are hand packaged and labelled to ensure attention to quality at each stage of the packaging process.