Use Freely~ November 28, 2011

Rosemary Hydrosol

Floral, with a slightly sharp fragrance. Rosemary hydrosol is good to go as a mental and physical stimulant, a powerful antioxidant, a wonderful skin toner and a scalp tonic and good tasting too!

Hydrosols are to essential oils as homeopathy is to herbs – at least, I see it as such.  They possess a magical in road to healing and can be used safely without the irritants that some may experience with essential oils.  Hydrosols/hydrolates/floral waters – the names all mean the same.  Made from all parts of herbs, shrubs and trees depending on the constituents desired, hydrosols are the condensate water co produced during the steam distillation of plant material used for healing purposes.  I use them much in the same way I would the essential oil of the same plant.  My daily power houses are Lavender, Rose and Helichrysum.   Here is an article from Jeane Rose on hydrosols – she lists so many wonderful uses for them.  http://allnaturalbeauty.us/jeannerose_hydrosols.htm

Last week as the weather started hovering around freezing day and night, we began using floating row covers on the greens in the season extender and the rosemary was too tall to allow for full coverage in the rest of the bed.  So, although it is not the right time for pruning – there were sacrifices to be made.  ½ the shrub was cut back and I decided to make hydrosols with it even though the oils might have not been at peak.

The culprit had grown too big for the bed~

I produce hydrosols by a simple steam distillation process and have a wonderful still gifted to me for this purpose.  The process involves bubbling steam through the raw plant material.  The action starts at around 90 degrees and is in full swing by 215F.  All the hot vapors produced are immediately channeled into a condenser that cools and condenses the vapors and this is what yields the water and oil from the plant.  I take care to note changes and measure the ph to assure the quality I desire.  I am working towards a fuller understanding of the differences of smell between the many constituents the plants contain.

5 gallon pot still. Cool water enters from the bottom and exits from the top of the condenser~

The flow happening- notice the essential oil layer floating on top~

What a wonderful batch it turned out to be.  I have to thank Amy and Jillian, whose bottles from last year were empty and who kept asking for more for the motivation.  I so enjoyed the afternoon distilling and am thoroughly enjoying the results.  This summer I will make my annual trip to California to make lavendar and helichrysum which I cannot seem to grow in quantity here.  On the farm, we have lots of basil, thyme, lemon balm and peppermint in the garden to play with and as always, I am grateful.