Chapter 138: Method of Making Top-Grade Essential Oil
Two years later.
Gu Family South Garden.
"In the production of these natural spices, steam distillation is the most commonly used technology. But in the past two years, some people must have discovered a phenomenon."
Having said this, the figure that was pacing in front of the crowd stopped, and the graceful person turned around.
Her eyes were full of mystery, and when she saw the puzzled expressions on the faces of the listeners, she opened her pearly petals slightly:
“When you distill flowers, the aroma you extract is often very different from the natural aroma.”
As soon as these words were spoken, there was an uproar below.
"For so long, I thought I was wrong..."
"Yes, that's why it's always so difficult for us to develop flower essential oils."
"But Master Xue'er, why is this happening?"
The standing woman listened for a moment with a smile on her face, then said:
"This is because some of the aromas in flowers are easily lost in boiling water. For example, the top notes of flowers can evaporate at room temperature and be smelled by people, but they are easily lost in the distillation process."
Seeing the sound of regret and pity from the audience, Gu Feixue raised her crescent eyebrows and said with bright eyes:
"Don't be sad. Today I will teach you how to extract the fragrance of flowers to the maximum extent. This is also the method for making top-quality essential oil perfumes. You must listen carefully and don't be distracted."
In the past two years, in addition to being busy with the Gu family business, Gu Feixue also did not forget to develop the capabilities of the employees in the essential oil workshop.
At this moment, each of the employees in the five essential oil workshops of Gold, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth can master the general distillation and extraction methods, so it is naturally time to start developing top-level perfume essential oils.
Seeing that everyone was sitting upright with serious expressions, Gu Feixue nodded:
"Among the techniques for extracting natural fragrances, there's another method called oil separation. The principle is to use the unique adsorption capacity of animal fats to absorb the floral fragrance, then add alcohol, and then distill it to extract the fragrance to the greatest extent possible."
Then Gu Feixue clapped her hands lightly, and some people holding special tools walked in from both sides.
She took a wooden frame with gauze sewn in the middle, picked up a brush, and brushed a thick layer of white solidified fat on the gauze:
"Brush the fat onto the aroma extraction board. Be careful to apply it evenly. Don't apply it too thinly, as this will prevent the aroma from being fully retained. Don't apply it too thickly, as this will make it more difficult to extract the aroma later..."
After brushing an even layer of white oil on the gauze, Gu Feixue took a small bucket from someone else and took out a yellow ylang-ylang flower from the bucket.
Everyone saw that the ylang-ylang flower was firmly attached to the white grease, with each leaf fitting tightly to the grease.
Gu Feixue followed the same method, covering the entire incense board with flowers, and then placed it on the table with the oily side facing up. After the second incense board was also covered with flowers, she covered it with the previous incense board.
"After waiting for an hour, take the oil on the incense board and let it absorb the fragrance of the flowers. Then use a scraper to scrape off all the oil and petals."
Gu Feixue personally demonstrated to everyone how to scrape off the balsam. After all the grease on the two incense-taking boards was scraped into the new barrel, Gu Feixue took out a bottle of liquor and poured it into it.
Stirring it with a stick, soon everyone saw that the solid fat in the bucket miraculously began to melt.
"Next, we'll follow the distillation process to extract the fragrance of the ylang-ylang flower."
"Ylang-ylang has a rich, yet not gaudy, fragrance. Extracting its full aroma into an essential oil perfume creates a noble and elegant scent. While ylang-ylang is well-suited to oil separation, other strong-scented flowers like tuberose are also suitable."
It was not until it was getting dark and the sky was filled with colorful clouds that Gu Feixue finished the class.
Gu family's housekeeper Luo Li brought people to clean up the debris in the yard and handed Gu Feixue a towel soaked in warm water.
Gu Feixue took it with a smile, wiped her hands and face, and asked:
"Is everything ready?"
Luo Li said with a serious face: "I'm ready, just waiting for tomorrow."
Gu Feixue nodded, handed the towel to Luo Li, and reminded him:
"Tomorrow I'll choose strawberry-flavored essential oil, which is suitable for warm water. Today, this hawk's claw flower is suitable for cool fragrance."
Luo Li quickly wiped his forehead and agreed.
He couldn't remember how many times Miss Xue'er had said it. It was really wrong of him.
It has been two years since he became the steward of the Gu family. During these two years, his original monthly salary of five taels of silver has increased to fifteen taels of silver as the research and development progress of the workshop!
What does it mean to have 15 taels of silver per month? The chef and steward of the best restaurant in the city only earns 10 taels per month at most!
Compared with the stewards of other wealthy families, his treatment was so good that it was outrageous to both humans and gods.
Moreover, the salary has been increasing all the time. It can be said that there is no such boss in the world, so Luo Li has been paying close attention to the situation of the workshop in the past two years.
I often learn from people in the workshop in order to make the monthly salary paid by my boss worth it.
Now, every time he goes out with Miss Xueer to look after the shop business, he can be of help. Of course, he is bound to make some low-level mistakes like today.
Gu Feixue didn't care much about it. After giving a reminder, she walked towards her own yard.
She also observed Luo Li's situation in the past two years and thought that since Luo Li wanted to learn more skills, she would naturally not hide her skills.
Back in the yard, Gu Feixue meditated and practiced martial arts without saying a word all night.
Early the next morning, the Gu family mobilized the whole family by beating drums and gongs.
This was because this day was the day of Gu Tingchuan's provincial examination.
During his two years of study at the academy, Gu Tingchuan became one of the students most favored by the professor.
Even my relationship with my classmates is better than ever.
In the past two years, the Gu family has adopted many godsons by relying on their delicious meals.
Of course, Gu Feixue also had many adopted brothers. Although she didn't feel very close to them, those who liked to come to Gu's house for meals were extremely affectionate to her.
The reason is simple: the self-heating lunch boxes and gourmet meal packs are hot-selling among students at Jiangzhou University.
Because it was too difficult to make this thing, Gu Feixue didn't plan to give it away as a gift, and directly priced a self-heating lunch box at five taels of silver.
A dehydrated steamed bun containing both meat and vegetables costs one or two taels of silver and can be kept for ten days.
However, she didn't expect that this decision would cause her a lot of trouble.
How could she know that it would be fine if the price wasn't clearly marked, but once the price was clearly marked everyone would rush to buy.
When these people came with silver in their hands and kept calling her "Sister Xue'er" to get close to her, Gu Feixue was simply overwhelmed.
Later, I had no choice but to do business with the school cafeteria.
Gu Feixue directly sold the self-heating food boxes and self-heating bags to the school, and the school then provided these dehydrated meal bags, which really saved Gu Feixue a lot of trouble.
Today is the day of Gu Tingchuan's brother's provincial examination. After this exam, they will probably have to go to the capital to take part in the provincial examination.
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