{"id":187,"date":"2022-05-25T02:54:58","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T02:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/?p=187"},"modified":"2022-05-27T19:25:09","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T19:25:09","slug":"week-9-workshop-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/week-9-workshop-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 9: Workshop #2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A comfrey forest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the bright and early hour of 7:30 am, Laura and I arrived at the Organic Farm to harvest the comfrey for our final distillation workshop. With permission from Maleah Upah, coordinator of work within Demeter’s Garden, we entered Demeter’s to find a literal comfrey forest; the plants were as tall if not taller than both of us. Working around the stinging nettle and massive rhubarb plant, we gathered the comfrey leaves and were able to stuff the inner chamber of the distiller completely full with plant material, so we had high hopes for actually creating some oil this time around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our final distillation set-up<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Believe it or not, we still got NO OIL even after shoving the chamber completely full of comfrey leaves. We ran the still from 9 am to a little after 11 am yet only produced 4 large jars of comfrey hydrosol. To say I am disappointed would be an understatement. But, continuing on with grace, Laura and I led a small distilling workshop for the Practice of Organic Farming students at 11:30 and answered their many questions. It was exciting to have so much interest in the still, but many of them agreed that the bread dough seal is a quirk that is not the most inviting for using it (even though they were eager to eat the baked dough after the distilling was over). It was also important to have Beth see the seal dilemma and hear about our experience in working with it; I think it really drove home the fact that a replacement still might be necessary if there is to be continued interest in distilling in the future. Overall, the workshop went really well and I was greatly thankful for all of the interest and questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The comfrey at the beginning vs. the comfrey after distilling for 2 hours<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I also find it crazy how much the comfrey compressed down during the distilling process. As seen in the first photo above, the container was filled to the brim with comfrey leaves, but at the end of the distilling process, it was compressed down to barely a quarter of the container. Could we have shoved even more plant material in there? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comfrey Hydrosol <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While not as potent as a comfrey essential oil, comfrey hydrosol still has healing properties and is sold by multiple aromatic companies online. Comfrey hydrosol can be used on aches and sore joints in the form of a compress, can be applied on dry, cracked skin to promote healing, and can be used as a facial toner in cases of inflamed, acne-prone skin. While this was not the original product we set out to create this week, I am still excited to experiment in using it as medicine and am highly grateful for the learning experience that this distilling workshop offered to us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Groves, Maria Noel. Grow Your Own Herbal Remedies. <\/em>Storey Publishing, 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comfrey Hydrosol<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the bright and early hour of 7:30 am, Laura and I arrived at the Organic Farm to harvest the comfrey for our final distillation workshop. With permission from Maleah Upah, coordinator of work within Demeter’s Garden, we entered Demeter’s to find a literal comfrey forest; the plants were as tall if not taller than … Continue reading Week 9: Workshop #2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-sp22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}