Distilling Lavender Essential Oil

When you get a bunch of lavender growers in a room and ask them about distilling you get as many passionate descriptions about the only way to distill as you have people in the room. At the International Lavender Conference in Cambridge earlier this month there were people from world famous lavender farms as well as much smaller entities, like ours. Henry Head, from Norfolk Lavender, showed off his distilling system that has been in use since 1933.

For those who are debating the issue of whether copper or stainless is the best, the vats are lined with copper. They are clearly very old and well used after having distilled their world class oil for over 75 years. Hanging is a top to one of the pots and a pusher that compacts the lavender in the pot. To Henry's left on the floor is the separator.

To get the lavender to the distilling room he showed us the harvester they have developed. The front part scoops up and cuts the lavender and it goes into the green bin behind. The unit is attached to a tractor, I believe, and harvesting goes quite quickly. Norfolk Lavender produces primarily an oil out of angustifolia lavenders, I don't think they do much with the hybrids (lavandins), but if you know differently, please comment to correct.

Harvesting Lavender

From the end of June until sometime in October we are harvesting lavender. Different varieties bloom at different times, and we have over six varieties grown for commercial harvest. Here Leslie is harvesting our Provence lavender. We harvest by hand, using a Japanese sickle. We now use kevlar gloves to protect our workers hands and wrists - those sickles are incredibly sharp and can do severe damage.

The lavender is cut at the base of the flower stem, and then bundled with a rubber band. Each bunch is lain on the previously cut bushes until they are gathered up for hanging inside where it's dark and there is warm, moving air to dry them out. If we have a period of rain, which is relatively rare in our area but this year we had a rainy end of August, the lavender simply dries much more slowly.

The smell of the lavender is so wonderful, and carrying in arm loads of bunched fresh lavender is a delight.

After the lavender is dried, we either use it on the stem or take it off to use as dried bud for sachets or cooking.