How to Distill Frankincense at Home: Resin to Oil
The CopperHolic Team
Frankincense distills at home, and it distills well. The resin tears give 3 to 10 percent of their weight as essential oil, putting frankincense among the most generous materials you can run. The catch is patience: the resin needs a 24-hour soak, then a long, slow hydro-distillation of 6 to 10 hours, the longest run in the home distiller's repertoire.
People have distilled this tree sap for ceremony, perfume, and medicine for well over two thousand years. Doing it on a copper still in your kitchen is not a novelty. It's the original use of the machine.
TL;DR
- Quick answer: soak 300g of frankincense tears 24 hours, hydro-distill 6 to 10 hours, collect a real quantity of oil.
- Yield: 3 to 10% of dried resin weight.
- Species matter: Boswellia carterii and sacra are the classics; serrata is the budget entry.
- Plan it: this is a full-day run. Start early.
Choosing your resin
Frankincense is the dried sap of Boswellia trees, sold as translucent "tears." Boswellia carterii from Somalia and sacra from Oman are the reference grades: citrus-bright on top, deeply resinous underneath. Boswellia serrata from India runs greener and sharper and costs noticeably less, a fair place to learn. Buy tears, not powder, and pick the paler, cleaner pieces; bark and grit come along otherwise.
The soak is not optional
Dry resin is a solid lump of the very compounds you're after, and steam alone slides right off it. Cover the crushed tears in the still's water and leave them 24 hours. The resin softens, partly emulsifies, and the water turns milky. That milkiness is the run starting before the heat comes on. Skip the soak and your yield drops by more than half.
What you'll need
- 300g frankincense tears, coarsely crushed
- 3.5 litres of distilled or filtered water
- A full day, plus ice or running water for the condenser
- A copper still with a roomy pot, the 5 Gallon is the comfortable choice
Step by step
- Crush the tears in a bag with a rolling pin, to gravel, not powder.
- Soak in the still pot's water for 24 hours.
- Bring to the gentlest possible simmer. Resin scorches on pot floors when rushed, and scorch is the one flaw no cut can fix.
- Hold a slow, steady drip for 6 to 10 hours, topping the condenser ice as you go.
- The oil comes over gradually the entire run. Collect it all, settle it, and draw off a pale gold oil layer.
- Clean the pot the same day. Cooled resin sets like amber and doubles the job.
Why people go to this trouble
Because the result is real frankincense oil, the ingredient behind half the meditation blends, premium skincare serums, and church-scented candles on the market, made by your own hand for the cost of raw resin. The hydrosol is quietly excellent too: a soft, resinous facial water with a devoted following in skincare. And the run itself, a slow day tending a copper pot of two-thousand-year-old perfume, is the closest thing this craft has to a pilgrimage.
Frequently asked questions
Can I distill myrrh the same way?
Yes, same soak, same slow hydro-distillation. Myrrh runs thicker and yields less, but the method is identical. Elemi, opoponax, and pine resin follow the same playbook.
Is the leftover resin water useful?
The milky pot water is not hydrosol; the hydrosol is what condensed through the coil. The pot residue can scent a simmer pot, but bottle only what came through the condenser.
Why is my yield below the published range?
Usually one of three things: no soak, powder instead of gravel, or heat too high early, which crusts the resin before it releases. The yield calculator shows what a given charge should return.
Give it the day it asks for
Long resin runs favor pot volume, so start with the 5 Gallon still, or the 10 Gallon if resins will become your specialty. Browse essential oil distillers, or see everything a copper still can make.