Nanodistilling

“Mary the Jewess” was a name given to an enigmatic, mystical female alchemist. She is referred to as the first female alchemist, and her dates of practice range from 0-200 CE. We know a little about her through the surviving writings of the Christian Alchemist, Zosimos of Panopolis (300 CE). Zosimos attributes the Bain-Marie (steam bath) and the Tribikos still as her inventions. It is the latter that is very interesting to us, and we have decided to reconstruct a Tribikos with our glassblower extraordinaire, Jason Rush! Michael Maier gives us a nice depiction of Mary the Jewess in the  Symbola Aurea Mensae Duodecim Nationum (1617), as follows:

It is the manuscript Codex Parisinus 2327 from the 15th century that gives us sketches of the Tribikos Still, and that design alludes to Zosimos actually using it. The Tri-Bikos name itself refers to the three bikos receivers, which emanate from an ambix sitting vertically above a single boiler. A distillation process using this still would be considered a single-pot batch operation.

We studied the above sketch, particularly the upper left design. We interpreted this as an ambix with three solens and three separate bikos receivers, positioned on top of a tall cucurbit. At first glance, this is not remarkable: The distillate collection volume would just be cut into approximate thirds. Mary the Jewess must of had another idea here. . . . Look closer, and you will notice that the solens are not at the same height. That means that the distillate take-off will vary by boiling points, due to the height differences. As the falling film of distillate runs along the ambix wall, it is taken off into the solens at different times and temperatures. That was the esoteric clue we were looking for!

Here is our design in modern borosilicate glass (below). We think it resembles the Sputnik 1 satellite, a little! Our solens do not protrude at low angles, because of the risk of breakage. We kept the solens fairly tight. Our bikos receivers have air vent holes. The boiler (cucurbit) is a 5 liter round bottom in an electrically-heated mantle, and the riser is a 29/24 ST joint into a 2 liter ambix. The receiver joints are 24/40 ST. Alcohol vapor rising into the ambix, which is a greater volume and cooler, flashes the vapor back to liquid phase. Most of it is returned to the boiler in a falling film, but some of the film escapes into a solen and is “taken off”. We were concerned that heat rising from the electric mantle would affect the ambix temperature, so aluminum foil was used as a crude heat field, packed around the round bottom.

The hypothesis is that we will obtain three different alcohol concentrations, and three different volumes. The lower solen will produce the most distillate, at the lowest proof. Conversely, the highest solen will produce the least distillate at the highest proof.

Trying this out with a neutral spirit (binary solution), that was indeed the case. So we decided to try this with a medlar fruit extraction at around 4500mL of 30% ABV wash. As usual, the run was nice and slow, gentle heating, over 12 hours in two sessions (due to overnight). No cuts were made. Volume was measured with graduated cylinders, proof by a Rudolph Analytical DDM-2911.

RUN #1: First 8 hours:

BIKOS #1 (lowest position): 405mL, 160.45pf

BIKOS #2 (middle position): 112mL, 167.80pf

BIKOS #3 (highest position): 110mL, 169.20pf

RUN #2: Another 4 hours:

BIKOS #1 (lowest position): 140mL, 141.23pf

BIKOS #2 (middle position): 58mL, 157.66pf

BIKOS #3 (highest position): 57mL, 161.3pf

The combined composite tasted well, with the baked apple medlar notes as expected! It worked!

CONCLUSIONS:

The Tribikos Still is an air-cooled, batch operation, single-pot distillation design. It is used as a stripping still. We approached 170pf (85% ABV) using our modern glass design, and that is impressive. The still would be useful for collecting three different fractions of a wash, which may yield unique flavor or fragrance profiles in each.

Some suggestions for our modern alchemists out there:

• Increase the riser length
• Reduce the angles of the solen takeoffs, closer to the Zosimos sketch
• Increase the distance between the solen takeoffs, and see if this dramatically changes the alcohol purity
• Eliminate the electric mantle and use a true Bain-Marie, are Mary intended!

ESOTERICISM:

This is the final thought to consider. Mary left us the “Axiom of Maria”, which states:

One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth

Here is our idea, without going to hermetic allegory:

• One = the wash in the boiler
• Two = The lowest solen, producing alcohol and aqueous solution in an azeotropic mixture
• Third = The middle solen, producing purer alcohol and less aqueous solution in a lower azeotropic mixture
• Fourth = The upper solen, producing the purest alcohol and an aqueous solution in a lowest azeotropic mixture within the operating constraints of the design.