Oud oil is extracted from wood veneers surrounding the oud wood through three main phases.

1-Preparation Phase:

The veneers surrounding the oud wood are put into a container of water for a period of 6 months in normal climatic conditions. Then, the veneers are freed from water and ground by using a tool called pestle.

Then the ground veneers are put in a container with the same previous water for another period of six months. During this period, small insects called oud worms are formed, in a natural way, and which die at the end of the period. Finally, the ground oud wood is cleaned from oud worms, and thus it becomes ready for the second phase.

2-Distillation Phase:

The resulting product of the first phase is put in a special container for distillation called oud pot where every 1 kilogram of oud is mixed with 9 kilograms of water and heated on a continuous fire for a period of 6 months without interruption. In this stage, water is evaporated with the atoms of oud oil through a tube that passes through a reserve of cold water, called the condenser connected with another small container on the other side called distillation pot where water is distilled with drops of oud oil and stabilized in the lower part, and the oud oil floats on the surface of water.

The oud oil is freed from water as mentioned in the next phase. The resulting oud oil is called the first picking of oud oil (first class).The filtered water of oud oil is returned back to the distillation pot through the injector in order to extract oud oil of the second picking (second class), and so on, till the oud is completely freed from water in 4 phases, and till the resulting product becomes 4 classes of oud: first class, second class, third class, and fourth class. .

3- Filtering Phase:

Oud oil is filtered from water by using a manual tool called oud filter. Then, the filtered oud oil is put into a glass flask called the final filtering glass flask. After the final filtering of the oud oil, the oil becomes ready for use. It should be note that the output of one kilogram of oud wood veneers can produce for each pecking from 0.25 to 0.75 Tollas; that is, 3 to 9 grams of oud oil, depending on the quality of wood used.

The Resulting Products of Oud Oil Extraction:

Oud Oil of the Four Classes: first, second, third, and fourth class.

Oud Water:  It is the water from which oud oil is extracted. It is used by spraying it on furnishings and for ironing clothes, and so on, since it smells the real oud fragrance.

Evaporated Oud Oil:  It is the oil collected from the tubes which connect the oud pot to the distillation pot. This oil concentration is much higher with a strong and nice fragrance.

Al Ma’mool:  After completing the oud oil filtering phase, veneers, from which oud oil is extracted, remain in the oud pot and are blended with some Arab perfumes. This blend is used in places to incense people’s gathering places and the like.

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