Vessels, Siphons and Distilling
The distillate workshop: vessels and brands, vials, siphons and their fittings, the Gyre, retorts with alembics, the Holding Chamber, Separator, Mixing Vat, Brewing Tower and Abacus, bands, the Atomizer.
The Crucible brews from one cauldron and forgets everything that was in it. The distillate workshop stores currents for later
and carries them by itself: vessels hold, siphons convey, retorts break things into currents with no hands, and the
Brewing Tower brews Crucible recipes for as long as it is fed. The Confluence, the Atomizer, lanterns and other
devices draw from these stores.
Vessel
A 
Vessel — glass blown on opaline in rings of old bronze — holds one current, up to 192 parts. A siphon
over its neck fills it; a siphon at its side or under its bottom takes from it. Broken by hand, a vessel carries what it holds
with it. Entry — Distillate.
- Brand. A flint and steel on a vessel burns the rune of the current inside into its bronze tag. A branded vessel keeps its current even when empty: it takes nothing else and calls its own along the siphons. An empty vessel can be branded with an orb — the orb goes into the tag. An axe scrapes the brand off.
- Seal.
Bindwax seals the neck: a sealed vessel neither gives nor takes. An axe chips the seal off. - Puddle. Tip a vessel over by sneaking with an empty hand — or blow it up — and the distillate lies as a puddle. In ten seconds it dries, and a quarter of what spilled settles into the land as murk.
- A vessel in hand pours like a big vial: click it on another vessel, an alembic or a Gyre — it takes that current, as much as fits, and if there is nothing to take, it gives its own. To place a vessel next to a holder — sneak.
A 
Spillway Vessel keeps its own current and passes what it does not take — its own excess and any other current —
to the vessel below it. Stack spillway vessels on top of each other, and they sort the currents themselves: each gets its own.
Vial
A 
Vial carries 8 parts where a siphon cannot reach. A vial on a vessel, an alembic or a Gyre scoops (from a
Gyre — its fullest current, into a filled vial — only its own current); when there is nothing to scoop, it pours out — into a
vessel, a Gyre or a Crucible. You cannot scoop from a Crucible: it is not a store. A vial thrown into a Crucible dissolves together
with what it holds. Entry — Vials.
Siphons
A 
Siphon is a glass tube in bronze clamps. Distillate flows along it by itself, like water: down and level,
never up. A siphon at its side takes from a Crucible, a siphon over its neck fills a vessel — so the vessel stands lower than
the Crucible. Entry — Siphons.
- A siphon takes a part only if further down the tube there is a holder that will accept it right now — and gives it straight there. A brand calls its own current; from a Crucible the fullest of what is awaited leaves first. The nearest holder goes first, equal ones take turns.
- There are no clogs: a siphon takes nothing of a current with nowhere to go — its drop trembles at the outlet, and the Loupe on the siphon says "no receiver". Set a vessel that accepts it, and it flows.
- Poured into a Crucible from above, distillate mixes by the rules of the Wheel (clashes and the limit — as with thrown things).
| Fitting | What it does |
|---|---|
 Gate Valve | closes a siphon: the handle along the tube — open, across — closed; a redstone signal closes it |
 Strainer Siphon | lets through only the current of its brand (brand it with a flint and steel while that current stands in the strainer) |
 Check Valve | lets through only along its arrow; it is placed arrow away from you |
 Narrows | the holder behind it gets distillate only when all nearer ones are full — and half as fast |
 Pump | the only thing that lifts distillate: in from below, out at the top; stack them to lift higher; every lifted part takes a little chunk flux |
 Dipstick | touch a vessel, Gyre, Crucible or siphon — and you know exactly how much is inside; sneaking on a siphon's sleeve closes it, so two networks side by side do not merge |
Fittings — the entry Valves, Narrows, Pumps and the Dipstick. The bodies of the Pump, Separator and Mixing Vat are made of
Brewing Casing, the strainers of the alembic and the Strainer Siphon of a 
Lumenash Filter.
The Gyre
The 
Gyre is a big shared store: a sphere of blown glass on a bronze foot, two blocks tall, holding up to
1536 parts of any currents. Currents in it neither mix nor clash — each circles as its own strand. A siphon over its neck fills it
with any current, a siphon at its side or under its foot takes the fullest of what is awaited below. Set it by a Confluence Heart —
the Heart draws from it as from vessels. Broken by hand, the Gyre carries what it holds; an explosion shatters it. Entry —
The Gyre.
Distilling: retorts and alembics
Distilling breaks things into currents by itself — no water, no catalyst, no hands. A 
Retort is a stone hearth
under a copper gourd: put a thing with currents in it (by hand or a hopper from above) and stoke the hearth (by hand or a hopper
from the side) — the thing breaks down, and its currents rise as vapor into the neck. Entry — Distillation.
- The currents are caught by
Alembic — beaked vessels, up to four in a column on the neck. Each current goes
where it already is, otherwise to the first empty one. With nowhere to go, it waits in the retort, and no new thing is taken.
Siphons at the sides take from the alembics. - Losses: a plain retort loses a sixth of the currents as murk. A
Brazier Briquette burns in the hearth
four times longer than coal. - A
Side Outlet right against a retort's side gives one more column of alembics; a 
Settling Vat
nearby catches what is lost as silt instead of murk — eight parts per silt (the entry Side Outlets and the Settling Vat). - A
Gale Fan with its nose at a retort's side or back fans the hearth: up to three bellows, each two thirds faster
on the place's Gale, a third without it. - The retort and its column are on the diagram in the Codex; "Place ghost" sets it all in the world.
| Retort | One thing every | Loses | Where losses go | Special |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retort | 2 s | 1 in 6 | Settling Vat, else murk | — |
 Fluxsteel Retort | 1 s | 1 in 12 | Settling Vat, else murk | wakes a Brewing Tower under a Crucible |
 Bright Retort | 1 s | 1 in 12 | Settling Vat, else its own silt box | losses never cloud |
 Wootz Retort | 1 s | 1 in 12 | as the bright one | a part of a place current has a 1 in 5 chance of one more — for a unit of flux |
 Freshet Retort | 0.5 s | 1 in 12 | as the bright one | while flux is above the bed, each part has a 1 in 2 chance of one more |
 Still Retort | 1 s | nothing | — | while the chunk's murk is at a third of the bed or more, it stands and burns no fuel |
Retorts are reforged on the Flux Workbench: the fluxsteel one from a plain one, the bright one from fluxsteel
(The Bright Retort), the wootz one from bright (The Wootz Retort), the freshet one from wootz
(The Freshet Retort), the still one from bright with a Still Casing (The Still Retort). The bright retort's
silt is taken in its window, by sneaking with an empty hand or with a hopper below.
Holding Chamber, Separator, Mixing Vat
- The
Holding Chamber measures out 12 parts and gives them all at once when the holder below is empty: with
one siphon you feed a Crucible in portions — it brews, empties and gets the next. While it gives, it takes nothing from above.
Entry — The Holding Chamber. - The
Separator splits a compound current into its parents: two parts of the compound — a part of each parent
(spare Drift becomes Gale and Tide again); a parent that is itself compound splits when it gathers a pair. Siphons at the sides
and below take only Springs and Poles. Nothing is lost or born. Entry — The Separator. - The
Mixing Vat combines without a Crucible: two parts of different currents that combine on the Wheel — a part
of the compound. Opposite Springs merge only if the vat stands lower than both holders they flow from — like a basin of the
Riverbed puzzle; higher, they clash into murk. Entry — The Mixing Vat.
Brewing Tower and Abacus
The Brewing Tower is a self-brewing Crucible: it brews Crucible recipes by itself as long as it is fed by siphon and given
catalysts. It needs neither water nor fire — the chunk's flux heats the brew, and in drained land the tower stands. The milestone
entry — The Brewing Tower.
- How to get it: set a Crucible on a Fluxsteel Retort and throw a pinch of quickdust on it — the retort becomes
the firebox, the Crucible the dome. The Crucible's distillate passes into the dome.
- Memory. Strike the tower with a recipe's catalyst — it remembers the most demanding one you know; sneaking with an empty
hand — it forgets the last one. The tower itself remembers one recipe, every
Abacus right against its side —
two more. Potions are taught with the potion itself. The tower brews no creatures: a glint needs a Crucible. - Feeding. A siphon over the dome pours only what the remembered recipes need, no more than for two brews. Catalysts go in by hand or a hopper at the side and top, the brewed things come out by an empty hand or a hopper below.
Bands
A band makes a vessel bigger without pouring it out: put on a vessel, a spillway vessel or an alembic, it keeps what is inside and
holds more. A second band does not fit over the first, but a stronger one replaces a weaker one. Entry — 
Bands.
| Band | Capacity | Special |
|---|---|---|
 Speculum Band | ×1.5 | — |
| Fluxsteel Band | ×2 | — |
 Still Band | ×3 | the vessel does not freeze in the Stillness |
 Bright Band | ×4 | a broken vessel spills as silt, not as a puddle of murk |
 Wootz Band | ×6 | a vessel with more than nine tenths Murk bursts into Mire Slurry |
 Freshet Band | ×10 | a spillway vessel's overflow returns to the chunk as flux |
Atomizer and more
- The
Atomizer gives a potion as a cloud to everyone nearby and pays with distillate, not a bottle: put a sample
potion in its flask, a siphon from above pours the potion's currents, a redstone signal — a puff (half the potion's currents).
The cloud lives ten seconds; 
Current Grit in the nozzle keeps it twice as long. In detail —
Potion Brewing. - The
Druse Vat grows shards from distillate after a sample — a Shard Block on its bottom: eight parts of the
sample's current and a little flux make a shard (The Druse Vat). - The
Sluice Box doubles ore: water at its upper edge carries off the waste rock, and the concentrate gives two
ingots in a furnace (
Ore Panning). - Currents in an Applied Energistics 2 ME network — the compatibility branch.
What next
- Distillate stores feed the altar: Confluence.
- Potions from currents and the Atomizer: Potion Brewing.
- How the Crucible itself brews: The Crucible.