Longmont has a new company that aims to bring oil extraction safely to the kitchen counter.

That’s oil as in essential oils that a consumer or small business uses for cooking, creating fragrances for skin care products, homemade soaps, coffee flavorings and aromatherapy.

ExtractCraft was started by Lee Sutherland, a former aerospace and science engineer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Scott Converse, the founder and past president of Longmont’s TinkerMill, the largest makerspace in Colorado.

“I wanted to find something that had a more direct impact on people’s lives,” Sutherland said.

“Pure and potent essential oils can be very expensive and difficult to source, while it’s difficult to trust less expensive alternatives,” he said.

His device, called the Source, is a fully-enclosed botanical extractor that is designed to extract essential oils in a simple, safe process. It’s about half the size of an average microwave oven, standing less than a foot tall.

The device has a low-tech appearance, with one small button that starts, stops and resets the device. Another knob creates and releases the vacuum.

A mobile app (via Bluetooth BLE) can be used to monitor and adjust recipes, time, temperature and pressure, and to start and stop the process.

“It’s a very simple process,” Sutherland said as he pulled the device out of a box and set it on the table.

“Alcohol extraction has been around for thousands of years, to be able to extract flavors and medicinal components out of plant material.

“You just mix your plant materials and food-grade grain alcohol and press ‘start’ to extract oils and essences. And because the alcohol is captured separately from your essential oil, you can save the alcohol for future extractions,” he said.

Extractions typically take one to two hours.

Sutherland said that Longmont’s TinkerMill, which opened in 2013, played a critical role in the development of the extraction device and his company.

“Tinkermill is a great community. There are a lot of people here who like to tinker and solve problems together, and collaborate on things,” Sutherland said.

“That proved valuable in the early stages as I was looking for people to help build the company.”

Clint Bickmore, TinkerMill’s president, said the ExtractCraft experience was a textbook example of collaboration.

“ExtractCraft is a great example of what can happen when you get people together thinking about problems. At TinkerMill, there are a large number of members that can help do thought experiments on any given topic. One of those problems is essential oil extraction,” Bickmore said.

“The Internet has many videos showing people doing butane extraction, but the problem is that the butane is vented into the room – typically a kitchen. Remember that butane is lighter fluid and is very flammable. This creates a problem. A couple of TinkerMillians put their thoughts together on a safer option. The solution is to use a liquid for the extraction, so explosive mixtures aren’t put into the air,” Bickmore said.

The value of the TinkerMill has not been lost on Longmont’s city and business leaders.

“TinkerMill has become a highly successful model for entrepreneurs to collaborate and incubate,” said Jessica Erickson, president of the Longmont Area Economic Council. “They bring together career professionals, entrepreneurs, and students alike in advanced manufacturing, information technology, and other fields with huge growth potential.”

Sutherland has run into several challenges in bringing the product to market. His initial goal was to source all the components from within Longmont and Colorado.

But while much of the device is made of parts from Colorado, some components are from as far away as China and Czechoslovakia.

Initial cost of the Source for the consumer is set at $700, but the company will be offering a pre-order price of $349 during a special campaign in December. The product will ship in March.

The company is currently showing the Source at trade shows and focusing on the direct to consumer market, but will be looking at wholesale markets in 2016.

“Eventually we will develop an industrial scale version of this product,” Sutherland added.

“It has been a lot fun, I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t.”

And with the growth of the company, there will come jobs.

“We will be looking to hire electrical and mechanical manufacturing technicians here in Longmont,” Sutherland said.

Vince Winkel: 303-684-5291, winkelv@times-call.com or twitter.com/vincewinkel