Frequently Asked Questions
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faq
What is the difference in potency between a triple distilled herbal
essence and a double strength tincture? Would they give the same
results?
The two are not comparable.
When you distill an herb you only get the volatile fractions. That's
the essential oils.
In a tincture you only get the fractions that are soluble in the
menstruum; usually that's the alcohol- and watersoluble fractions.
One part of a double strength tincture is always weaker than two
parts of a "normal" tincture. It's inherent in the making of it.
Unless, of course, you're talking fluid extract, in which case the
1:1 strength is the result of considerably more than double the
amount of herb.
Let's see if I can make that easier to understand. You have several
ways to make a double-strength tincture, of which only one is
feasible, and that gives you lousy quality:
One is, use the same menstruum on two batches of herbs, ie. make a
tincture and use this tincture on more crude herb. Your quality will
be lousy, because your menstruum (the tincture, on the second pass)
will pop off the most fragile constituents (alkaloids mostly) back
into the crude herb, AND will pick up celluloses, tannins and the
like that are more robust and can throw out more fragile
constituents in a tincture.
One is, make your tincture and evaporate off half of its volume.
Only if you do that you'll have to freeze your tincture in order for
it to keep, as you've just boiled off all of the alcohol, most of
the volatiles, and some water. And thus defeated one of the "whys"
of tinctures.
One is, use double the normal amount of herb in your tincture. If
you've ever made a 1:2 fresh herb with 95 % alcohol you know that
this is impossible. You simply cannot get the alcohol to cover that
much herb. The same goes actually for a 1:5 dried herb with 50-70 %
alcohol; 100 g dried herb have about the same volume as 5 dl fluid.
A fluid extract is a different matter. You set it up by percolating
a certain amount of a normal-strength tincture; continue your
percolation to get a certain amount of a very weak tincture (the
marc is in principle exhausted after the first perc). Evaporate off
90 % of the resulting second fluid. Combine the two, and if you've
done it right you have a quality fluid extract, ie. a 1:1 tincture
instead of the normal 1:2 (fresh) or 1:5 (dried).
Tinctures are not made by distillation. I assumed this to be the
case perhaps 15 years ago, too, and tried to find a cheap still in
order to make tinctures. Heh. Long ago ...
Tincture-making is far easier than that. For tinctures a simple
glass jar, or a glass jar and a sawn-off bottle, is all you need.
It's for essential oils you need a still, and those (both the EO's
and the stills) are quite expensive.
Cheers
Henriette
I want to use vodka to make my tinctures & have read that vodka is
half water half alcohol. My question is do I still need to use water
in the preperation? I was going to use 1 part herb to 5 parts of an
equal 50/50 water/alcohol split till I read that the alcohol
contains water already. Is this still ok?
When it says alcohol it actually -means- 100 % alcohol. Vodka is
-not- alcohol, technically, it's a mixture of alcohol and water -
it's vodka.
So when you want to do a 1:5 50% tincture you use 1 part (by weight,
eg. 100 g) of dried herb and 5 parts (by volume, eg. 5 dl) of your
50% (= 100 proof) vodka. You don't add any water to that. If you use
100 % alcohol you take 1 part water to 1 part pure alcohol to get at
50 %.
Here's a good materia medica, giving you percentages to use with
dried herbs: - go for the Herbal Materia Medica. Use 100 % EtOH as your menstruum
with fresh herbs. If you can't get that, use the highest % you can
lay your hands on, even if it means your tincture has a scent of 80
% Strohrum.
Proof is two times percent, so 100 proof is 50%.
100% EtOH is short for 94 or 96 %. Fiddling with small percentage
deviations when making herbal tinctures is silly.
- How do you know just how much of your precious stuff evaporated
the minute you took off the cork? It's dependent on altitude,
temperature, and on how long you leave the cork off, and if you're
inclined to do so, you can start calculating now. Tell us the
results in a couple hundred years, when you're done.
- How do you know exactly how much water is in the plants this year?
Yes, you can dry your fresh batch and measure both the fresh and the
dry one, but while you were drying one the other has dried too, eh?
Funny that. Once you've surmounted that problem you still can't be
sure just how much water is in the dried plant, either. Is it 5 %?
10 %? Happy counting! I think that humans react to the nature around
them, and if this here plant contains more water this year, why,
we'll probably need that much more water in our tincture this year.
You don't have to be a matematician to make tinctures. The
difference -really- isn't all that great. So calculate with 100 %
EtOH when you use 94 or 96 %.
The label on the bottle should say: "1:5, 50%, herb name, herb part,
month decanted, (picked where and when), (bought from where, and
when),
Again, it's silly to try to find out how much EtOH is in the
finished tincture, and put -that- on the label. As far as I know
(AFAIK) none of the olde Eclectics ever put anything but the
starting menstruum % on their bottles. Again AFAIK no reputable
herbalist in these days puts anything but the starting position on
their bottles either - corrections anyone?
If you want to make sure your tincture is viable, ie. it'll keep,
you need to make sure you have more than 15-20 % in the finished
product. You'll have no problems with that if you use 100 % EtOH
with your fresh plants (1:2 = 1 part fresh plant (by weight), 2
parts 100 % EtOH (by volume)), and the usual 40-70 % EtOH with your
dried plants, in the usual ratio of 1:5.
</Soap box>
Henriette
If I can get dried herb before immersing in the oil it works well.
So I usually don't harvest until 2 or 3 days after a rain, because
the moisture in the leaf will spoil the oil.
There are some tricks to making herbal oils.
One is, let your herb dry to half its fresh weight before putting it
into oil (windowsill method). That way only about one batch in 20
will rot, as opposed to the one batch in four if you do not let your
herb wilt first. (SJW is excluded from this consideration; I haven't
had a batch of fresh flowering SJW tops go bad on me yet.)
Two is, cover your jar with cheesecloth when you make a fresh herb
oil; that way water can evaporate. A tight lid is useful only with
dry herb oils.
Three is, let your strained herb oil sit in a tall container for
four days. Then you can pour the oil off the bottom sludge. That
bottom sludge includes water, and if you leave it in you WILL get
mold.
>I like the oven idea though. What a creative bunch we can be!
Fast heated oils can be used in the kitchen, too. I would not use
the 4-6 week windowsill oils for that. My heated oils are quite
effective. I just cover dried herb with oil (I haven't used fresh
herb, because I make the oil into salves rather fast, and fresh herb
-does- make for moldy salve, if you don't use trick 3 above) and let
sit in the top part of a waterbath for 1-2 hours. After straining
out the herb (I use cheesecloth, and wring) and cleaning out the
bowl it's a breeze to make that oil into a salve - just add beeswax,
let it melt, and pour into jars.
A few mixes I make:
Henriette's Garden Salve
1 part whole calendula flowers (picking only the petals is a waste
of time when making salves)
1 part meadowsweet flowers (or buds, or leaf) (Filipendula)
This one is good for gardeners; the meadowsweet eases the muscle
ache and the calendula helps with the rough skin. A hint of lavender
is usually appreciated, too, but men like mint better.
My VV (Varicose Vein) Salve
1 part calendula flowers
1 part horse chestnut bark, leaf, and/or green chopped-up fruit
This is good for varicosities, burst capillaries and hemorrhoids.
Also do horse chestnut tea internally.
Henriette's Ouch! Salve
1 part calendula flowers
1 part SJW flowering tops (very recently dried, or just add fresh
oil)
1 part meadowsweet flowers
Excellent for when you've tumbled with your mountain bike or skates,
or when you've fallen down a stony and steep ditch. Eases bruises
and contusions, helps heal, -and- takes away the pain. A must for
people with kids.
One skin salve
1 part calendula flowers
1/2 part rose buds
(1/2 part lavender flowers)
Excellent for the skin. Don't use any oil with a scent or smell for
this, rose is so delicate that it's easily covered. I have found
that eg. grapeseed oil or coldpressed rapeseed is best for this.
Another skin salve
1/2 part calendula flowers
1 part very strong peppermint leaf
Great vitalizer. The salve should be very deep green, and should
have a strong scent of mint, even without adding any EOs.
As you can see I add calendula to almost all my salves. The
exceptions would be those where I add plantain leaf (Plantago). I
don't use comfrey as it smells musty and old even when it's recently
dried (yuk!); also, the toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) can be
absorbed through the skin. If you have to use comfrey in salves (I
don't recommend it), go for leaf rather than root as leaf contains
less PAs.
If you don't have meadowsweet you could use balm of gilead buds for
the same thing. Or the inner bark of any of a number of trees, like
birch, willow, poplar, aspen...
The salves get extra zing if just a tiny hint of cayenne is added to
them. And I usually (but not always) add 1-2 drops of lavender or
peppermint EO to each ounce (30 g) of salve; that helps prevent mold
-and- gives the salves a nice scent.
How do you make your own tincture?
A fresh herb tincture
a) official
Take
1 part of fresh herb (by weight, eg. 100 g) to
2 parts of 95 % alcohol (by volume, eg. 2 dl)
· · Chop up your herb. Leaf roughly, 1" is good enough, root more
finely, as it's harder, 1/5-1/10" is good for that. (Don't use your
vitamix or oster, if you do you'll get lots of inerts into your
tincture, as cell walls rupture). Pour herb into glass jar, cover
with alcohol, close tight lid tightly, let sit in a coolish shady
spot for 2-4 weeks. Strain (I use a cheesecloth, and wring), pour
into dark glass bottles, label (1:2 95 % Yarrow flowering tops, July
2000).
b) simplers
Take enough chopped-up herb to jam a glass jar full, add enough 95 %
alcohol to cover, close tight lid tightly, let sit in a coolish
shady spot for 2-4 weeks, strain, bottle, label.
A dried herb tincture
Take
1 part of dried herb (by weight, eg. 100 g) to
5 parts of a mix of alcohol and water (by volume, eg. 5 dl)
· · Crush up your herb (don't powder it), pour into glass jar, add
menstruum (this is your alcohol-water-mix), close tight lid tightly,
let sit in a coolish shady spot for 2-4 weeks. Strain, bottle, label
(1:5 50 % Yarrow flowering tops, July 2000).
Take enough crushed-up herb to jam a glass jar full, add enough
alcohol-water-mix to cover, close tight lid tightly, let sit in a
coolish shady spot for 2-4 weeks, strain, bottle, label.
What percentage of alcohol should I use for dried herb?
You'll find a good Materia Medica here: <http://chili.rt66.com/hrbmoore/HOMEPAGE>
- go for the manuals. This will tell you the alcohol percentages for
dried herb. Note that Michael Moore assumes you know that fresh herb
should be tinctured at 95 % alcohol; thus his notation for fresh
herb tincture is 1:2, not 1:2 95 %.
>What kind of alcohol?
Vodka is good, but when it says 40% somewhere on the label that
means that the rest is water.
So get as high as you can lay your hands on, and yes, it's
expensive, if you're not close to the Mexican border. In Mexico 95 %
alcohol is USD 5 a gallon, and it's got a nice sweet taste, because
it's made from sugarcane.
Everclear is a brand of pure alcohol available in some states in the
US; there are other brands, and pure alcohol (95 % or 190 proof) is
not available in all states.
Note that if you use lower percentages than indicated for dried herb
your quality suffers immensely. Note that if you use significantly
less than 95 % on fresh herb you have a large risk that your
tincture will rot while it's still in the glass jar, or later on in
the bottle. Yech! (This is the voice of experience, here...)
The rule of thumb is, you want the water either in the plant or in
the menstruum, except for herbs that are resins (myrrh, for
instance, needs 95 % alcohol even though it's "dry"). Terminology:
menstruum is your alcohol, or your alcohol-water mixture; in teas
the menstruum is just water, in herbal vinegars it's (surprise
surprise) vinegar.
>How long is the tincture fresh?
Depends on the herb, but a rule of thumb would be about 10 years.
Except for Capsella bursa-pastoris (Shepherd's purse), Lobelia, and
Melissa officinalis (lemon balm), off the top of my head; these are
good for a year, max, so you need to tincture them fresh every
summer if you use them.
Cheers
Henriette
In your opinion, and to your knowledge, WHAT is the most effective
method to wring the broadest spectrum of medicinal constituents from
a plant?
Well, what effect do you want out of the herb? If you want -all- the
plant has to give you:
Eat the fresh herb. Unless, of course, the herb is caustic, in which
case, dry it first.
The best way that's actually feasible is to tincture the herb.
Alcohol combined with water beats the crap out of any vinegar
tinctures, out of any glycerites - except for a very few plants. You
don't want to tincture any herb which depends on mucilage, as
alcohol destroys that. Do a tea instead. And lobelia does very well
with vinegar, but it's one of the few herbs that does.
The "official" tinctures, ie. 1:2 95 % for fresh herb and 1:5 50-70
% for dried use alcohol percentages that have been worked out over a
few decades if not centuries by people who made a _lot_ of
tinctures, and used them therapeutically. (In north America that's
the Eclectics.)
If you want to use, say, Agrimony, for the purposes stated in
Michael Moore's Herbal Repertory, your best bet is to use it the way
he states in his Materia Medica. That's either tea or tincture.
If you want to use it for the purposes stated in any of David
Hoffman's works (books, online library, CD or correspondence
course), your best bet is to use it the way he says.
If any given source says "tincture it", but _doesn't_ tell you
percentages, ratios and dosages, then that source is suspect. That
author has never made tinctures him/herself, otherwise he/she'd know
the importance of ratios (1:2, 1:3, 1:5) and alcohol strength to
dosages. Or that author thinks that tinctures are the same strength
everywhere, completely ignorant of the fact that American (and
Finnish, and Swiss) tinctures are far stronger than British.
>I mention "integrity" because I often wonder how much damage HEAT
does through processing, in terms of molecular rearrangement. In
most food, heat is HELL and volatile to the majority of nutrients.
So I wonder what role heat plays in terms of chemical stability when
it comes to herbs. I've never seen or read much on this
consideration.
Heat doesn't mean too much in teas. If a herb has been used for
centuries as a tea for a given complaint you can be sure that the
loss of volatiles and the breakdown of cell walls and such is
therapeutically insignificant. For that particular complaint. For
other complaints maybe a tincture is the way to go.
Cheers