creating tinctures

[edenwildfood]

I'm getting conflicting advice with regards tinctures, do you need to use 50% alcohol to get the correct extractions or will 40% do?

[foragingmouse]

I use a 100% proff vodka from Aldi £10 a Bottle cheep as chips my understanding is that it needs to be 80 proof (namely, 40% alcohol) to be effective

[herbwise]

Foragingmouse is right. Though, back in the day they would macerate herbs in wine and take them by the wine glassful. Wine glassful is actually a term for dosage you will see in old tomes. For long term preservation you cannot depend on wine due to the lower alcohol content. I like to use brandy as it lends a better taste to the tincture. Grain alcohol is necessary for certain plants (usually resinous) because the higher alcohol content will extract certain constituents, but most plants don't require grain alcohol. Bear in mind most plant constituent are water soluble, so there is a benefit to using an 80 proof tincture.

Speaking of water, the biggest thing you have to concern yourself with when making any herbal medicine is the water content of the plant if you are using fresh plant material instead of dried. It's easy to tell roughly how watery a plant is....does it have really juicy leaves? Think Chickweed (Stellaria media) vs. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium). Chickweed = watery, Yarrow is a much "drier" plant if you will. The other thing that will affect the amount of water from the plant is the amount of plant material used in the preparation (if you are doing a 1:10 herb:menstruum or a 1:5 or a 1:2). I would not recommend doing a 1:2 with fresh plant material. The strongest I go then is a 1:5 and even then my opinion (based on tinctures I've made) is that the water content is borderline iffy and it would be best to use a high proof alcohol (grain alcohol) in this scenario. Just this year I resolved that I prefer the tinctures of dry plant material. Only certain herbs need to be utilized fresh (like Plantain (Plantago spp.)), and even then that may not be true if the plant is dried carefully to preserve the enzymes.

Don't stress it and have fun. If you use 80 proof alcohol and dry plant material and ID your plants correctly, any medicine you make will be better than what you can buy at a store.

[foragingmouse]

What a great post , very helpfull enjoyed reading it :-)

[herbwise]

Glad you liked it!!