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sweetbeefaerie
17-04-2013, 11:43 PM
I am thinking about making a tincture but I have never done this before and don't want to mess up. I want to make one tincture that has damiana, yerba mate and dandelion in it. The point of the tincture is to help me with weight loss, mood lift, and some other things like headaches and such. weight loss and mood lift are main things though. I am not sure if these herbs are able to be made into tinctures in the first place and I am not sure how to make the tincture. Are they okay to be combined into one tincture?

Tobi
18-04-2013, 02:08 AM
Making a tincture is easy. But you need to know the proportions of the particular herbs. It might be easier to make 3 separate tinctures of these herbs, and then combine them later when they are ready, so you get the dosage proportions right.
Anyway, to make a tincture you will need:
**Alcohol (at least 35 proof vodka is best) Ordinary store-bought vodka will do.
**Herb (dried is best. If you use fresh you will need double the quantity)
**A clean glass jar with a screw top for each herb. Depending on how much volume you want to make, you could use anything from a cleaned-out honey jar to a 2-liter storage jar)
**small bottles to put the tincture in when it's ready
**A small funnel
**A fruit press
**A jug or plastic or glass container with pouring spout.

These are the measurements you need:
(Depending on how much tincture you need in ml.)
100ml = 25g dried herbs
200ml = 50g dried herbs
300ml = 75g dried herbs
400ml = 100g dried herbs
500ml = 125g dried herbs
600ml = 150g dried herbs
700ml = 175g dried herbs
800ml = 200g dried herbs
900ml = 225g dried herbs
1000ml (1ltr)= 250g dried herbs

Put the herb in the jar, cover with the alcohol. Keep in a fairly warm dark place for about 3 weeks to a month. Shake daily. Then when ready press out using a fruit/ apple press. These usually come with a small tube, so when it's pressing, the liquid will come out the tube. The easiest way to do this is to have your fruit press on the draining-board of the kitchen sink, and a container in the actual sink, and the tube between them, so the liquid goes into the container, and none is spilled.

Then bottle up using the little funnel. Label.

Tinctures made with alcohol will last -and be potent for at least 3 years, possibly 5. So long as they are kept dark and cool.

How to combine the 3 herbal tinctures you mentioned?
Get the tincture dosage for each herb. (or instance some might be 5ml 3 times a day....and some might be 2 ml. 3 times a day.....etc
So you can work out the proportions for larger quantities by multiplying this by 10 (for example...50ml of one herbal tincture will mix with 20ml of the other one etc)....or multiply by 20....or by 50 or even more for larger volumes of tincture....and so on.

I hope this doesn't sound too complicated. I used to make these all the time. It really is easy when you get doing it.

sweetbeefaerie
18-04-2013, 08:15 PM
thank you! this is extremely helpful :) I am very excited to start doing this