Alcohol will generally extract all important ingredients from an herb.
To make a tincture, combine four ounces of powered or cut herb with one pinet
of alcohol such as vodka, brandy, gin, or rum. Shake daily, allowing the
herbs to extract for about two weeks. Let the herbs settle, then pour off
the tincture, straining out the powder through a fine cloth or filter.
If you do not want to digest the alcohol, stir the required amount of
tincture into a quarter cup of boiling water to evaporate the alcohol.
If you are specifically extracting herbs for their alkaloid content,
substitute apple-cider vinegar in place of the alcohol.
This procedure should work for any herbal root, leaves, etc.
In <xO-zQHu.jimro…@delphi.com> jimro…@delphi.com writes:
[...]
>This procedure should work for any herbal root, leaves, etc.
not necessarily… it depends on the active constituents. before
doing an extraction one should try and identify the putative active
molecules. with that information one can go to the merck index, look
the constituents up and apply the most suitable solvent (that is
non-toxic of course) to the extraction. why spend money on grain
alcohol if all you need is hot water? why spend money on cured herbs
only to use an unsuitable solvent? find out as much as you can
first…then choose.
true…it so happens that often alcohol is quite suitable, but this is
not always the case.
SZ
–
Steven Zikopoulos <sziko…@ccs.carleton.ca>
> If you do not want to digest the alcohol, stir the required amount of
> tincture into a quarter cup of boiling water to evaporate the alcohol.
> If you are specifically extracting herbs for their alkaloid content,
> substitute apple-cider vinegar in place of the alcohol.
Note that when you add the extract to boiling water, many volatile oils
will evaporate off, in addition to the alcohol.
Commercially, essential oils are made by steam distillation using
alcohol and reduced pressure (i.e. vacuum). As the alcohol comes
out, it’s used to fill a succession of bottles. An expert technician
tastes or smells each bottle to find which ones contain the molecules
he’s interested in. (The molecules boil off at different times.)