Steam Inhalations
Steam inhalations are great for
breaking up sinus or lung congestion. Simply fill a
pot with water and, say, Sage, cover and bring to a
boil. Remove the pot from heat, and lean over it with
a towel over your head to catch the steam. Inhale
slowly & fully, and be careful! The steam will, of
course, be hot.
Infused Oils
Solar Infusions: Pack a mason jar
as tightly as possible with a fresh herb of your
choice (St. John's Wort, for instance). Pour Olive
Oil into the jar and then press the herbs with a clean
spoon or something to squeeze out as much of the
trapped air as possible. Repeat until you can't get
any more air bubbles out, then cap the jar and set it
directly in the sun for a month or two. Then strain
the oil through cotton or cheesecloth, squeezing as
much from the wet herb as possible. Let the strained
oil sit for two or three days. Any water in your oil will
settle to the bottom. Slowly pour the oil into a
clean jar being careful not let any of the settled
water come along with it. Cap and store in a cool,
dark place.
"Kitchen" Infusions: Combine dried
or fresh herbs and Olive Oil in a crock-pot or double
boiler. Herbalist James Green recommends using a
yogurt maker, which heats the oils to a lower
temperature than your average crockpot. Sometimes I use a ratio of
seven ounces oil to
every once of dried or two ounces of fresh herb, but I
will also often just eyeball it. Heat over the
lowest heat possible for several hours - the longer
the better (sometimes I've steeped for days). Strain
into clean mason jars, and if using fresh herbs,
separate the oil from any water as described above.
You can add some Vitamin E Oil to
act as a preservative.
Salves
Infuse salve ingredients in oil as
described above. Heat the oil, and to every ounce of
oil add 1-2 teaspoons of grated beeswax (or, if you've
got chunks of beeswax, figure about an ounce of wax
for every five ounces of oil). You can drop some of
the molten salve onto a piece of wax paper and let it
harden to check the consistency. If too soft, add
more beeswax; if too hard, add more oil. When you're
happy with the consistency, pour into clean jars. Four
once mason jars are ideal, as are old lip balm
containers. A touch of lanolin in the mix can do
wonders.
Liniments
In a mason jar, pour rubbing
alcohol over the desired herbs. For Dry herbs, 5
ounces of alcohol per ounce; for fresh herbs, 2 ounces
of alcohol per once. Let sit for two weeks, shaking
daily, then strain into clean bottles. Because
liniments use rubbing alcohol, make sure they are
labeled "FOR EXTERNAL USE ONLY!" Rubbing alcohol can
be fatal if taken internally.
Poultices
This is an external application of
bruised fresh or brewed dried herbs. For example,
bruise a handful of fresh plantain leaves (or chew
them to make a "spit poultice" for greater
bio-activity) and apply to a wound to facilitate
cleaning and faster healing. For a dried poultice,
steep some dried chamomile and apply to raw, enflamed
skin. Tea bags make very good poultices. Cover and
let it soak in for ½ to a few hours, or overnight.
Tinctures
People are so intimidated by making
tinctures. It figures, as almost every book describes
this process differently, and for those of us who want
to understand the process, it is good to know why we
are doing what we are doing. On the most basic level,
a tincture is made from a fresh or dried herb that has
been soaked in an alcohol/water solution (called a "menstrum").
Because there are so many
assumptions made about alcohol, and the mere mention
of consuming it can cause the most liberal of people
to get the "heebie-jeebies", let me take a moment to
explain why it is used and why it is, in almost all
cases, not a need for concern:
Plant constituents are extracted
into an herbal preparation because they are soluble
(they will dissolve into) in the menstrum used by that
preparation. If you make an infusion of Black Cohosh,
for example, only the constituents of the Black Cohosh
that are soluble in water will be included in the
infusion. There remains; in the left over plant
material, other constituents that contribute to its
total overall effect. If you were to prepare an
alcoholic extract, using a menstrum of water and
alcohol, you would extract a more complete spectrum of
the plant's overall medicinal virtues. Also, the
alcohol acts as a preservative, and the extract will
keep for years . . . almost indefinitely, really.
Although nonalcoholic extracts can be made using apple
cider vinegar and glycerin; these do not extract as
well or keep as well as alcoholic extracts, and
many herbs are only extracted well using alcohol.
For those concerned about the
alcohol intake involved in the use of tinctures, I
offer the following information: A full dropper
bottle of tincture is usually one ounce, and an
average of 50% alcohol… the equivalent of 1 "shot of"
100 proof vodka. Of this, a usual dose of tincture is
approximately 30 drops, so imagine that shat glass
filled with just 30 drops of vodka, only half of which
is alcohol. This is approximately the same amount of
alcohol contained in 1-2 ripe bananas (Yes, bananas do
contain alcohol!). This is a relatively insignificant
amount of alcohol… and tinctures are so benevolent
they can be given during pregnancy with no ill effect
(providing, of course, that the herb used is safe for
pregnancy). Of course, this is your decision to
make. No one can account for all sensitivities or
allergic reactions a given person may have.
Contrary to herban legend, adding a tincture to hot
water or tea while it is infusing or decocting does
not remove the alcohol.
That being said, it is my opinion
that making and using your own tinctures is one of the
greatest gifts you can give to yourself. It will
nurture your health, your spirit, and save you a
ton of money if you've been buying them
commercially (I estimated that a large batch of sinus
medicine that I made for a cost of $30-$40 yielded
what would have cost well over $300 to buy). By
following recipes learned from herbals or taught here,
you should be able to establish a "home apothecary"
that will be available to address many of life's
common traumas and inconveniences.
Many herbalist prepare tinctures
simply by filling a jar full to the brim with an herb,
and then filling the remainder with 50% (100 proof)
alcohol. This is called the "simpler's" method.
While you can make fine tinctures this way, the
arbitrary nature of the preparation leads to
inconsistencies between batches and individual
extracts... one batch may be stronger or weaker than
another, so 30 drops of one is not equivalent
to 30 drops of another.
It’s only a bit more complicated to
make extracts using "weight-to-volume" ratios.
Following this process means that I can count on the
consistency and quality of the extracts I produce, and
that the strengths of individual extracts will be
balanced for use in formulations. The process is
simple:
For Dried Herbs
Dried herbs are tinctured at a
ratio of 1:5, that is, for every 1 ounce of dried
herb, 5 ounces of menstrum are used. We want our
menstrum to contain the percentage of water that was
originally in the plant when it was fresh, therefore
returning it to its original balance. This
information can be found via Michael Moores's Materia
Medica, obtainable through his web site at
www.swsbm.com. If you do not have access to the
Internet, try the library since this information is
worth the trouble to get. In a pinch, you can try
going to a health food store, looking at the label on
a bottled liquid extract, and using that figure. When
in doubt, use 50% alcohol. If you are not
meticulously inclined, you could probably use 50%
alcohol for all your extracts, though oily & resinous
herbs are ideally extracted in higher alcohol
contents. The herb is coarsely ground as needed, put
in a mason jar (make sure the jar is big enough!), and
the alcohol/water menstrum poured over it. It is then
capped, left for at least a couple weeks in a cool,
dark place, shaken daily, and then strained for use.
As an example, suppose we have
chosen to make a Black Cohosh tincture from 4 ounces
of dried roots. At a 1:5 ratio, this means we will
need 20 ounces of menstrum (4x5=20). Consulting
Michael Moore's Materia Medica, we see Black Cohosh
needs an 80% alcohol (the 20% water is assumed)
menstrum. This equates to 16 ounces of alcohol and 4
ounces of water. We chop the Black Cohosh into a
course powder, put it in a mason jar, and pour the
menstrum over it. Cap the jar, put it in a cupboard
and shake it daily. After two weeks it is ready for
use. Strain and bottle.
For Fresh Herbs
When tincturing fresh herbs, we use
a ratio of 1:2; for every 1 once of fresh herb, 2
ounces of alcohol are used. Because fresh herbs
contain water, we do not have to add water to our
menstrum.. 95% grain alcohol (Everclear) should be
used. Don't worry; the alcohol will also extract the
water from the plant, diluting it to a less potent
percentage. Chop up the herb, put it in a jar, pour
the alcohol in, steep, shake, & strain in 2 weeks.
You now have a high quality fresh plant tincture.
As an example, suppose you dig up 5
ounces of fresh Echinacea root. After cleaning the
roots and chopping them into small pieces, put them in
a jar and pour 10 ounces (5x2=10) of grain alcohol
over them. Cap and let steep for an at least 2 weeks
in a cool, dark place, shaking daily. After 2 weeks,
strain and bottle.
A Note on Straining
This can be the greatest
frustration involved in making tinctures (hence the
word: "Strain")... you've made your tincture, and you
want to get every last drop out of it.
First, you don't need to
strain your tincture after two weeks. I most often
leave things steeping much longer, filling up dropper
bottles from the jar as needed, and strain when this
becomes difficult. When you get to the straining,
traditional processes tell us to pour the extract
through "several layers of cheese cloth" into a jar,
and then to squeeze out as much of the extract as
possible. My experience says that you will find that
far, far to much of your extract is stuck in the
cheese cloth and the leftover plant material to make
this acceptable (imagine getting only 10 of your 20
ounces of tincture…). As a small scale herbalist,
I've discovered a few tricks to make this straining
more effective. The first is an Oxo brand potato
ricer ($20), which is essentially a large, stainless
steel garlic press type thing. Empty your spent herb
into the chamber and squeeze away. You may wish to
line the chamber with muslin to catch fine particles.
Another method is to get 2 Ball
mason jars, one wide mouth pint and one tall pint
jelly jar, that fit into each other. Put the spent
herb into the large jar, and then insert the smaller
jar. Put both into a large Tupperware dish and press
out the juice (try bouncing on them to make use of
gravity). One should be cautious, though… glass
breaks. I used to use a cutting board to press the
jars, protecting me from the potential of injury.
Now that you've "strained", you may
wish to filter out the finer sediments. Pour the
strained tincture into a measuring cup, and let it
settle (don't watch it, it will take longer). Prepare
a mason jar with a coffee filter, or a bit of muslin,
inserting it into the jar and using the lid-band to
secure it. When you extract has settled, slowly and
delicately pour off the clear tincture into the Mason
jar. Try to get as little of the sediment in as
possible. If the filter clogs, carefully remove it
and squeeze out the "stuck" tincture. Repeat as
necessary.
Take your time, try not to get to
mad when you spill something, when your filter tears,
when you can't squeeze out more than half (or less!)
of what you put in, ect… At the same time, don't
admonish yourself when you do get frustrated, your
tincture won't curdle if you swear. Just take a break
and look at mistakes and accidents as an offering to
the learning process. When you're done, you will have
created good medicine.
One last note regarding tincture making...
It is not uncommon for people to
feel intimidated by the idea of making their own
tinctures. This is usually associated with the belief
that the process is more difficult than it actually
is, or that it would be ruined if some part of the
"recipe" was not followed exactly. Perhaps it even
comes down to the belief that "it can't be that
easy". In actuality, it is that easy.
If you feel intimidated by tincture
making, start by only using dried herbs and 100 proof
vodka. Despite that the process I've outlined earlier
requires calculating alcohol percentages, this is
mostly due to my own preferences, and there are very
few instances in which using 100 proof vodka would
detrimentally affect the quality of your tincture.
Simply follow the "7 step plan" below:
1.) Put 4 ounces of dried herb
in an adequately sized mason jar
2.) Add 20 ounces of 100 proof
vodka
3.) Cap the jar, and store it
out of the light in a cool dark place
4.) Shake daily for at least two
weeks
5.) Uncap the jar
6.) Pour out the tincture, and
squeeze out the wet herbs as best you can
7.) Filter the tincture through
cheesecloth, cotton, muslin and/or a coffee filter
And there you have it, that's all
it takes. Of course, you'll want to make sure that
your hands are clean, that your mason jar doesn't
smell like pasta and that you
cheesecloth/cotton/muslin hasn't been used to wipe up
spilled milk, but that's rather obvious, isn't it?
What you'll get in return from this
is the gratification of knowing that you made your
medicine, that you saved a ton of money, and the
rather nervous, uncertain looks from the more
conventional members of your family when you tell
them:
"Of
course it works... I made it myself out of dried weeds
and vodka!"
