Here it is Daniel. This is always hard for people to understand the first time and it helps to have someone who has made tinctures this way to show you the first time.
The Formula/Calculation/Weight to Volume Method of Maceration
If you want to make a tincture that is the same strength each time, you need to use a bit of math and follow a formula to ensure you make the product the same each time. Herbalists use this method for consistency of product. An herbal production company uses this method out of necessity. You know what percent of alcohol and water you will have in the final product. You also know the strength will remain fairly consistent. This is also the method I use for most fresh plant tinctures I make at home, so I can account for the water in my product.
When using the formula method you take the amount of herb that you are going to tincture and multiply it by a set number used specifically for that herb to get the amount of solvent that will be used to arrive at a specific final product strength. Once you know the total amount of solvent you will add, you multiply that by the percent of alcohol and the percent of water you want in the final product. This gives you the total amount each of water and alcohol to add. This is fairly straight forward for dry plant tinctures. When making a fresh plant tincture it becomes more complicated as you now have to account for the amount of moisture in the plant. This necessitates, weighing a fresh plant sample and drying it, followed by re-weighing the dried herb to find out how much moisture is in the fresh plant. This moisture content is then used in your calculations to decide how much alcohol and water to add to the amount of plant you decide you will be using.
Example Of Making Alfalfa As Fresh Plant Tincture
You asked specifically about adding the actual herb into the product for Medicago sativa or Alfalfa as an example. Collect a sample of Alfalfa. Weigh the sample and dry it. I use a small
oven set very low to dry it in a few hours. When completely dry, I remove it and reweigh it. The difference in the first and second sample weight gives us the moisture content that we use in our calculations. Now decide how much herb in total to use. Once that is decided, calculate the amount of alcohol and water to add, subtracting the moisture in the plant from the water. This math is lengthy to explain and is in my book in great detail. If you don’t like math, I suggest you take a
class from a
local herbalist who will show you how to go through this process, as it is hard for some people to grasp it without doing it with someone. If you are a math whiz, it will be easy for you. We will use a 1:1 fresh, plus dry formula here. The fresh herb will be processed through the menstruum 3 different times and the dry herb will go through a last and fourth time. Whatever that weight of fresh herb is going to be, we will start by using about 25% of that weight to add initially to the solvent. There is a lot of moisture in Alfalfa. It is about 73% in the Willamette Valley usually, although it changes depending on the climate where it is growing at the time (this change can change the amount of herb that is added each time through the menstruum). Each time you add Alfalfa to your solvent/menstruum, more water will be added from the moisture in the Alfalfa (that is okay as we take this into account in our calculations). This means the first time we add herb to the solvent, there will be less moisture in the menstruum than the last time we add herb. So, start with a smaller amount of herb in a situation where the moisture content is really high.
When processing fresh herb, you have to account for the plants seasonality. If the season is not long enough for us to collect it multiple times currently, we may have to figure out if we can grow it at two different times in our area, stagger the crop or if we can’t do either of these things, we might be able to get the herb from someone that is at a higher or lower altitude than us. Different altitudes will usually change when it is harvested enough to prolong the time period to give us enough time to process our tincture over a longer period of time. To make good fresh tinctures we really need to have an understanding of growing the plant, harvesting the plant and where we might otherwise be able to procure the plant if needed. Even if we never grow or harvest the plant, it will help in ordering it from herb farmers if we know this data.
The first amount of herb processed can sit a shorter time in maceration than subsequent ones, as the solutes are being extracted into a solvent that has nothing else in it yet. Each time the herb goes through maceration it will take longer to extract usually. I gauge when it is done by how it looks, smells and tastes each time. Once we press out the first maceration of Alfalfa, we are ready to add the second fresh plant. This time we can add about 30%-35%. When the second Alfalfa maceration is pressed out, we can add the last amount of fresh Alfalfa and we are done adding fresh plant. When this is pressed out we now add dry Alfalfa to menstruum. Dry plant is added to the extract if we feel the fresh extract is not strong enough. We are limited by the moisture in the plant as to how strong we can make the plant as a fresh plant tincture. Therefore, we may want a stronger tincture. We may want the vitality we get from the fresh plant, but as long as dry plant will add something worthwhile to the tincture (it does not always-some herbs
should only be used fresh) adding dry is the way to make it stronger. The average amount of dry I add to Alfalfa is 5%. Once this dry plant has macerated long enough, we press it out and are ready to filter it if we wish to filter (companies almost always filter, not everyone filters when made at home).
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