The Herbal Medicine-Maker's Handbook_ A Home Manual - James Green [86]
Using the list of constituents and their prime solvents given to you in Chapter Six, you can begin to get a sense of the proportions of water to alcohol that might be best used to bring most of the properties of this plant into solution. This will also prove helpful to determine if the plant contains tannins that would be well managed by the addition of some 10 percent glycerin in the menstruum. If the plant is high in alkaloids, you might want to add 5 to 10 percent vinegar to help convert these free alkaloids into alkaloidal salts which are far more soluble in water and alcohol.
The results of this research will give you a good foundation for a well-educated guess as to the best initial menstruum to formulate. There is no one right answer; there is, however, the “correct” answer for your requirements and preferences. Make your first batches small; make notes on your decisions and the results of these decisions; and continue to modify your menstruum until you have developed the one you like best (see “The Sensual Approach to Successful Tincturing and Other Methods of Herbal Extraction” in Chapter Five). The joy of good herbal medicine-making evolves with the willingness to experiment and the delight of discovery.
Ultimately, it’s your decision as to what is the best menstruum for your herbal tincture. A good principle to follow when formulating a menstruum for dried plant material is to make the proportion of water as large as possible while still efficiently dissolving all soluble matter and not endangering the permanency of the preparation. One special advantage of this, beside the obvious economic one (alcohol is expensive), is that such tinctures may be added in small proportions to teas, baths, and other aqueous preparations without causing serious precipitation.
WHEN TINCTURING FRESH PLANT MATERIAL
Use the same method to determine total volume of menstruum for a quantity of the fresh herb as you would for a dry, powdered herb. The major difference here is that when tincturing a fresh plant one ordinarily makes a 1:2 w/v (50 percent tincture) and most often uses a menstruum of undiluted 190-proof ethyl alcohol (according to the standards recommended by the International Protocol adopted at Brussels in 1902).
Example: Find the volume of menstruum required to make a 1:2 w/v (50% tincture) from 454 Gm of fresh herb. Multiply 454 by 2 = 908. You will need to prepare a volume of 908 ml of menstruum for the weight of 454 Gm of fresh herb.
Whenever using more than one single solvent for your menstruum, be sure to mix together all the liquids of the menstruum thoroughly in a separate container before adding them to the plant material.
Note: Most pharmacopoeias, having adopted the standards of the 1902 International Protocol, hold to using a menstruum of pure 190-proof (95 percent ethyl) alcohol for tincturing fresh plants. This standard was established by pharmacists based on the theory that ethyl alcohol, when in contact with the fresh plant tissue for an adequate length of time, dehydrates the tissue and in so doing draws into solution all plant constituents that are dissolved in the plant juice. This leaves behind merely the cellulose and other insoluble tissues to be discarded. Some herbalists feel it is unnecessary to blend or shake these macerating mixtures because this dehydration process occurs automatically and completely without the need for any other action. Obviously if one chooses not to blend or shake a tincture of this nature, every part of the plant material must be immersed in the pure alcohol for the extraction process to act upon the entire mass.
Keep in mind if you use 100-proof vodka (or any diluted ethyl alcohol), you need to blend the fresh herb with the menstruum and