How to Make Your Own Tincture

How to make your own tincture at home

To make your own tincture the first thing you need to do is figure out what you want your tincture to do to your body. There are a million different herbs, seeds, flavoring and plants to choose from. Each one having there own effects on your body. Once you figure out what you want it to do then you have to figure out how much to use in your tincture and if you want to make it all VG (vegetable glycerin) or add some alcohol instead.

What's the difference between alcohol and VG? Basically alcoholic tinctures are much harder to flavor than VG. Personally I only use VG because I like the flavor. Its naturally sweet and much easier to swallow and very easy to flavor. It also takes effect quickly and extracts herbs much faster than Alcohol which can take months of storing and steeping while VG takes 3 to 7 days before it has its effects. Only bad thing is alcohol does last longer on the shelf, sometimes they can last for over 5 to 10 years if stored properly while VG has a shelf life of only 2 to 4 years and loses its effect over a long period of time.

So now that you have decided on your herbs which hopefully you have chosen herbs that work together and what kind of tincture base you want to use, you need to have all the tools to make it.

So, herbs can come in many different ways, you can purchase powdered herbs, extracted herbs, or just the plant itself in its natural form. You want to figure out how strong it should be and how much you should add of each. Then you need some VG Base or alcohol base and you need flavoring and spices too, if you want to add that. Then your gonna need some good mason jars and a strainer and a funnel, bottles to store it, some cheese cloth to strain it twice, a spoon, and last but not least... a dark cabinet at room temperature.

1. The first thing your going to do is mix the herbs and flavoring and spices together in a mason jar.

2. Next you store those mason jars in a dark cabinet.

3. Depending on if you are using alcohol or VG you then store it for 4 to 7 days or for a month or more based on how strong you would like it to be.

4. Once your tincture has fermented it is now time to get out the cheesecloth and strainer and spoon and bowl.

5. You put the cheesecloth over the large bowl with strainer on top and you gently pour in the tincture (liquid) over the cheesecloth.

6. As it pours in the cheesecloth will let it strain into the bowl without causing you to have leaves or plants or seeds inside your tincture. You most likely will have a lot of liquid stuck to the cheesecloth, this is were you would ring out the cheesecloth at the end and use the spoon to help you until it's all about gone and you just have herbs left to throw away.

7. Now here is where you need the funnel. The funnel needs to be rather small if you want it to fit in small bottles like 1 or 2 ounces, but if you are strictly storing for your own personal use, you can just re-use the (washed) mason jar you had before.

8. Once this is all finished you just add your lids and your labels and your done.

So now you know how to make your own personal tincture. Save your recipe if it works, and be amazed at the outcome. You can create so many different ones and cure many things all herbal and naturally with no chemicals at all.