Home tincturing can be fun, simple and cost effective. We will use ginkgo as an example as ginko trees are easy to find and identify in Vancouver. In this blog article you will learn about the preparation of medicinal herbs, quality issues in herbal medicine, and how to tincture ginkgo biloba leaves for home use.
Medicinal Herb Preparation
Herbal medicine making is something that I have been doing in my dispensary for over 25 years now.
All the liquid herbs that I make are small batch tinctured from organic or wildcrafted herbs.
Why do medicinal herbs need to be prepared?
Plants have hard parts, like roots, rhizome, bark and leaves, and plants have soft parts like flowers. Our digestive system can’t manage these parts very well and so all medicinal plants must go through some form of pre-extraction preparation before we ingest them. Humans don’t have a strong enough digestive system to get the benefit of the active ingredients otherwise.
Medical herbalism prepares active plant constituents in a variety of ways:
Teas
Teas are a herbal infusion prepared with hot water and left to sit until the active herbal ingredient is absorbed into the water. This is how to prepare soft parts of plants such as the flowers or soft leaves.
Tinctures
Preparing a medicinal plant in a liquid form is called tincturing. Tincturing is one of the most simple and effective ways of extracting the active ingredients from plants and used for the harder bits: root, rhizome, leaf and bark of plants.
Some active medicinal ingredients of plants are more absorbable in water, and some are only absorbable in alcohol. The percentage of alcohol which is used to prepare a particular herb is determined by what the active ingredients are. Some plants will require a higher alcohol content than others. When tincturing, one of the things you’re going to need to know about the plant you want to tincture is the alcohol percentage needed.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Medicinal Teas
Some TCM formulae are dispensed in granule form, which is easily spooned out and made into a tea/drink by adding hot water. These formulae are pre-prepared by first converting the plant material into a tincture, and then taking this tincture form of the plant and spraying it onto a drying sheet. The resultant dried material becomes granules, which are packaged up and which then can be reconstituted by adding hot water.
Capsules and Tablets
Some products are capsules containing ‘dried herb’. I would advise being careful about buying dried herb encapsulations. As I am sharing with you here, all plants need to be prepared before taking them. If you are purchasing a dried encapsulated herbal product, check for disclosure whether the product has been prepared or not, or how it has been prepared. If it has not been properly prepared, it is unlikely you will be getting benefit from it.
Quality Control in Herbal Medicine
As a consumer, you’ll want to be aware that there can be serious quality issues in the herbal medicine industry with substitution, dilution, quality of product and addition of fillers.
If you are going to be purchasing herbal products in Canada, purchase a quality product, hopefully one where the company knows how to work with herbs in a quality way. Do your homework, find out the background about the company and their manufacturing standards.
Mediherb is an Australian company and the gold standard for herbal medicine making. It’s the only herbal company I carry and trust in the clinic. Quality control is a large topic and I’m not going to go into it in this blog post. You can find information for Mediherb here https://mediherb.com.au/
Mediherb tablets are pre-prepared herbs which have then been dried and shaped into a tablet with minimal filler. You will also notice the pleasant addition that these tablets are coated so they go down almost unnoticed. I like this very much about their products. So if your purchase is a tablet which is not Mediherb, do your homework and check the background manufacturing process of the company.
Step by Step: How to Home Tincture Ginko leaves
Botanical Name: Ginkgo biloba
Part used: the leaf
Percentage alcohol: 25%
The ginkgo tree is an ancient tree extending back to the middle Jurassic period, approximately 170 million years ago. The ginkgo tree has survived several extinctions. You will notice the distinct leaf shape is unusual being fan shaped with veins that radiate out.
Actions: antioxidant, neuroprotective, cognition enhancing, and helps with microcirculation, which means the very small capillaries in the hands, feet, brain (so used for memory and cognition).
Uses: Raynaud's syndrome, increasing peripheral circulation, macular degeneration, increasing retinal blood flow, alzheimers, and vascular dementia.
Please note that Dr. Doan accepts no liability whatsoever for any decisions that I may make for my health based on reading this blog article. The information in this blog is meant to educate only and does not constitute medical or naturopathic advice and makes no claim or promise that any product or service that may cure any condition or ailment. Always consult your doctor or naturopathic physician when it comes to your personal health, or before you start any treatment.
Step 1: Collection
It’s important to have a way to accurately identify what a true ginkgo leaf looks like. I have an app on my phone now, called ‘seek’. It helps me with plant identification and I have a reliable botany resource book. When you have found your ginko tree, choose healthy green leaves, and collect away from industrial centers or highways. Try to collect the fallen leaves; leaves have important functions in the life of a tree.
Step 2: Preparation
Now that you have collected your ginkgo leaves, you are going to need to prepare them. Wash them in clean water, and chop into smaller pieces, roughly ½ inch.
Find yourself a large glass container with a secure lid. When I first started tincturing, I would go into a sandwich place like Subway, and ask them for their huge used glass containers.
You are going to need to purchase some kind of vodka product. Most vodka is around 45%.
Step 3: Take a Breath: here comes the math
If you have purchased a 45% alcohol product, you can dilute your vodka roughly in half with purified water, to get to your (roughly) 25%.
For our purposes here, we will tinctures a 1:5. This means that there is one part of herb material to 5 parts of your alcohol/water mixture.
In the clinic, I tincture one pound of herb at a time, and I make 1:5 tinctures. You don’t have to have one pound of herb, you can take the calculations below, and adjust to the amount of herb you have collected.If you have collected ½ pound of leaves, then adjust the numbers below as needed.
One pound is equivalent to 454g. When we make a 1:5, the total of alcohol/water mixture is 454 times 5 = 2270 mls of your 25% alcohol
Therefore you will need 2270ml of 25% alcohol to make 1 lb of ginko leaves.
Divide this appropriately depending on the amount/weight of your harvest.
Step 4: Create your tincture
Once you’ve done the math to determine how much liquid you need for the weight of herb, place your chopped herb and your 25% alcohol/water mixture in the glass jar, and put the lid on. Shake it up to make sure it’s all blended together.
You are going to leave this mixture to percolate for about 2 or 3 weeks.
Gently shake your mixture daily, for about 1 minute to make sure all is blended in the jar.
Step 5: Decant your tincture
Decanting is where you separate the herbal solid part from the now liquid herb.
Do this after your 2 or 3 week period.
Use a strainer to strain off the liquid, place the liquid tincture in another glass container.
The solid left over herbal material can now be composted.
Step 6: Congratulations
Give yourself a pat on the back….you have made a tincture!
It looks and smells rich and delicious. Your tincture can be stored outside of the fridge as it is an alcohol blend.
Please make sure that you store this tincture safely away from children and keep in a cool, dry place.
Please note that Dr. Doan accepts no liability whatsoever for any decisions that I may make for my health based on reading this blog article. The information in this blog is meant to educate only and does not constitute medical or naturopathic advice and makes no claim or promise that any product or service that may cure any condition or ailment. Always consult your doctor or naturopathic physician when it comes to your personal health, or before you start any treatment.