Making Elderberry Tincture | Learning is Half the Fun!

hey friends welcome back to the homestead it was short break before the rains come they're moving in this morning pretty quick should be like severe thunderstorms basically all day I wanted to get out real quick while I had a chance you can see this elderberry tree that we have is finally right ripe enough that they're they're nice and sweet we're missing a lot of berries because the birds have been getting at him which is another reason why I'm out here today and that I wanted to harvest what we have because last year when we visited our local farmers market here in town Rachel had bought actually two years ago she had bought a bottle of elderberry syrup from a lady and every time Rachel started feeling sick she would take a teaspoon of it in the morning maybe one at lunchtime maybe one in the evening and whatever the heck whatever it was that she had going on it would knock it right out of her next year we went back to buy some more because she was out and all the lady had was elderberry tincture that's since been consumed and it just gone now and we have some elderberries here on property so we thought it would be a fun little video to do with you guys to harvest some of these berries and show you how to make an elderberry tincture pretty darn easy we do have another tree back a little ways in our food forest area this is like the edge of our food forests at borders from like where our tree area section is where we're gonna be planning more food and our front front lawn area these are almost too ripe they're starting to fall off when I pick them [Music] if you don't have access to fresh elderberries you can use dried elderberries you can buy them online on Amazon you can get like bags of them dried you see most of the birds have gotten a lot of the berries but they're perfectly ripe now they're fall right off nice and sweet [Music] I've used some people that'll harvest then it'll be just mass of hanging with these giant berries these ones are pretty small a nice big one there some of the little berries are still green so that's okay we just won't harvest from that section [Music] so if you can't get enough and in one picking or one harvest like our other tree that's back a little farther it's really shaded so those ones aren't as ripe as these ones you can always just toss these in the freezer just like this until you get enough of them and once they're frozen the little berries will fall off a lot easier we're gonna go back and check the other tree just we'll see if some of them are ripe so well here's the results of our harvest I'm not sure what we're gonna end up with for a quantity when all of these are plucked off but I take what we get and move on a lot of the tree right behind me the second tree we checked those ones are gonna be ready for a couple more days and there's a lot more berries on there so we can always make another batch of this it's you know the most time-consuming part about the entire process is picking them off the stems it can be made easier like I mentioned before if you freeze them first if you freeze them it kind of breaks down the cell structure that holds them onto the stem and they'll break off a little easier [Applause] some people will also use a fork like a dinner fork that you would eat with and you kind of brush them like you would with a comb and that kind of plucks them off as well few little green ones in there I'm sure a couple ain't gonna hurt but I'll try to pick out the majority of them [Applause] it feels like the whole email elephant one bite at a time one little tiny berry at a time if you're thinking about making yourself some elderberry tincture and you've heard what I've had to say about it and what what Rachel the benefits that rachel has seen from it don't take that just as the gospel and that's the law and this this is what this stuff does do your own research that's half of the fun and learning these old skills is - who came up with this why does it work what are the benefits what are the hazards are the things I need to worry about spend some time research it on your own and then make your own decision and on how you're gonna make it and how much you're gonna consume what type of dosages you're gonna use I'm not a doctor I'm not a scientist I'm just a homesteader guy that other tree that we have we have another tree way way in the back of our property on our fence row those ones are are right out in the open their raid out in the Sun and the birds consume them before they even turn purple once they're green and they become little berries the birds just come and strip them well that's what we ended up with not a very significant amount do you put them in a flat pan like this as you harvest them if you shake em back and forth all the lightest materials like the stems little pieces of leaves stuff like that will rise up to the top and you can identify it easier and get it out even a couple of spider webs in there all hurt anything I'm gonna take these in the house and toss them into a colander and rinse them off really good under some water and then we'll finish this up the winds are picking up I think the storm is moving in we get this assembled and then you begin the process of waiting so tinctures in general are made two different ways one by using alcohol you want at least 40 percent alcohol and whatever solution you use most people use vodka some brandy some bourbon so you want at least 40 percent 50 percent is a little better we have 40 percent alcohol today which is a V proof that's what we're gonna use you need some type of a container to store it in preferably glass with the lid preferably not a metal lid we're gonna use a plastic lid today and what you do is and I encourage you to do some research on your own on this is by soaking your material in the vodka it extracts a lot of the beneficial properties of that fruit into the vodka you let it sit for six to eight weeks some people let it sit even for six months you strain it off in that juice that you're left behind with is your tincture so we're going to hopefully I don't spill all these this was a lot of work I can't imagine harvesting enough elderberries to make wine elderberry wine which is supposed to be very very good but that would take a lot of the elderberries one thing that I'm gonna do is as I pour them into the jar I'm gonna smash them using our our pickle oh yeah that's nice and purple our pickled pepper pickle pecker oh that's some nice juice once I get them all in there would be hard to smash the entire thing so as I put some in I'll smash them as I go some people said use uh we'll use a potato masher [Music] some people even put them in a blender [Music] we do have another tincture that we that we've we've started about a month ago using at our cab and we get these plants that grow there that are called Indian Indian pipes or our ghost flowers it's got a number of different names for it and we get a lot of them growing at our cabin so we harvested a small amount the last time we were up there and we have some sitting in our cupboard right now a few more a few more weeks or maybe a month from now it should be ready to try if that one if that one does so I've done a lot of a lot of reading on that one in particular if that one does what everybody says it's supposed to do we're gonna be doing another video on that one at some point but again I encourage strongly encourage you guys to do your own research on this stuff learn about it that's half the fun is learning the old ways the people used to do things and why they would do it and what do you need to worry about what is there to not worry about what are the real benefits there's so much medicine out there in nature Wow but if nobody ever learns about it no one's ever gonna do it again it's all smashed up ready to go but as simple as it gets if some forty proof or forty percent alcohol vodka it's been in the freezer it's why the bottle looks kind of weird we'll fill this up till we get about one inch a headspace at the top Oh put our lid on shake it up and what you're gonna want to do now is put this in a cupboard probably in your kitchen somewhere dark and leave it sit leave it sit for six weeks eight weeks 10 weeks 12 weeks do your own research I'm not gonna tell you exactly how to do it you think it's ready or cold and flu season is here and I really need it take this out of your cupboard strain it through a coffee filter so that you end up with just the liquid and that's gonna be what you consume [Music] I have never seen a bee or a Hornet er I don't know what that thing is okay he's gone that thing was like this long and it was the brightest yellow that was not a yellow jacket I don't know what that thing was he was almost as big around as my finger this long bright yellow in some kind of a bow of a hornet of some sort Wow where was I so stream this off most people will store it in like a little brown bottle and keep it in your fridge when Rachel would use it she would take a little eyedropper and put like five five drops under her tongue some people say use a tea spoon once in the morning once in the afternoon and once at night before you go to bed every time you get in whatever cabinet is that we have this stored in just give it a little shake stick it back in the cabinet so once again I encourage you to go out and learn something about tinctures do some reading there's all kinds of beneficial things that can be taken from nature infused into a tincture using alcohol or vegetable glycerin some people don't want the alcohol aspect of it you can use vegetable glycerin I've never done it don't know if there's benefits of one over the other we will keep you posted on the progress of this once it's done and you strain this off so that you end up with just pure tincture and you store it in your refrigerator it can last one to two years so if you're one of those people that don't get sick very often this could last you quite a while there's always thanks for joining guys thank you for your support see you on the next one [Music]

Channel: That 1870's Homestead

Views: 36,720

Keywords: michigan, homestead, organic, elderberry syrup, elderberry tincture, elderberry (organism classification), cyanide poisoning, elderberry wine, harvesting elderberries, elderberry tree identification, how to make elderberry syrup, herbal medicine, foraging wild edibles, harvesting medicinal plants, natural, remedy, flu, cold, sick, health, cure, influenza, nutrition, healthy, berry, wellness, tincture, how to, Tincture (Drug Dosage Form), NATURAL REMEDIES, elderberry benefits

Id: rSE672mSgiA

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 19 2019