Making Herbal Teas, Tinctures, and Salves with Bevin Cohen

hi friends my name is bevin cohen i'm the owner of smallhouse farm in michigan and author of the books saving our seeds the practice in philosophy and the artisan herbalist coming soon from new society publishers today we're going to talk about making herbal teas tinctures and salves at home we'll talk about the equipment that you're going to need and the basic procedures to craft all of these herbal wellness products in the comfort of your own home so first we're going to start with herbal tea now let's get started with a water infusion the most popular form of a water infusion i suppose is the herbal tea so let's go ahead and brew ourselves some tea right now now first thing we'll need is some herbs so i got a nice herbal blend right here but when you're just getting started practicing herbalism and learning how to make these types of things i always recommend starting with a single herb starting with one single herb is going to give you the opportunity to to really learn about that herb the flavor profile the aromas the effect that the herb may have when you use it so get yourself a notebook get yourself an herb and sit down and really take take the time to experience this herb and everything that it has to offer now i got herbal blend that we're going to use here that we've created so let's go ahead and brew that up for an herbal tea what we have to do first is select what we're going to use to brew there's a wide variety of choices here we've got some stainless steel tea balls we've got these types of baskets that will nestle on the top of your teacup we can use reusable tea bags whatever it may be whatever you have accessible to you these are really nice because we can use them over and over again so i'm gonna choose our little ball now for one single cup of tea we're gonna want oh about a half to a full tablespoon of herb and then our favorite tea cup and some hot water now with the water infusion what's happening here is the hot water is the menstruum that we're using to extract the chemical components from the plant material to create our infusion now with a cup of tea that we're going to use as a beverage uh we're just going to let it steep for about three to five minutes or so and you'll notice that it's ready because you'll you'll be able to get the aroma and the flavor from them from the herbs in your beverage if you're looking for a stronger more medicinal brew you can actually take your herbs and put them in the refrigerator for 12 to 24 hours to really give that water time to extract as much as of the water-soluble chemicals from that plant material as possible this is a technique that's going to work well with flowers leaves many of the aerial portions of our plants but if we're dealing with something that's um twigs bark thickly coated seeds these more dense parts of the plant we're actually going to want to use a process known as decoction and all this simply means is taking the plant material and boiling it in water i'll break down those cell walls and release the chemical constituents that we're trying to extract from this plant material so that's a water infusion now we don't always have to use it as a tea either water infusion can be handy as a topical wash or can be used in making a compress and a compress is simply taking a herbal infusion um and then a bandage or a rag or something like that soaking it with the tea and then using that topically on the skin there's a number of applications for a compress but we may get into that in a little bit but that is the basics of a water extraction herbal infusion simple stuff and now i've got some delicious tea to enjoy for the rest of the video the second thing that we're going to talk about is what's known as a tincture now a texture is similar to a water infusion except instead of using hot water as our menstruum as our extraction material we're going to use alcohol and while some chemical constituents in our plant are water soluble almost every chemical component in a plant is alcohol soluble so a tincture is a very potent herbal extract so let's walk through how simple it is to make one now the first thing that we're going to need to make our tincture is a container to do our extracting in this case i'm going to use this mason jar but you can use whatever you have available at home you can reuse a jar from your kitchen whatever it may be the second thing that we're going to need of course is our herb in this case we're going to use this nice dried nettle leaf that we harvested earlier in the year um i prefer to use dried herbs when i make my tinctures but if only fresh is what you have available you're going to want to let it sit around for a few days to kind of wilt a little bit let some of that moisture out of the plant before you get to work with it so then simply what we're going to do here is take our herbs pack them into the jar now there's a couple of ways that we can go about measuring our herb to alcohol ratio many times you'll find what's called the folk technique is just simply fill in the jar up with the plant material that you have and then adding your alcohol until it is you know about a finger or two's depth past the plant material just ensuring that your plant material is fully submerged i always recommend keeping notes in your herbal notebook on the the techniques that you're using the recipes that you may be making this way you can refer back to that later to reproduce these recipes that were successful so if we're going to do something like this i think it's important that we measure the herbs and alcohol that we use in our tinctures that way we can perfectly reproduce it every time that we make it and as we become more experienced as herbalists and we start to use herbs that are potentially toxic in larger doses um it's very important that we keep accurate records and measurements of the medicine that we're making so if we're going to do that we're going to want to measure the weight of the herb in a ratio to the volume of the liquid weight to volume we use the folk method for this demonstration though and so we're going to add our menstruum or alcohol that we're going to use to extract just to fully submerge that plant material now in this situation i'm using vodka right and you can use any kind of alcohol extract that's going to work best for you you'll find in a lot of old recipes they mention brandy as the alcohol of choice the reason that i like to use vodka though is because it has very little scent and very little flavor and that allows the herb itself to really stand up in the recipe really showcase itself we're going to use this uh chopstick here and we're going to poke our plant material down we're essentially just kind of moving around helping release the air getting the air bubbles out of there that we can as far as potency goes you're going to want to use a 40 to 50 percent alcohol which would be 80 to 100 proof it's important that we use a strong enough alcohol so we get a good extraction and that's also going to ensure shelf stability in our final product so now at this point we're going to want to cap our tincture off and put it away in a cool dark place the proper extraction time here is going to be anywhere from four to six weeks now you can let it go a little bit longer than that it's obviously shelf stable so more than six weeks is going to be fine but it's not going to get any more potent at that point so four to six weeks is going to give us a nice potent extraction now we're going to want to label our tincture when we put it into storage so we're going to want to put on it obviously the name of the herb the alcohol that we use for the menstruum the potency the proof of the alcohol that we used as well as the date you can use today's date if you like or the date when the tincture is going to be ready either way that you choose is fine but you want to make sure that you're consistent with that labeling just to avoid any confusion in the future also put the same information in your notebook that way you've got it to refer to you back to you on another date i'm going to put this away like i said in a cool dark place for about four to six weeks and let it extract once it's ready we can take it out we can filter and bottle it let's go ahead and do that i've got right here let's do this one this is a beautiful lavender flower extraction that we've been working on and where do you see this all right now we're going to get a jar so we can filter this out and we're going to need a um screen to filter in this case i'm going to use this funnel that i've got you can get one of these at a brew supply place these are super handy it's a big old funnel and it's got a removable screen for filtering right there and it's easy to wash since that screen comes right out oh my gosh look at that coloration right there absolutely beautiful now you can tell i didn't empty the entire jar and you would want to do that uh if you were doing this at home and you'd want to make sure you press that plant material to squeeze any little bit of tincture out of there that you can you don't want to waste any of it you can use any sort of a process you want you can use something like a potato masher everybody's got one of those at home or you can even get your hands on a tincture press piece of equipment specifically for this but you can actually use something like a french press like you'd use for making coffee very very similar and significantly less expensive just to squeeze this plant material out of there to make sure you get every last drop of this potent medicinal once you have your container like this you're probably going to want to package into something a little smaller a little easier to use sorry to recommend these bottles the small house we use these two ounce guys uh this just seems to be the right size for a good amount of medicine and it comes with this dropper top now the dropper top's important remember how i mentioned how most every chemical constituent in the plant is alcohol soluble and this is a very potent medicinal extract whereas with our tea we'll drink it by the cup with our tincture the dose is actually measured by the drop anywhere from two drops to a teaspoon very small doses right so this type of package is perfect for that sort of thing and again you're going to want to label this label this label your jars proper labeling is key to successful herbalism even if it's just simply herbalism at home now let's move on to our third herbal extraction in this situation what we're actually going to use is fat we're going to extract the fat soluble chemicals from our plant material and what we're going to use actually is oil so the process is similar to how we make our alcohol extraction tincture and water infusion teas right so we're going to start with our plant material i think today we're going to make some calendula oil look at this beautiful stuff huh beautiful golden color so same technique now load our jar up with herbs and then add our oil now just as we did with our tincture we're going to fill our jar up to a certain level depending on how much herb we have available to us and then we're going to top it off with our oil again about a finger or two just past the top of the plant material again ensuring that we have that plant material completely submerged under the oil we're going to use the folk technique once again but if you wanted to take accurate measurements again it would be volume of oil and a ratio to the weight of the herb and that way we can reproduce the same oil time and time again exactly the same way in this case we used an olive oil it's readily accessible to most folks you can get it at the grocery store but most any kind of plant oil is going to work there's a few options and i'll give you a little bit of guidance based on my experience since we're making products that are going to go on to our skin and this is going to go on the skin of myself my family my friends it's important to me to use quality ingredients all the way through at small house all of the herbs that we use are wildcrafted from our area are grown right in our garden so we've already developed that relationship but the oil that we choose to use is just as important if you're purchasing oil at the grocery store you want to ensure that you use an expeller pressed oil it'll say expeller press specifically on the label and what this means is that the oil is being extracted through the use of pressure essentially squeezing the seeds or nuts and pulling the oil out of them now this is opposed to chemically extracted oils which a number of are more refined less expensive oils at the grocery grocery store may be and these these actually are extracted with a chemical called hexane which is you know just a couple molecules away from being gasoline and not necessarily something i would want to put on my body or the body of those that i love it's also important to note that the oils that we use are derived from plants and just as we choose the herbs that we use based on their particular properties the plants that these oils come from also have properties that they can offer to our medicinal products as well so choosing wisely what oils we use will enhance the quality of our products and ensure greatest satisfaction for us and everyone that we share them with we'll put the cap on this jar and we're going to label it again we're going to want to put the herb that's in here the menstruum that you're using the type of oil and the date now again we can either use today's date or the date four to six weeks from now our oils are going to want to extract for four to six weeks very similar to our tinctures and again whatever style of labeling that you use whether it's today's date or the finished date be consistent with your labeling now we're going to pack this guy away on the shelf let it sit to extract let's fast forward four to six weeks and our oil is ready to go so we'll go ahead and pull it off the shelf and in this case now we're using a nice jewel weed oil this is from jewel weed that we harvested uh and put into the oil to extract on 8 13 2019 so this stuff is more than ready to go just like our tincture after six weeks we can leave it in the jar if need be as long as the plant material is properly submerged so it's away from the air it'll sit just fine like this but it's not going to get any more potent than it would at six weeks so we'll get our jar out we'll open it up now we've got to strain it off so for that we're going to need a jar and our strainer again we're going to use this handy guy right here with the removable screen go ahead and pour our oil through the screen just want to make sure that we remove any of the plant material all right we'll call that good now if we're going to go all the way again just like our tincture we would want to use something to squeeze this plant material to get all of that oil out of there any bit of oil that we could drip dry we're just going to let this guy sit over here all right now here is our nicely extracted jewel weed oil now we could use it topically just like this but sometimes that can get a little bit messy and what if i needed to take it on the road what if i was going camping or something i'd like to make this a little bit more portable so at this point we could take our infused oil and make a number of products with it with the incorporation of beeswax we could turn the soil into a solidified product like a salve a lotion or a bulb to do that we would need of course the beeswax our oil a double boiler of some sort and we'll talk about some of the options here in a second and then a final container for our sav lotion or ball now any kind of container is going to work whatever you have available at home but i always recommend using glass now really you just want to avoid soft plastics the liquid that we're going to pour into here this melted beeswax and oil is going to be quite warm and you do not want to pour that into a soft plastic it's going to be quite dangerous all right so from this point on everything that we're going to do is going to be pretty warm so you want to be cautious at home to avoid any kind of injuries now to make our product again it comes down to a ratio of wax to oil right now it's going to be the wax by weight to the oil by volume and based on the amount of beeswax that we use it's going to be the final solidity of our product the more wax we use of course the stiffer the products going to be less wax obviously a little bit softer so it's a matter of preference but what we're going to start as a beginning ratio to get you going is 1.25 ounces of beeswax by weight to every 16 ounces of oil by volume you can move that ratio in any direction you need depending on the size of the product the amount of oil that you're working with so we're going to want to weigh our beeswax and measure our oil until we have the ratio is going to work for what we need then we're going to want to use our double boiler now if you have a double boiler at home that's perfect but we can fabricate something with what we have available to us uh here we're using a pot of water on a hot plate and that's gonna work just fine into that we're gonna use this container right here this is where we're gonna melt our beeswax and then blend it with our oil right now if you don't have something like this that's fine you can use a metal bowl over top of this boiling water so it's important to remember though that this bowl is going to get hot right so you're going to want to use the oven mitt or some hot pads or something when you pick it up just to make sure we can avoid any injury we're going to go ahead and turn this guy up nice and warm get it going we're gonna put our oil into our container add our beeswax that we've weighed out set it into the water all right so after a few minutes we'll see that our beeswax has begun to melt and is blending right into our oil so we just kind of want to stir it up every once in a while keep it moving kind of speeds the process up and once our beeswax is fully immersed in the oil completely melted we'll turn it off the heat remove our container remember again if you're just using a metal bowl or something make sure uh you're protecting your hands from the heat and we're going to pour our oil into a right container all right and as this cools the beeswax will harden back up and it'll solidify our product remember the ratio of wax to oil determines how stiff the final product is going to be so something like a sav or a lip balm or a lotion is going to require slightly different ratios of oil to wax but start with the ratio that i gave you see how that works for you and you can adjust it to your preferences from there and it's just that easy to make teas tinctures and salves at home now that we've covered the basics on how to craft their products we've got a little bit of time left let's talk about some of my favorite plants to work with well these herbs that we're talking about here are what i like to refer to as local allies allies is in we have a synergistic relationship we work together as a team these herbs aren't just commodities to be bought and sold no they're friends and we work together to create powerful medicine for ourselves for families and for our communities herbs like dandelion you know from the french dente de leon as in the tooth of the lion now the entire dandelion plant is useful to us the ariel portions the leaves stems and flowers as well as the roots can make potent medicine stinging nettles urtica dioeca now you'll see stinging nettles if you can look at it up close the hairs on the plant on the end of each hair is a trichome which is formic acid and other histamines chemicals in it that uh that's where you get your stinging effect from but nettles are a potent herbal medicine great for arthritis inflammation and the stock itself can actually be made into cordage to make ropes blackberry now the entire genus rubus is full of medicinal benefits not only is is the fruit high in antisyathen and other antioxidants but the leaves themselves can be made into a number of healing teas jewel weed oh my gosh look at this i love jewelry so impatient uh touch me not from the dispersal mechanism of the seed right now the the juice the sap inside of the stems of jewel weed is a great remedy for poison ivy apple apple a day keeps the doctor away right our food is medicine as well red clover i love red clover and salads it's got a nice sweet flavor to it i also love to use it in tea there's a lot of studies right now for a compound that they found in red clover that they actually believe um helps fight cancer so that's an interesting development they're watching close right now the red clover is just a delicious addition to a number of herbal remedies plantain i could talk all day about plantain now this is the broadleaf plantain plant to go major there's also the venero leaf lanceolata and they can be used interchangeably wonderfully beneficial now this herb is probably most well known you could take a leaf of the plantain and chew it up apply it right onto a bug bite and it'll stop with the itching and the swelling and the pain wonderful wonderful herb witch hazel oh my gosh hammeh male is virginiana we actually use uh which has quite a bit of small house we create a topical astringent from the bark and the leaves of the plant i love witch hazel too because it flowers in the fall the species that grows here where i'm at in michigan flowers in the fall and these beautiful beautiful flowers goldenrod love it now most people want to say the goldenrod is part of their seasonal allergies that they have in the fall but that's not even close to true the pollen from goldenrod is far too heavy to be spread and it's actually the ragweed that flowers and sheds pollen around the same time that causes our allergies and a tea from goldenrod can actually help relieve these allergy symptoms autumn olive now certainly an invasive plant and we don't have time to get into that debate right now but it is important to note that the berries of autumn olive are edible as are the leaves they can be used to make a delicious tea queen ants lace wild carrot all carrots that we've come to know and love today have all been derived from this wild plant you can tell the roots actually still smell like carrots and can be used just like a carrot and the flowers can be made into a delicious jelly elderberry very very popular herb uh elderberry syrup elderberry wine i actually use the flowers from our old berries we make a tincture from it um which is wonderful for boosting the immune system it's antiviral wonderful for cold and flu season chicory which is all over the roadsides in the late summer right now you can actually use the roots of chicory roast them and use it as a coffee substitute white pine that's the state tree of here in michigan it's got five needles that come together in a cluster that's how you identify the white pine it's the only pinus where the the cluster of needles comes in a set of five like that very high in vitamin c and the leaves uh can actually be used the needles as a tea we can brew a tea from them in the winter time exactly what we need when we're battling cold and flu season especially if we haven't prepared in advance and we don't have some herbs on stock we can still get to the white pine regardless of how deep the snow may be mullen or as uh my son calls it the toilet paper plant but i'm not allowed to tell that story anymore uh mullen is a wonderful herb great for respiratory issues it's a biennial so the first year you'll see this rosette the second year it'll put up its flower stalk with those beautiful yellow flowers you see on roadsides yarrow achilliamilifolium it's a styptic herb which means it helps stop bleeding so you can take the leaves of yarrow and you can chew them up right on the spot and apply them to a cut and they will stop bleeding almost on contact it's antiseptic too so it's wonderful on cups and abrasions like that the wintergreen i could go all day talking about wintergreen one of my favorite herbs to work with wintergreen has a compound on the leaves known as methyl salicylate which is similar to what they used to make aspirin so we can use wintergreen uh well we can ingest it as a tea or even use it topically for pain relief sorrel oxalis nice sour treat that you can find when you're weeding your gardens delicious addition to salads strawberries the leaves of strawberries can be used in a nice tea to help with menstruation issues discomfort and cramping chickweed stellaria media there's a beautiful early spring herb that we'll find growing in our yards which makes a wonderful topical treatment for itches and rash and other skin conditions horsetail which is high in silica so we can use this to make medicine for our nails and as well as for our hair a nice wash for our hair to help brittle hair and baldness yellow doc now you'll find yellow duck growing quite often in the same places that you find stinging nettles which is wonderful because yellow dock leaf actually helps with the burn from stinging nettles it's almost like mother nature has a plan the whole time violets i love violets in the spring i love to use them as tea the flowers add a nice beautiful color to the brew sumac staghorn sumac here um the berries at the top can be used to make a delicious lemonade like beverage lamb's quarters kinopodium alba absolutely delicious incredibly high in vitamins and minerals um similar to a wild spinach that's how you could consider this one and quite prolific and quite common everywhere that we go the wild rose how about saint john's wort now saint john's wort has a long list of uses that we don't have time to get into right in this moment but look at this beautiful beautiful plant service berry amalanche here now we should be using service berry simply as a landscaping shrub it's just beautiful it's native it flowers early early in the spring and then later in the year around june um it'll produce these delicious berries mustard now all of the brassicas that we know have all derived from a wild mustard um and the mustards that grow wild in our fields and along our roadsides is edible as well cell feel brunella vanilla vulgaris it's a wonderful herb as you can tell by its name even since antiquity has been prescribed to heal a number of ailments uh helal if you will burdock this is like mother nature's original version of velcro right blueberries bone set now bones that's fun although the name would imply that it's used for healing bones broken bones it's actually best used as a cough suppressive medicine it's a wonderful you can make a syrup from it to help ease a heavy cough now what's interesting about these herbs however many herbs that we just spoke of and the multitude of benefits available to us when we get to know these plants all those plants are within a simple bike ride from my house within a mile of where i live it's important as herbalists that we think local buy local and we be local one of the most important things that we can do to make our little corner of the world a better place is to focus on being as local as we possibly can thank you so much to the seed savers exchange for allowing me this opportunity to share my herbal passions with you today i really enjoyed this time that we got to spend together if you like this presentation if you're interested in learning more about herbs pre-order my new book the artisan herbalist available now at theartisanherbalist.com thank you so much you

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Length: 30min 0sec (1800 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 11 2020