CJ,

You're NOT a "huge pain" at all!!!! You just want to 'get it right'...and asking questions is the way to learn how to do that! BRAVO!

Firstly, take a deep breath and relax, this really isn't "rocket science". It's about soaking some natural plants in alcohol (and/or vinegar in the case of Lobelia) and simply saturating the alcohol/vinegar with the healing goodies of the plant. If you leave the herb/alcohol-vinegar mixture in a jar for two weeks, and shake it everyday, you WILL have an effective tincture. It really is as easy as that...people have been doing it for centuries - and they didn't even have a book or instructions!

Yes, I know, the "cayenne method" can SEEM a bit confusing (because of the dried & fresh herb thing), but it's just a guideline to use for all tinctures. And if you don't have fresh lobelia (I know of no one that does), then we use the dried.

When making ANY tincture, here's the 'baseline':

Take an empty blender (or jar...more on that later) and fill it halfway with whatever herb you want to tincture (fresh or dried - it doesn't matter ***see notes below***). Start adding alcohol and turn it on - keep adding alcohol until you have the consistency of applesauce. Then empty it into a jar and let it 'settle' (there may be a bit of alcohol that floats to the top, or not, depending upon how dry the herb was and how much alcohol it continues to 'soak up'). After it's settled (a few minutes to an hour), add more alcohol and shake (then let it settle again) and keep adding alcohol until the jar appears to be 1/2 "herb applesauce" and half alcohol. Then keep it in a cool/dark place and shake it at least 2 times a day. After two weeks, you can 'harvest' and bottle the tincture. It really is as easy as that.

But many times I don't use a blender right off the bat. Many dried herbs (especially the roots) are VERY coarse and dry, and just throwing some alcohol in with them for a minute doesn't soften them enough to make them "applesauce blendable" (lol). So most times, I put the herbs in a jar and cover them with alcohol and let them soak for a few days BEFORE I do the 'applesauce thing'.

The only real 'learning curve' here is determining how much an herb will swell and how much alcohol it's going to 'suck up'. With the dried roots, many times they will swell to DOUBLE OR TRIPLE their original size!!! So until you know how much an herb is going to 'swell', never fill a jar more than 1/3 full with the herb, or you just might end up with SEVERAL jars instead of the one you'd planned on.

I did this the first time I ever made echinacea tincture. I had fresh echinacea purpurea root (which I'd chopped and blended with alcohol), and I put that in the bottom few inches of 3 one gallon jars (that was about 3-4" deep - my one gallon jars are 10" tall). I then added a few inches of DRIED echinacea angustifolia root (so the jars were a little over half full of herb). I wanted to make sure this was going to be a very strong/effective tincture, so I made sure the jars were more than half full with herb. And then I filled the jars to about 3/4 with alcohol. Thank HEAVEN I thought "hmmm, this may swell up a bit", so I just layed the lids on the jars without screwing them....left the jars on the kitchen table and went back to work in the computer room. About two hours later, I went into check and see what the tincture 'was doing'. OMG, the dried echinacea had soaked up ALL the alcohol and swelled up so much it had pushed off the lids of the jars and was spilling onto the table!!! LOL But I did have a lil' moment of panic when I realized the liquor stores were closed and I didn't have enough alcohol to "correctly" saturate the herbs (I was lucky to have extra empty jars). So I put all the echinacea in a big stainless pot and mixed it thoroughly...then I separated it equally into FIVE jars and put the lids on tightly. The next day I bought ANOTHER two gallons of 100 proof vodka, filled up all five jars...and it turned out to be the best echinacea tincture I've ever sampled or used.

(By the way, Lobelia herb/plant and pods don't swell very much at all...nor do most of the 'leaf herbs'...it's the roots & berries that swell the most).

Anyway, once you get the herbs completely saturated and softened with the alcohol, you can then put them into the blender and make the 'applesauce'...and then add alcohol accordingly. When it's all 'said and done', you want to look at your bottles and see that they're half 'herb applesauce' on the bottom of the jar and half 'alcohol' floating on the top.

Nothing is going to 'explode', nor is some 'herb god' going to hit you with a bolt of lightning if everything is not 'persnickety perfect'. All we're doing (really!) is just soaking a plant in some alcohol, until the alcohol becomes saturated with all the 'healing goodies' of the plant...and then pressing/straining off the resulting tincture.

One thing I can guarantee you, WHATEVER you make at home WILL be superior to virtually ANY tincture you can buy on the market. My tinctures are stronger than Schulzes by a LONG shot...and that's simply because I allow mine to sit for a MINIMUM of two weeks - but most of mine sit for months. I figured out 'early on' that it was silly to make a gallon of tincture and 'harvest' the full gallon after only two weeks. What I ended up with was 3/4 gallon of tincture (that was now separated from the herbs that could be making it stronger and more effective)...and there was NO WAY I was going to use (or sell) the full 3/4 gallon right away. So now, I 'harvest' (strain & press) only as much as I can use or sell in any one given moon cycle...and the rest stays in the jar getting stronger and more effective. No one (like Dr. Schulze or anyone else with a lot of overhead) can allow their tinctures to soak that long...but we can!!!

*** As far as 'fresh or dried'...generally speaking, fresh is better - but most of us rarely have access to fresh herbs. There are a few exceptions: for example, there's been some testing that shows that gingko tincture is more effective when made from dried leaves. I know from experience that the Heat Unit "level" of the same kind of peppers actually goes UP when the peppers are dried. (the difference between eating a fresh African Bird Pepper and a dried African Bird Pepper IS substantial - one dried is MUCH hotter than one fresh. And that's the same with Habaneros and any pepper I've ever tried). And there are some dried fruits that actually have more vitamins & minerals 'per fruit' than their fresh counterpart (this can researched in writing of Kervran in the book 'Biological Transmutations').

I would have though my first Habanero tincture (which was 95% fresh, raw, organic Habaneros), would have been MUCH hotter than anything on the market that was made with dried peppers and various blends of hot peppers. But it wasn't. HOWEVER, one thing to note? I had several different people who were regular users of various cayenne powders & tinctures 'test it' for me...and they all said the same thing - "this doesn't seem as 'hot' as other cayenne tinctures I've used, but it seems substantially more effective." So that is very interesting and worth considering (at least it is to me).

As far as jars, I use gallon jars (hard to find and very expensive to ship) or I use canning jars. Surprisingly, the canning jar companies do make a 1/2 gallon canning jar...and our local hardware orders them for us. And of course, you can always use quart-sized canning jars (or any glass jar with a tight lid...just don't use plastic or aluminum lids).

If you'd like to 'give some a try' before you make it, you can buy straight Lobelia tincture from Health Freedom Resources here:
http://www.healthfree.com/shop/index.php?action=search


OR, if you email me (and pay for postage) I can send you 1/2 ounce sample of mine. I do offer my tinctures to others, but I won't say anything more about that in a post because I don't want to break the Curezone rules/TOS.

If you have any other questions, just let me know. It may take me a day or two (or longer) to respond, but I'll do my best to get back with you.

Happy tincturing!

Unyquity