Re: tincturing Echinacea

Hi Willow,

Thanks for the reply. I picked up my Echinacia today. You're right 3 pounds is a lot. I also dropped by Horizon Herbs to get some Cactus Gradiflorus and met Richo Cech the writer of "Making Plant Medicine". I picked up the book and have found it to be very helpful. He gives more specific formulas for tincturing in the book which I am going to follow. He claims that you will get more consistent tinctures this way and he has specific ratio formulas for many of the popular herbs.

The root is pretty tough and I cut it up quite a bit before adding it to the blender with menstruum. One mistake I made was blending some of the Echinacia root before realizing that there was still some dirt hidden between some of the thick root sections. So I'm afraid I have a little soil in my tincture. Hopefully that's not a problem. Once I realized this I started cutting the roots more and soaking them in water to remove that last of the dirt before blending. Pacific Botanicals cleans them well but some of the dirt is still locked inside.

My three pounds ended up fitting in a 1 gallon jar using the method explained in the book. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

Regards, Marc Tweet