Cryptolepis & Sida Acuta Powders Sources

Dear Garzie,

have you really taken all of these tinctures 4 times per day? And have you been preparing tinctures by yourself?
And did you take them with food, together with Abx?

I m taking tinctures only Cryptolepis, Teasel, Black Walnut and Ch.Skullcup, while powders/dried herbs eating directly Houtuinnya, Sida Acuta and especially I d like to ask about Jap.Knotweed, that is growing here around a lot and I m consuming fresh leaves directly - even some some one needs to cook them for few minutes. But I guess Powder sold by Lyme herbs is just dried and powdered plant, which is then consmued directly isnt it?

I will try to go with try and error approach as you have recommended in the other tread. I guess it will become clear what appears to be most beneficial way.

Bye, best wishes
B

Does this tincture recipe chart look correct?

Plant:Menstruum

1:5… 100g plant powder + 500g total menstruum using 95% everclear
alcohol+H20
40% 211g+289g
45% 237g+263g
50% 264g+236g
55% 290g+210g
60% 316g+184g
65% 343g+157g
70% 369g+131g
75% 395g+105g

1:4… 100g plant powder + 400g total menstruum using 95% everclear
alcohol+H20
40% 169g+231g
45% 190g+210g
50% 211g+189g
55% 232g+168g
60% 250g+150g
65% 274g+126g
70% 295g+105g
75% 316g+84g

So for example to get Sida Acuta 1:5, 60% I would use
100g s.a. leaf + 316g 95% alcohol +184g H20 + 15g ACV

Oh, right! I fixed the recipe chart to dilute alcohol by volume, instead. Then I converted the volume to grams after weighing my 95% abv everclear to find it's 0.8 g/mL. The intent is to put all these mixtures into 32 oz mason jars.

Plant:Menstruum

1:5… 100g plant powder + 500g total menstruum
(95% alcohol + H20)
40% 238g+262g
45% 265g+235g
50% 291g+209g
55% 316g+184g
60% 341g+159g
65% 365g+135g
70% 389g+111g
75% 412g+88g
80% 435g+65g

1:4… 100g plant powder + 400g total menstruum
(95% alcohol + H20)
40% 190g+210g
45% 212g+188g
50% 233g+167g
55% 253g+147g
60% 273g+127g
65% 292g+108g
70% 311g+89g
75% 330g+70g
80% 348g+52g

i get slightly different numbers

the way i calculated it was to first determine the density of the target water / alc mix i am aiming for
50% v/v = 0.931 g/ml
60% v/v = 0.909 g/ml

then work back from that to determine the volume of 500g of that mixture
which for 500g of 60% v/v alcohol mix is 500/0.909 = 550ml

then i can work out how much of that volume should be 96% alcohol - in a v/v mix
=60%*(100/96)*550
=344ml

then you can work out what weight 344ml of 96% alcohol will make 344ml
( because density of 96% alcohol is known to be 0.789g/ml)
so weight of 95% alcohol to make 344ml = 344*0.789
= 271g

the rest of the 500g is water by default - ie 229g

it seems convoluted but this is the best way i came up with -
i don't calculate it manually every time - i made a spreadsheet to keep the recopies in

ref your other questions

yes you can make them all with 1:5 - the total extraction will be the same or better (vs 1:4) - but the dose may need to be fractionally higher than whatever text you are following - if that was at 1:4 - due to the dilution - but these are small effects - buhner recommended 1:5 for almost all herbs
the main advantage of 1:4 is that it uses slightly less alcohol - which can be a factor is you are making a lot of tinctures and as long as you have a good press to extract the liquid - otherwise a greater proportion will be left in the wet herb after pressing - but its swings and roundabouts - either will work
you can fine tune along the way

i would use 15ml of apple cider vinegar in all of them

OK hope its of some help

well done!

looks good to me

all the best

bye the way - i tend to just up the herb weight and use 125g for the 1:4 batches - so that i get roughly the same volume of final tincture in each batch - so that may be an option for you
125g is about the max that works with my tincture press

typically up to a third of the liquid is left in the herb after squeezing as hard as you can by hand -

anything that can squeeze more than by hand will recover some more tincture and leave less waste - but i suspect the lemon squeezer will be rather laborious and not very effective

think in terms of something with a piston and cylinder - or with large heavy duty flat plates that can produce several hundred pounds of force to several tons of force

its all relative - you can just squeeze by hand and discard what you cannot recover that way - but after all the effort and expense - i wanted to recover as much as i reasonably can
so i use a cylinder and piston and a hydraulic car jack type of setup - as i wasn't able to find anything off the shelf that was up to the job

the press is arranged horizontally with a bowl underneath to catch the tincture as it drips from each end of the cylinder

something like that could work

i bought a 5 ton hydraulic garage press from ebay for less than the cost of the parts if i had made my own

they come up on offer quite often - i think i paid £50

something like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133684225318?_ul=GB

before that i used a stainless tube and some wooden disks to make a piston - and some all-thread to make a threaded type press.
i used a wrench to drive the central thread to compress the herb -
it cost under £20 in parts - and it worked ok - but was more work and the central thread would wear out every couple of months.
VIEW IMAGE

i use a 75mm diameter 316 grade stainless steel tube around 125mm long

herbs can compress from filling the tube after being squeezed by hand ( including hardwood pucks each end around 20mm thick) to as little as 20mm when fully pressed

this works well for batches of herb up to 125g at a time

typical yield is around 100ml of more of additional tincture recovered per batch

i should write a book !

i use fine cotton cloth - ie a 100% cotton white bedsheet is perfect - and a large stainless steel funnel

(i avoid any synthetics as they are essentially plastics - and all fabrics shed fibres - which would mean microplastics in the final product )

the same cloth is used in the press - it cut to around 14inch diameter circle - after draining by gravity in the funnel - its twisted closed around the herb and all liquid possible squeezed out by hand - then packed into the stainless steel cylinder and placed in the press with a wooden piston either side.