Making Tinctures: Beyond the Folk Method
I wrote this book to teach people how to use formulas of strength and alcohol percentage in order to make tinctures with more consistent potency than can be accomplished using the folk method. This book is written for all levels of herbalists, from the “newbie” to the Master Herbalist. If you have never made tinctures before or if you only know how to make tinctures using the folk method, this book will show you the step-by-step process to make tinctures using the weight to volume (w/v) method.
And if you are the Master Herbalist who already uses the w/v method, but have not found the formulas you need, this book will give you 46 formulas, as well as information on how to find more. The equations needed to calculate the amount of ingredients required to make the tinctures are also explained. One chapter describes how you can use the equations to create a spreadsheet to automate the calculations. This is the book I needed when I first started making tinctures to sell at my shop. Since I could not find one concise comprehensive book like this, I had to figure all this out for myself. So now I share it, so that you don’t have to figure it all out yourself.
Author, Master Herbalist, Holistic Nutritionist, creator and owner of Thyme Wisper Herb Shop Inc and Thyme's Tinctures online store.
I am wanting to learn to make cannabis tinctures with high CBD and very mild THC. I am learning to grow my own cannabis. My son has severe seizures and responds extremely well to CBD. He is off 90% of his awful meds.
I by a tincture from my medical marju. store that has coconut oil in it. Is this book going to teach me how to make these types of tinctures that are dropped under the tongue?
Tina, I think someone at your store may be confused with what a tincture is. A tincture is an herb soaked and strained from a solvent, like alcohol. A complete definition is here. An herb “soaked” in an oil is called an infused oil, not a tincture.
I do tell how to make a specific infused oil in this article. However it is very specific to those blend of herbs. Reading it you will get the general idea.
There are lots of books that explain how to make an infused oil. I recommend James Greens book The Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook. It is available in both kindle and paperback. The book is about more than making infused oils, but I think the section on infused oils is excellent.
I hope that helps you. Best of luck to you and your son.
I have just finished my herbal medicine course and to be completely prepared to make tinctures, I have bought and studied your book. However, I cannot make the formula for the spreadsheet for “G Spirit” work. Here is what I’ve typed in:
=ROUND(((C2/(F2/2))*E2)
I get the error message: the formula is missing an opening or closing parenthesis. I’ve fiddled with the cell format, added and reduced (( or )) in the formula, but cannot get it to take. Can you advise please? p.s. using Excel 2010
Hi KC.
One easy way to know whether you have all the left and right parentheses is to count the left ones and then count the right ones. You should have the same number for each type. In your example, you have 4 left parentheses and 3 right parentheses. So you are either missing a right parentheses or have an extra left. To figure out what is missing, start from the inside to match left to right and make sure it is the correct equation you want.
From the inside you have (F2/2)
That’s one left and one right
and then come out once more from “inside”: (C2/(F2/2))
That’s two lefts and two rights
and then come out once more from “inside”: ((C2/(F2/2))*E2)
That’s three lefts and three rights
and then come out once more from “inside”: (((C2/(F2/2))*E2)
That’s four lefts and three rights. So either you have an extra left or missing a right.
In this case, the equations have matching left and right parentheses, however the ROUND function (that rounds out the answer to the total equation) will fail because it needs to be of the form ROUND()
So you are missing it’s right parentheses.
So the formula should be =ROUND(((C2/(F2/2))*E2))
I hope that helps you. Let me know..
And thanks for reading (and more importantly, studying) my book. I hope you have great success in making tinctures.
Thyme Wisper
Thank you immensely for the reply…sometimes people don’t.
I must have written the formula incorrectly to you because I have typed it in as you have…very carefully!…I will work with it to see if I have some kind of hidden something or other in the spreadsheet. Again, many thanks for getting back to me!
I hope that once you have determined what was causing your error, that you will share it by replying to this comment thread. It might help someone else with the same or a similar problem.
Just to let you know, I am working hard to finish my second book – a follow on to my first book Making Tinctures: Beyond the Folk Method. This second book is titled Making Tinctures: Determining Formulas, Benefits, Safety, Dosage. There will be additional formulas given in this second book, but also details on how to derive a formula when you cannot find a formula elsewhere or need to select between contradictory formulas you have found. I will also go into more detail about glycerites (and why I don’t make them), but also give formulas that include glycerin and explain why. I hope you have read my page on my website that talks more about glycerites. In my second book I also explain how to find the benefits and the safety issues. And I explain about dosages. All formulas given will have example labels that give benefits, safety issues, and dosage.
I hope to have the book published before Summer.
I’m using Excel 2016; maybe that is why this formula worked:
=ROUND(C2/((F2/2))*E2,0)
I think it was looking for how many digits you wanted to round to: 0.; 0.0; 0.00; and so on. The “0” is telling it you don’t want any decimals. Hope this helps!
Exactly what I discovered after seeing your reply. I googled the function for EXCEL and got this formula:
=ROUND(number,num_digits)
So you figured it out exactly.
I use LibreOffice Calc because it works in both Windows and Linux, and I use both operating systems. LibreOffice Calc and Excel are supposed to be interchangeable. Hmmm… apparently not EXACTLY. Glad you discovered it so that others will be aware.
Thank you.
Thyme
=ROUND(((C2/(F2/2))*E2))
That does not work no matter how I play with the numbers and symbols, however, this formula did work:
=ROUND(C2/((F2/2))*E2,0)
…maybe it’s a different excel version? But anyway, THANKS!
Hello,
I would like to see the contents of the book before I buy one 🙂
In Amazon is not available. Perhaps could you post them here?
Kindest regards,
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy. Thank you for your interest in my book! I just checked and my book still has the “Look Inside” feature on the web version of Amazon. Perhaps you were checking from your phone? I noticed that “Look Inside” feature is missing for all books in the app. Here is the link to my sales page. Making Tinctures: Beyond the Folk Method The “Look Inside” is on the left. Just click on it…. It includes the Table of Contents, section on What is this Book About?, section on Why is this Book Needed?, and chapter on What is a Tincture?
I hope to have the follow-on to this book titled Making Tinctures: Determining Formulas, Benefits, Safety, Dosage published by next month. I’ve finishing writing it and am now editing and formatting it. Like this first book, I will publish first a Kindle version and shortly afterwards a paperback version.
Hope you find this helpful.