@dillemma had oral surgery last week
and has been on a liquid diet and generally miserable. She bought some marijuana tincture at a dispensary and it made her feel better than the prescription painkillers. I made some more tincture this morning as buying it is quite expensive (and I had a couple of ounces of seeded bud that a friend gave me a while back which was just sitting there).
Decarboxylation
For a tincture to work you need to heat up the marijuana first to convert THCA to THC, a process known as decarboxylation. This is simpler than it sounds. I ground up the bud and heated it in the oven at 150° F for a few hours.
I had 4 different strains and kept them all separate to make single-strain tinctures.
Jar of decarboxylated ground up Gorilla Glue ready for alcohol
I used 90% grain alcohol (Everclear) and poured enough to cover the ground up marijuana. After just a few minutes and some shaking, the alcohol will be a deep dark green color. You will see some recipes say to leave the jar sitting for several days; this doesn't hurt of course, but most of what you are going to get out happens relatively quickly. I let these sit for a few hours, shaking occasionally, before straining through a coffee filter.
I didn't realize tincture could be made so quickly but that does make for a quick method. I see some tincture recipes that say it needs to sit in the freezer for weeks lol. This is almost the same way Rick Simpson oil is produced. I think it calls for 99% alcohol. Soak it for a few minutes, strain it, and cook off the liquid but I am sure you already know all that.
Yeah for the ones where you evaporate off the alcohol to make honey oil or shatter, etc., it is better to use the 99% isopropyl alcohol. For a tincture that you will drink or take sublingually you want grain alcohol (or any other form of super high proof alcohol, you can find a cane sugar 190 proof alcohol as well). Even just leaving these to soak for only a few hours, my wife reports that the tincture is noticeably stronger than what she bought at the store ($40 for 1 oz bottle at the store!).
Here are pages 165-169 (not shown in my post) describing the standard method for preparation of fluidextracts from any plant substance. If the alcohol is evaporated off, it's called an "extract." This was the way pharmacists, more properly called "chemists," adhered to standard practices when preparing prescriptions from herbal remedies.
The doctor who prescribed an herbal fluidextract (or extract) would be assured that the patient would receive a standardized dose, prepared by any pharmacist at any pharmacy. This was legitimate oversight in my opinion.
Yeah it is really a shame that the medical uses of cannabis were swept under the rug for so long - it used to be a standard part of the pharmacopeia as evidenced by that book :) It has so many uses. For pain it is really amazing, it doesn't make the pain go away necessarily, but it makes you feel a lot better and pain doesn't bug you as much. My wife didn't like the prescription pain pills at all and they didn't really make her feel better, but she found marijuana tincture worked way better for her. Added bonus of course that I can whip up our own batches of marijuana tincture at the house in an afternoon... I am not about to create my own batch of hydrocodone anytime soon LOL
Right...the source of pain may persist, but your perception of it can be modulated. I'd rather modulate via the endocannibinoid system than via the opiate receptors.
And congratulations on your expertise as an herbal pharmacist!
I gave you upvote and redeemed your post
Goood
We Floridians are extremely jealous, especially those who have experience extracting natural products. You are carrying out the official USP-approved procedure used by pharmacists before 1936. I think you saw my post showing my 1936 USP describing the preparation of a "fluidextract."
Cool! It's great to see traditional skills kept alive. https://steemit.com/life/@qiyi/official-1936-usp-lists-cannabis-as-approved-prescribed-medicine
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Good job, Gnashster. We tried making it before, but the taste was so bad we couldn't use it.
A friend gave me a while ago... 4 different strains and a picture including the actual plants made me wonder but I aint judging :)
Never heard of this before, but if I ever need it, this is my DIY tutorial for sure
yeah!! It was so high bruh... it is illegal in my country even touching it so im really amazed that you guys used this as meds.. actually I dont know that it is possible..wow
I have been considering this myself but never knew where to begin- thanks for the super easy tutorial
Yeah it really is easy. The 1 oz bottle my wife bought at the dispensary cost $40... and she says what I made is definitely stronger!
Yes!! Am about to try my first tincture as well. Want to try that gorilla glue of yours!
I'm waiting anxiously for the day that they revise the drug testing system in the industrial trades world. (I'll probably be waiting for quite a while.) I would love to be able to use tincture as a sleep aid and for nighttime pain-relief without worrying about getting pulled for a random.
Use stems instead of flower. You will get more of a. Clear and golden color. The green indicates chlorophyll which is nasty to palet.
Use stems from the flowers. Save up and soak a mason jar full. Then you can pour it into another full jar of stems and steep it again.
And good choice on using high proof liquor.
Keep spreading the love!
Oh and if you use some honey it helps kick back the taste.
this post of yours made me interested about the bush, its just sad that people gets killed here with just possessing them here.
Great! Actually I didn't know how to do a tincture, even I tought it was something like a tea without treatment, in milk or some oil drink, but that's doesn't make much sense because the THC is liposobluble D:
Wow, I had never heard about the tincture! Looks great but it must have a terrible alcool taste, no?
I only used Echynacea tincture, very diluted. Tasted aweful.
Funny to read that those you talk coming from shops are less potent, I mean, since it's easy and fast to do ...
the ones you buy at the store are diluted more than 50% with vegetable glycerin. Yeah the taste is really strong! My favorite thing is to put a dropper full of tincture in some chocolate milk. It is actually an amazing taste combination, somehow the flavor of the tincture goes really well with chocolate milk :)