This week I wrapped up the quarter by doing some final weeding and plant tending in my plots, as well as crafting a tincture. My crops are not ready to be harvested yet due to the unforeseen growing season conditions. The weather at Alamere this season has been unexpectedly cold, and in hindsight, my starts should have spent more time in the greenhouse before going into the ground. I will continue to care for them and harvest and produce medicine with them this summer.
Wednesday afternoon I got to use the tincture press and meet my goals of making medicine. Alamere had a jar of tincture from last season, skullcap and a little bit of tulsi, that needed to be processed. The plant material was ground up and left in a solvent in a dark cupboard. I sanitized the press and lined the basket with cheesecloth and poured the tincture in. Turning the scissor press allows the tincture to slowly drip down into the catch jar at the bottom. I kept cranking the scissor jack until the resistance reached max and allowed the last of the of the drops of tincture to drip off into the jar before cleaning up and capping the tincture jar.
The next steps are to allow the tincture to sit in a dark cupboard for a day or two and then decant and separate the last of the plant particles that made it past the cheesecloth barrier. Plant particle size depends on the plant material itself and I have noticed that even in professionally manufactured tinctures there is still sometimes some plant sediment left over with certain herbs. Once the tincture is decanted the final product is then ready to be bottled and taken internally. We talked a lot about the process of marketing an internal herbal product, and the steps to get regulated, To sell any internal product a commercial food processing kitchen is required, which means needing access to a commercial kitchen. For small farmers, this can be inaccessible and the steps to get to a point of becoming certified can overwhelm and discourage herb farmers. We calculated the perceived value of the tincture we made and at the current standard rate of $15 for a 1 ounce bottle of high-quality tincture the three or so cups of tincture we produced would sell for around $200 given the proper market and certifications,
Overall I am very pleased I was able to experiment with crafting a tincture at Alamere and am excited to continue to use the press to craft more products in the future.