Essential tools & equipment in the preparation of herbal medicines

Previous: Basic terms of herbal medicine making

Jars

Start with a dozen, at least. If you really get into medicine making, you will find yourself repurposing jars all over the place, and collecting a cache of jars for use in maceration or storage. You don’t need to buy them new as they are very easy to wash and sanitize. Get them from thrift stores, reuse the jars your food comes in, do what you need to but get yourself some jars! The picture above shows from left to right: half pint, pint, quart, and 1/2 gallon jars. For our purposes, start with pint and quart jars. And make sure they are glass and not plastic.

Crushing, Grinding, and Blending Equipment

When making extracts, you want to create as much surface area as possible when macerating to extract the most flavor and medicinal constituents from the plant. The best way to do this is to powder or crush the herbs. Mortar and pestles may seem antiquated but they are surprisingly useful for small amounts of herb. Coffee grinders (dedicated to herbs and spices only) will likely be your best friend here as they are cheap and easy to clean. A Vitamix or other high powered blender is ideal (using the dry blade, you can also powder herbs), but only if you need them. I only really got one when I started to process more fresh herbs. If you are processing a lot of fresh herbs from a garden, I would recommend investing in one.

Strainers

Ideally in a variety of sizes. Strainers are essential to high quality tinctures. I recommend both a 4” fine mesh strainer (for straining lower volume tinctures and straining shaken cocktails), and an 8” fine mesh strainer (for larger volume tinctures). I just looked back on my orders from amazon and found that I bought a ‘RSVP INTERNATIONAL 4 inch Conical Strainer’ in May of 2014 for $10.95, it’s still going strong. Of course, I recommend purchasing locally or directly from the manufacturer if possible, for oh so many reasons.

Filters

Both cheesecloth and bonded bleach-free Chemex filters (FSU-100) are my go-to for rough straining and fine straining respectively. You can also use basic #4 coffee filters for smaller batches.

Herb Press

Not required, but honestly very helpful when doing what I call a ‘rough strain’ on your tincture. Without an herb press, you are left to squeeze the herbal material while still in the cheesecloth to get as much medicine out of the herb as possible. The herb press is able to yield a lot more out of your tincture than you can with your hands alone (there are hydraulic presses as well, but we won’t get into that here). While I’ve never worked with one, I’ve heard that a potato ricer is a good alternative to a full-on herb press, although you have to keep the batch fairly small to make it work.

Scales

I have two scales, one that measures more precisely (in tenths of a gram) and one that can measure in grams, ounces, and pounds. I find both necessary for different occasions, but if I had to pick one, I would pick the more precise scale that measures in tenths of a gram.

Measuring Vessels

I love borosilicate glass beakers and graduated cylinders, although they can be expensive and are not entirely necessary. Just get yourself something that measures in liquid volume in ounces and milliliters, ranging from capacities of at least 10ml to 1000ml. For starting a tincture, it is ideal to have a glass measuring cup that has a capacity of 500 - 1000ml, for formulation and blending, it is ideal to have graduated cylinders that can measure between 10ml and 100ml. It’s always good to have a range to work with. You can also purchase plastic versions of any of these if you are worried about breaking them.

Funnels

Make sure you have one small funnel that can fit your 1oz amber bottle, a large funnel for, well, larger pouring purposes (including formulation and blending) and a variety of sizes in between. Also, canning funnels are great because they help get your herb into the jar without spilling the herb all over your workplace. Trust me, I’ve been pouring liquids and solids from one vessel into another for over a decade now professionally, and I still miss the mark here and there.

Miscellaneous

Scissors, pencil, sharpies (fine and regular), pen (pilot g-2), unbleached wax paper (you’ll see why later), painter’s tape (green or blue, 1.41-2”), and a dedicated notebook for all of your medicine making ideas and notes. These are here to encourage you to write down everything and to label everything.

Low Budget

Unbleached wax paper, 4” fine mesh strainer, repurposed pint and quart size jars, 500ml measuring cup, 50ml graduated cylinder, coffee grinder (dedicated to herbs, not coffee), painter’s tape, and sharpie (links above).

This equipment list is by no means exhaustive but is a good place to get started.