Magical Butter Machines and Olive extract.

Feeling fatigued? Here's some Olive leaf that I'm extracting in alcohol. A few drops a couple of times a day and you'll be feeling better 😉

For this batch, I used 80% alcohol because Oleuropein, the constituent that I'm primarily after is best extracted at that concentration but doesn't get well extracted at higher levels. It is also water and oil soluble but extracts best in string alcohol.

Also for this batch, I used a Magical Butter Machine for the blending and the first 16 hours of maceration. I used the 54°C setting but will also do another batch at the unheated setting to compare because not every herb likes the heat but I'm pretty sure Olive will love it. Olive is my Mum's middle name too but she doesn't like the heat.

Magical Butter Machines are a versatile way to make a lot of remedies but must remember that they're designed for resinous, Cannabis products and not more delicate herbs. They're great for oils and lotions but I'm still trying to work out tinctures with them, the instruction book is way off on that mark.

However, they are well suited to larger batch processing, something I'm trying to get a handle on as the need for herbal remedies increases.

I'm thinking that they're great for the initial stages of prep but tinctures and oils still need to be macerated or digested for several weeks after going through the machine. For that, I'm looking at a sourcing a Black Garlic Fermenter, with which you can set reasonably low temps to run for weeks at a time. for heating, the MBM has a minimum temperature of 54°C and a maximum time limit of 8 hours. Oils need 35°C for a week or so to get beautiful oils.

If you haven't tried making an oil in weeks-long timeframes, try it, you'll be amazed at the difference. They're so much richer in every sense.

Have you used a Magical Butter Machine for anything else than Cannabis products?They're pricey but so convenient.

Some of you may have seen that I've been writing a series of posts about making herbal remedies at home. I want to share what I know of this topic so that, as the world gets crazier, folks will have other avenues of medical care, namely those of themselves and their community. If you look back over this blog, you can see heaps of info on the topic, plus loads and loads of posts on herbs and using Australian bushfoods from a white perspective. If you haven't been around on in the @hivegarden and @naturalmedicine communities for long, you may be interested in looking back. There's w-a-a-a-a-y too much there for me to repost and the Hive system doesn't let you vote on old posts so, if you're happy with what you find, I believe that there is now a tip option...

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