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Sharon
I don’t have any of this herb yet, but it really sounds like something hubby and I need. But in cruising around the “misleading web” – it makes me very confused on how best to tincture this herb because of the latex “sap”. Some use the leaves and dry them, then use EVERCLEAR (for a dried herb??). I get using it if it was fresh, but not dried – right? Also, is the latex only in the stem/stalk or is it also in the leaves, and if it is in the leaves, does the drying process mess up the latex that we really want in the medicine? Then others make this gooey glob of concentrated dried extract, then add alcohol back in again to re-liquify it (is that even a word?). Why put more alcohol back in when they tinctured it with Everclear to start with. Seems like way too much hooch to me! Any thoughts on how best to use this herb?
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Rebecca
Hi Sharon,
I was also confused by the different ways to process prickly lettuce. The good news is, this herb is pretty common (at least where I am from) and its abundance allows for trying the different preparation techniques side by side to decide which works best for you!
The white latex sap is the medicine, so the leaves, stems, and roots can be used in the process.
In the end, I chose the simplest way via alcohol tincture. I saved what prickly lettuce I could from what my family ripped from my garden (with good intentions of course, they wanted to help!) I had enough to cut up with some scissors directly into the jar, trying to avoid losing any sap to the cutting board, and tinctured it in vodka I had on hand rather than everclear. 6-8 weeks later, I bottled it in amber glass and, in my opinion, it was a VERY strong pain reliever and actually put me to sleep better than benadryl…
My body is very sensitive to medicine in general, so objectively, it might not have been the strongest end product, but it is certainly effective as a first try!
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So – do you loose the medicinal sap when you freeze dry or dehydrate it? The reason I ask is because I don’t think it grows here, so I’ll have to rely on buying someone’s dried wild lettuce to tincture.
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Sandra Boldiston
Another way i work with prickly lettuce. especially if you have a good harvest, is to cut it up and put in a pan and cover with water and heat,you can reduce it down and then strain and reduce the liquid until it becomes a tacky glug, with this method and i do both, you can use straight away
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Without doing more research, my first reasoning would be “anything is better than nothing” in that case. I’ve always understood the sap to be easier to extract while it’s still fresh, but there’s plenty of people that wait for it to dry before processing. In that case, it might explain why some reach for everclear; to use a stronger solvent to dissolve the dried latex sap.
Do you have a blender that you don’t mind possibly losing? I only ask because I have not seen what happens with dried prickly lettuce if it is powdered before extracting and always use yard sale blenders/ coffee grinders as guinea pigs first! Powdering it (if that idea is possible) might help with the extraction.
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KATHRYN DELONG
My family has been using wild lettuce for quite some time, now, and love it. We have prepared it quite a few ways: tincture made with 80 proof when using dried leaf, or Everclear when using fresh leaf; cooking it down to black goo; and drying the leaf, then powdering for capsules. All worked very well, but I personally didn’t like making or using the goo. At first, I didn’t use the stems in the tincture, then did an experiment making tincture with only ground up stems, and that seems to work, as well.
I particularly like the capsule version because it travels better. For all the trouble to make the goo, it certainly didn’t work better than the tinctures or capsules.
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GCubed
Can either wild lettuce or prickly lettuce be used for pain relief? Or just prickly lettuce?
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Lisa Bateman
I think the two names are used interchangeably.
Lisa Bateman
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Elizabeth
Is there a module on Wild Lettuce?
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Virginia Legowik
I just got Prickly Lettuce into Everclear. I decided this on the solubility of the sap, which likes pure ethanol better.
The nice thing about it is that about the time this batch is ready, the rest of them will be to flower and I can start a second batch from plants the correct age and size. (In fact, most of my tincturing depends on me actually waiting for them to get there before I start working them.) -
Tracy Tappin
Hello!
Can anyone tell me at what stage is best for harvesting? Its all in flower or seed here now mostly. Does it matter? Thanks
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Kimberley Perschbacher
Best time for wild lettuce is when it is bolting, you can use the whole plant, cut it up to get the white milky sap, latex. Put in your blender with alcohol, pulverize it. To get your product
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Thank you Lisa! Does it matter if it is dried or fresh? Is vodka ok to use or do I need everclear? Thanks!
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Will it make a horrible mess of the blender like gumweed or such would do? I would love to make my gumweed behave better with the given amount of alcohol, but don’t want to spend forever trying to clean my vitamix. I’m hoping the prickly lettuce would be “kinder” to my appliance! I would have thought that we would want the lettuce BEFORE it tries to go to flower – where did I make a wrong turn?
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Vernon
I just cut mine up, put it in mason jars and blended it with Everclear. The blender blade and cap fit perfectly on regular mouth canning jars. I did weigh it and recorded the amount of Everclear that I used so that I would know the ratio of herb to alcohol. I chose Everclear because I didn’t want to add any additional water to my tinctures. It’s still marinating so I’ll have to update this post in about a month as to how it turns out. Looks good so far though.
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Neisa Watkins
I have made wild lettuce tincture a a couple of times. I cooked it in a crock pot for about 24 hours, then strained off the liquid from the stems and leaves and cooked the liquid down to a paste in a double boiler. After that I put it in 80 proof vodka for dosing. It works well for sleep and doesn’t leave me hung over in the morning. I started slowly on the dosing because I was unsure about the strength of the medicine.
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