Milk Thistle Tincture

[sstolzenburgStudent]

Doc, and Steven, I’ve got several comments/questions.

I recently made some milk thistle tincture. I made it by coarse grinding the seeds like cracked wheat, and putting then in a 50% solution of anhydrous glycerin and reverse osmosis water. The tincture came out great, but the amount of liquid I got was about 50% of the volume or less. I made about 1.5 pints of mash and only got 3/4 pint of medicine.

The thing that was interesting is that I put the mash in a muslin cloth to squeeze it out, and I found a considerable amount of oily film on the surface of the liquid. I know the oil stayed on my hands all the next day because I could smell it. It was very faint but recognizable. I know from watching Turning Point on BYUTV, that handling milk thistle will give you some absorption. More on that episode another time.

So the oil is grey, gooey, and coats my dropper a bit and the inside of the brown bottle. I am wondering if I am missing some of the medicine in the oily goo. I don’t know if I am loosing the medicinal value in not using enough glycerin to absorb the oil into solution, or if it is just a nice oil. Seems creamy and nice for hands because it is smooth, not sticky, and not real smelly more neutral but very faint, not grassy but mild. If nothing else I am more interested in the oil than the tincture.

Tell me what you know…???? :poke:

Does Milk Thistle loose it’s medicinal properties with heat? I am thinking of concentrating efforts on extracting the oil. Not sure what I have here. If I find the answer I will post it.

I am thinking that if I can do it without the woody hulls, it might make a nice addition to my wife’s whole wheat bread recipe. The kernels are the same size as wheat kernels and grind similarly, but with more woody fiber in the hull. The kernels are bland, and would not spoil the bread taste, but might be a food for people with bad livers. What do you think?

Steve

[IdahoHerbalist]

Interesting discoveries. Milk Thistle oil, who’da thunk it.

I am working on some yield things right now. All I can tell you is the mark will make a HUGE difference in the yield. Some mark is very stingy. Some is not. You might actually get a POSITIVE yield from a fresh plant tincture from the extra water added by the plant material.

I think ALL edibles lose their value when excessive heat is applied. The raw foodies say that if you keep the heat below 110 that it can still be considered raw…… sure. :face palm: The oil might be more stable though as the essential oil process uses steam to extract.

Doc, I think we may need to get some Milk Thistle in that distiller to see what oil we can extract! :thumb:

How would you remove the hulls without damaging the seed and germ inside?

Patrick, I think we have created a MONSTER!!!! :Laugh:

[sstolzenburgStudentTopic Author]

Steven, the oil I got is kinda creamy, not alot, but, more than any other tincture and I am just wondering where the silymarin comes in. Is it water soluble or oil soluble? :blob:

I am going to make a press out of some PVC, a big C Clamp and some angle iron, I think I can get a pretty heavy pressure if I build it right. I have another gallon of glycerin on order, and I am going to start another batch to see if I can get more liquid out of the mash. The medicine is usually stronger in that last bit of compression with other herbs, so I am going to see how it goes. I have a welder so I know I can get the pressure up. Not a distiller, but… it is what I can do.

I think if you baked the ground seed into bread dough, it would not loose it’s potency because it would just get spread through the dough. Yea you get some steam released, but the rest of the bread would pick it up, like covering a tea when you steep it.

By the way, the movie is called “Thistle Farms”, it is an episode in the BYUTV series Turning Point. There is only a brief part in the episode on the benefits of thistles but the woman whose story is told, talks about her cosmetics company and how the thistle is used to make the cosmetics and handling the thistles actually helps heal the women who are coming off the street just by handling thistles. It heals their poisoned liver. Talks about their physical and spiritual healing.

If you use a hand crank wheat grinder, set on coarse for cracked wheat, the hulls get pulled off more in tact, but separating them would still be hard.

I didn’t mean to create a MONSTER. :sad puppy: But it was not as I expected. Again, my seeds were partially wildcrafted and partly purchased.

I hope you have some discovery….. :thumb:

Steve

[sstolzenburgStudentTopic Author]

Hey, did you ever do anything with the discovery I had finding an oil in my Milk Thistle Tincture? Wonder if you confirmed the finding I had with oil in my tincture. :confused: Did you ever get the distiller out to find out what I have? :poke:

[IdahoHerbalist]

I feel bad that I did not follow up with you. Actually, it does not surprise me (now that I think about it) that the seed produced the oils. I think most seed has oils to one extent or another. A quick check reveals that there IS milk thistle essential oil out there.

No on the distiller. We are REALLY bad with that one. I finally got the distiller parts all accumulated and assembled. Hoping to do something with it soon. HEY! Maybe we can have it going for our June classes this year!

[sstolzenburgStudentTopic Author]

Can you say something about your distiller, what it costs, advantages to having one, what you hope to distill, and etc? Is it good for extracting essential oils or ?

[IdahoHerbalist]

Will probably post more on this once we get some experience. We have lavender from last year and will be harvesting some this week. It takes a LOT of material for most things to get anything at all. I think it takes a TON of rose petals for 1 oz of rose EO.

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead Instructor]

We need to make the distinction between “oil” and essential oil.

Essential oils are the volatile oils of the plant. Any heat will cause their evaporation and dissipation. This is why we prefer cold infusions to hot infusions in plant high in volatile oils (mint family…nettles…uva ursi etc…). An essential oil distiller is a closed system so it doesn’t allow the oils to escape.

The oil you’ve found is almost certainly seed oil as from rape seed, grape seed, canola, corn, sesame, olive, soy bean, avocado etc…

It’s probably highly nutritious and has some medicinal properties but isn’t an essential oil. You might try adding some alcohol to your glycerin to help the oils not separate out so much.

Doc

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

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