What brought this on? Well, I was just getting ready to spend another $24 on a bottle of Deep Sleep, which is a very nice herb sleep formula I've used, and decided it was time to save my dollars and try my hand at making my own sleep herbs. I loved getting to know these herbs better, and I think it adds a very personal touch to my healing. It's great to know that, even if the supplements weren't available anymore, I could make this for myself - very empowering. The next step would be growing my own herbs. Maybe next summer!
STEP ONE: Get some herbs
Since I know which herbs work to help me sleep, it was fairly simple to make a list. I chose herbs I have taken before, not too many, and fairly small amounts to make one jar of extract. I spoke with my friend the Herbalist, to get a little guidance. I keep glass spaghetti sauce jars, and for this project, I cleaned one out really well and ran it through the dishwasher to use to put this formula in. I bought my herbs at the Herb Room, which is our best local herb place - open until midnight, if you can believe it! Yes, Santa Cruz is that kind of town. If I couldn't buy them locally, I would probably order them from somewhere like Mountain Rose Herbs.
I bought the following:
- CALIFORNIA POPPY, 1 ounce
- PASSION FLOWER, 3/4 ounce
- VALERIAN, 1/2 ounce
I had planned on also putting some other herbs in it - Milky Oats and Lemon Balm, but they were out of these, so I forged ahead without them. I thought about adding Chamomile, too, but my herbalist friend informed me that Chamomile gets very bitter made into this kind of extract, so I didn't. I thought about taking this in Chamomile tea, but it works great without it.
STEP TWO: Get some alcohol
I used brandy again. Worked very well. Still got more left for my next one!
STEP THREE: Sterilize a Glass Jar
Spaghetti sauce jar and top, very clean.
STEP FOUR: Measure out the Herbs. Then measure out the alcohol - 1 to 2 times as much as the herbs by volume.
The strength of herbal extractions is measured in parts herb to parts alcohol, and it's not by weight, it's by VOLUME. Put your dry herbs all together in a glass measuring cup and see what line they come up to on the cup. Now pour that same volume of vodka or brandy into another glass measuring cup. That's how much you would need for a 1:1 extract. The more herbs compared to the amount of alcohol, the stronger the extract. You will see lots of 1:1 or 2:1 extracts on the market. 1:1 is very strong. 2:1 is less strong, but still very good. I added about one and a half times as much alcohol as the herbs, to make a 3:2 extract - get it, 3 parts alcohol, to 2 parts herbs, right? My decision was kind of a compromise. With a 1:1, it's sometimes kind of hard to get all the herbs saturated because there's so little alcohol, and my jar wasn't big enough for 2:1.
STEP FIVE: Put your herbs in the jar. Add the alcohol. Get it all wet. Shake it up. Label it well
Mix the herbs together, then put them in the jar. Pour in the alcohol. Take a clean stainless steel spoon and stir it around to get all the herbs wet. Don't rush - this will take a few minutes. Wet down any little pockets of dry herbs remaining. Put the lid on tight. Label it carefully with exactly what's in it and the date. Shake it up for around 10 minutes, at least 200 times, all around, upside down, until it looks super wet and saturated.
Don't forget to label your jar. Write on it the name, the concentration, the date, when it will be ready, and what's in it. One reason this is important is because the next time you want to make it, you will have forgotten what you used, I guarantee it! Also it's nice to know at a glance if it's ready to use And if you don't like how it turns out, you'll know what NOT to do next time!
STEP SIX: Put it in a dark cupboard for TWO WEEKS. Shake it every few days.
Keep it in a dark place at all times. Your extract will take a full fourteen days to be ready. You will want to give it about 50 shakes every 2-3 days. No big deal - Just slosh it around, up and down, upside down, and put it back in the cupboard.
SEVEN: Strain it sweeten it (optional), and USE it!
After two weeks, you can strain all or part of your extract. It is ready to use. I strained a couple ounces into an old glass dropper bottle I had, and left the rest to soak, which it is still doing. Strain it through a coffee filter lining a strainer, into a glass container. It will take awhile.
I did not sweeten this one - it actually tastes ok on it's own. At first I tried adding it to chamomile tea, but didn't really want to make tea every night, and it didn't work great for me that way. What I finally ended up doing with this is using the little dropper to squirt this into empty "00" veggie capsules, and taking it that way. I found that for me, 1 capsule didn't get me to sleep, but 2 did the job really well! So now I have almost a lifetime supply of sleepy support that works for me, for less than $10 in herbs and alcohol!
You would always want to fill these capsules right before you take them. They would probably melt after awhile, even though they don't have any water in them. The professional capsule companies have special ways of making and sealing their liquid-filled caps that make them way more stable.
Happy herbmaking!
DISCLAIMER: Note that there's a lot to the herbmaking craft that is not included here. It's important to extract each herb in the way that is well-suited to it, and to carefully construct your blends. This is just an example of a good beginners blend that might be useful. Please read up on any herb you plan to use and make sure it is appropriate for you.
