I
then ground up the smaller pieces and powder in a coffee grinder, which broke
it down to mostly pure powder. This is a post on how to make myrrh tincture, diy. I use myrrh (commiphoora molmol/myrrha) for oral health whenever I get a cold. Normally, I pay $14 for 2 ounces of Nature's Answer. ($7/oz) I decided to buy the myrrh resin and make my own. In theory, I will spend $29 and make 16.23 ounces ($1.79/ounce - almost 1/4 as cheap) of a comparable strength as Nature's Answer.
Determining the Strength of your Tincture
I had some trouble determining how many grams of myrrh resin I would add to how many mL of ethanol. A youtube video suggested 8oz myrrh to 750 mL of 95% ethanol (3.3mL per 1000mg of Myrrh gum).
Some websites mention one part myrrh to 3 parts ethanol, or 5 parts ethanol, but do not specify whether this is by weight or volume.
My bottle of Nature's Answer says it contains 2mL per 1000mg of Myrrh gum*.
The Herb Pharm brand contains 4mL per 1000mg of Myrrh gum.
I decided to make something similar to Nature's Answer, and would therefore mix 2mL of ethanol for every gram of Myrrh.
Ingredients:
8 oz Myrrh resin - $11
480mL Everclear (75% ethanol) - $18
Equipment:
Food processor
Coffee grinder
Bowl
Mason Jar (3 cup capacity)
Process
The myrrh resin comes in fairly large, hard, chunks. I first tried to break them up with a mortar and pestle, but gave up quickly as this would take too long. I dumped the bag in a food processor which broke down the large pieces into much smaller pieces and powder. This was relatively tricky - the powder wasn't mixing thoroughly, so only 1/4 of the gum would grind at a time. I kept having to open it and stir the gum around, or shake it. I accidentally shook too hard and might have damaged my food processor.
I
then ground up the smaller pieces and powder in a coffee grinder, which broke
it down to mostly pure powder.
I weighed it out and it was a bit more than 8 ounces, or 240 grams.
Using
the 2mL per gram guideline, I measured out 480mL of Everclear.
Most guides suggest adding the ethanol to the myrrh and then letting it sit for a month in a dark place. I already built a DIY stir plate for homebrewing, so I thought I would leverage that to speed up the process.
I poured in the 480mL of Everclear into the mason jar, added the stir bar and started a vortex.
To
this, I added all the myrhh one spoon full at a time, as opposed to dumping it
all in at once.
I
then capped it up, on 2016-01-27 13:00, and covered it in a towel so that the
light didn't damage it.
From here, I'm not sure how long it will take to extract out the myrrh, but I presume it will be much faster than the 30 days that is normally recommended without a stir plate.
After about 45 minutes on the stir plate, I decided to give it a try. I stopped the vortex and let it sit for 15 minutes so that the sediment could fall. This created many layers, the top of which was a deep reddish brown.
I took two pipettes of this and mixed it with water, where it turned white, just like it does with Nature's Answer. After swirling the solution in my mouth, I noticed it tasted and felt just like one pipette worth of Nature's Answer.
I repeated this a few more times. It definitely appeared that mine was half as strong as Nature's Answers; one pipette felt weaker, two pipette's felt just as strong. Either I miscalculated how many grams of Myrrh went into Nature's Answer, my Myrrh is half as strong, or less than 1 day on the stir plate only dissolves half of the compounds.
Nature's Answer's bottle says that one serving size contains 2000mg of "Extract*"; the asteric remark says that this is "equivalent to 1000mg of Myrrh Gum". I understood this to mean that one serving size contained 1000mg of Myrrh Gum. I was confused as to why the extract (2000mg) was higher than the equivalent raw gum (1000mg), and would have expected it to be reversed; e.g., 1000mg of extract being equivalent to 2000mg of raw gum. Perhaps this means that the total combined weight of the ethanol plus the 1000mg of Myrrh gum equaled 2000mL.
Name: Linda L. Luke
Creation Date: 2017-01-18
I really appreciate that you would take time to show your process online. I'm always wanting to see if I can diy home and health products. Thank you. Linda
Name: April
Creation Date: 2017-07-07
Hi,it may also be possible that your ethanol solution doesn't have enough water. There are water soluble parts as well as alcohol soluble. I believe you want 40percent water by volume as part of the solution. I think your myrrh measurements are right on. Also, you may have tried this, but freezing the resins helps the blades, by keeping the resin from reaching it's melting point so fast.and do small batches. Thanks for your research efforts, I found the measurements very helpful. You may have already found this info, since you posted all of this, but if not, I hope it helps. Have a great day.
Name: Dana
Creation Date: 2024-01-22
Greetings. From my understanding, myrrh will only dissolve in the high grain alcohol. It is mainly alcohol soluble. Water will not allow t to break down. From what I understood from the serving size is that the serving is 2000 mg total with 50% of that being the myrrh, the rest being alcohol, unless if they added water after the extraction.