Trade Secrets of Making Herbal Infused Oils

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Misty L. Trepke

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Trade Secrets of Making Herbal Infused Oils

by Catherine Novak

Search for recipes for making your own herbal oil infusions,

and I'll bet you'll find hundreds, if not thousands on the web.

What makes my instructions different is, what I do works.

I've been making oil infusions for years and have received

nothing but positive feedback from family, friends and

customers about my products.

Of course, starting with clean, preferably organic herbs you

have grown yourself will help you make a superior product.

And I'm assuming (bad lama) that you'll take the necessary

steps to sanitize your working area, tools and jars. What

I'm mainly giving you here is the actual process of infusing

herbs into oils.

My preferred carrier, or base, oil, is olive oil. A good quality

extra-virgin olive oil can remain stable (that is, not

deteriorate and go rancid) in an infusion or finished salve,

for more than a year. It must be kept in a cool, dark

place. Exposure to heat and light is a sure way to destroy

the staying power of almost any product.

Jojoba oil also makes for a great base for infusing herbs. It's

actually more of a liquid wax, or ester, with very skin friendly

properties. It's also much more expensive, and not as

readily available as olive oil. It maintains its stability (does

not go rancid) even with exposure to the ravages of heat

and time.

Herbal Tip

When making an oil infusion of a fresh herb, especially

one like comfrey, which is about 35 percent protein, it

helps to wilt the herb for about 24 hours before processing

it. Especially if you decide to use the following cold

process.

Cold Process

Chop up, grind, or food process the herb into a mash.

Place the ground herb into a wide-mouth jar (quart canning

jars are handy for this) and pour olive oil over the herb. Use

a chopstick or bamboo stick to stir the mix until all of

the bubbles are gone.

Cover the mixture and leave the jar in a dark place (most

herbal preparations should be kept out of direct sunlight at

all times, unless you are making either Saint John's Wort

or Mullein oil). Make sure the jar is on a plate. These

preparations tend to ooze, even if the lid's on tight. The next

day, stir with the chopstick to release the air bubbles and

then add a little more oil to keep the herb covered.

Every day for two weeks, stir the mix to release the air

bubbles. At the end of two weeks, decant into a clean,

sterilized dry jar. After two or three days, pour off the oil into

another jar, leaving the " water " behind.

Hot Process

You can also make an oil infusion with dry herbal materials.

It's especially effective if you can use something like a

yougurt maker or crock pot that allows you to maintain a

constant temperature of about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Some herbalists suggest using a double boiler and

placing the jar of herbs and oils to gently cook in the

simmering (but NOT boiling) water.

After 24 hours, you may have to add more oil to replace

that which is absorbed by the herb. You can keep this

brewing, at a very low temperature (watch out, most crock

pots are too hot even on their lowest setting) for 5 to 10

days. Then strain it off into a clean dry container. Unlike

the fresh-herb infusion, there will be no water to drain off.

Many herbalists add one capsule's worth (400 I.U.) of

vitamin E oil to every eight ounces of oil to help preserve it.

(Vitamin E is an antioxidant.) Jojoba oil contains natural

Vitamin E in abundance, so if you're using it as a carrier,

skip this step.

Trade Secret

I'm going to share a secret with you. What I just told you

in the paragraphs above, are typically the instructions you

will find in most herb books. HOWEVER, I do it quite

differently.

Over the years, I've found infusing fresh comfrey leaf (or

root) to be best done following the Hot Process method.

Yes, I know there are herbalists out there who INSIST

that all herbs must be infused via the cold process method

because " you lose all the healing qualitities. "

I'm sorry, but I disagree with that mindset. And my

disagreement comes from experience. The one time

I tried it without gently simmering the herb,

I got a mass of foul-smelling olive oil and herb within

two weeks.

GENTLY simmering fresh herbs (and I actually mean

very low temperature--you're not looking to fry the herbs)

has produced herbal infused oils that people have raved

about, used as both as simple oils and in salves.

Like, comfrey, chickweed is another herb that works

well infused via the Hot Process method. Dried calendula

petals, in fact, any dried herbs, must be processed with

the hot process method to get the herbal benefits into

the oil.

Now, mind you, I do not heat my St. John's Wort oil. I

do it Cold Process, and either place it in a sunny window

or on top of the refrigerator (both methods of gentle heating

work to get the herb to release its wonderful healing

hypericum oil into olive oil.)

The best batch of Hypericum oil I've ever made resulted

from infusing slightly wilted flowering tops into olive oil

this summer. The jar stayed mostly inside a warm

van as I was on the road for three weeks (the oil infused

in the van for about a week and a half before coming home).

All of my infused herbal oils are FOR EXTERNAL USE

ONLY. Never had a problem with botulism and don't care

to start.

Kerry

Argue not with dragons, for thou art crunchy and go well with brie

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