How to Make Kratom Tincture

The preparation of tincture has been one of the most traditional methods to extract the active elements of medicinal herbs and plants, like alkaloids, oils or minerals. In a tincture, these elements are extracted into a solvent, specifically an alcoholic solvent. You can use kratom powder or dried leaves to prepare a kratom tincture for getting the best of its qualities.

To prepare kratom tincture, you will only need a few ingredients, some basic kitchen tools and to follow a series of easy instructions that will allow you to have your own tailor-made kratom tinctures.

Just like any other herbal tinctures, kratom tincture uses ethyl alcohol (ethanol) as a solvent for the mixture. Alcoholic tinctures are one of the best ways to get the most of medicinal herbs and their benefits. You can use alcohol to extract the active elements of almost every plant (and yes, kratom too). Never mind if the active ingredients are alkaloids, oils or minerals, alcohol will quickly dissolve them and you will easily get a great natural remedy affordable to any budget. Alcohol kratom tinctures can be used topically or drunk added to beverages.

Tools Required to Prepare Kratom Tincture

If you want to make kratom tincture at home you will need a few kitchen tools. Quite probably you already have most of them; if you don’t, don’t worry: they’re very easy to find, either in hardware stores or online.

• Kitchen scale: This is quite obvious: you will need a kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients of your kratom tincture.
• Measuring cups: You will need to precisely weigh and measure the ingredients of your tincture to know its potency. This is not only for safety reasons, it will also help you replicate the formula in the future.
• Chemical resistant bottle: You will need a plastic or glass bottle that is resistant to chemicals to prepare the mix. It is extremely important that the vessel you are using for this is chemical resistant. You can find them online (remember to add “chemical resistant” to the search field) or in your local hardware store.
• Strainer: The strainer will remove the kratom product from the tincture once the extraction is complete.
• Tin foil: You will need it to cover the tincture.
• Funnel: A most common kitchen tool, it will help you prevent spillages and to insert the tincture into tiny containers.
• Amber glass bottles: Kratom tincture needs to be preserved and protected from the light. Amber glass bottles will allow you to store and preserve your kratom tinctures keeping the light off and maintaining the tincture intact (and effective) for a longer time. Even if you don’t have any amber glass bottles at home, you will find them easily in many sellers and retailers online. And they are also very cheap. Blue glass bottles are another good alternative for storing your kratom tincture, and they are also available online.

Ingredients to Make Kratom Tincture

The ingredients used in the kratom tincture are very easy to find and most of them are available even in supermarkets.

• Kratom: You can use either kratom powder or kratom leaves. In this recipe, we suggest the following amounts:
• For a pint (473 ml) of 40% alcohol: 4 oz. (113 grams) of kratom powder.
• For 1 liter of 40% alcohol: 7 oz. (198 grams) of dried kratom leaves. Keep in mind that these amounts may vary depending on the kratom quality.
• Ethyl alcohol: Ethyl alcohol is the only recommended alcohol for making kratom tincture. You can use either an alcoholic beverage (the recommended alcohol concentration is 40%, so you can use drinks like brandy, gin or vodka. In any case, make sure you check out the alcohol concentration of the drink before starting the mixture). You can also use 95% ethanol which has been previously reduced with water (for obtaining an approximately 40% alcohol the proportion would be 1/2 water + 1/2 ethanol).
• Citric acid: Alkaloids are usually present in two forms: alkaloid freebases and acidic salts. Salts are much more stable than freebases and by adding citric acid to the tincture preparation, the alkaloids are kept in its salt form, maintaining all the therapeutic properties of kratom.
• Glycerin: While it is not mandatory to add glycerin to the kratom tincture, its use is very recommended. Glycerin will balance the final tincture and will prevent the evaporation so that the properties of your kratom tincture will last longer.

Instructions to Make Your Kratom Tincture

Now that we have the tools and the ingredients, it is the time to learn how to make our own kratom tincture:

Measure and weigh

Keeping the correct amount of kratom product (either powder or leaves) and alcohol is essential to obtain a proper, effective kratom tincture. You can use the suggested amounts indicated above, especially if you are making kratom tincture for the first time. In any case, always write down the exact amount of ingredients you are using.

Mix the kratom and the alcohol

Add the kratom and the alcohol (either the beverage or the reduced ethanol) to the chemical resistant bottle. If you are using citric acid, add it now to the mixture. Ideally, your tincture should have a PH of 4. You can use PH test strips to find the appropriate level.

Hot water bath

To reduce the preparation time of your tincture, you can give the mix of kratom and alcohol a hot water bath. To make this water bath you need to heat water in a cooking pot. Just before it starts boiling, remove the pot from the fire and place the bottle with the alcohol and the kratom inside the water. Make sure the pot is not close to the kitchen ranges so the heat will not affect it, and do not cover it. Leave it in the warm water for about an hour and then replace the water with newly heated water (make sure it is not boiling) and leave the bottle there for another hour. If you are not using the hot water method, you will need to keep the kratom in a cold place for a week prior to making the tincture.

Strain

Use a strainer to separate the kratom from the tincture. You can throw away the kratom powder that you used.

Evaporation

Cover the tincture with tin foil and wait until the alcohol evaporates. It should lose at least 50% of its original volume.

Measurement

Determining the potency of your kratom tincture is very simple: just divide the initial weight of the kratom between the final volume of the tincture. E.g., if you used 200 grams of kratom and you obtain 20 tablespoons, the potency of your kratom tincture will be 10g per tbsp.

Storage

Keep the kratom tincture in a dark glass bottle (like amber o blue glass bottle) and store it in a dark room. Make sure you keep the kratom tincture away from light and heat, as they might cause the tincture to lose its properties.

You can also use tags or labels to indicate details from your kratom tincture: like the date you made it, its potency and the type of kratom you used.