Hi, my name is Thomas Easley
I'm the director of the Electic School of Herbal Medicine and co-author of the Modern Herbal Dispensary and I'm here with Mountain Rose Herbs to
talk about
encapsulating herbs. So when we think about taking herbs
we often think about extracts of teas:
(decoctions, tinctures) and we sometimes forget that our digestive system does a really good job of pulling all the good stuff that its
in plants out so that we can absorb it.
Capsules are a convenient way to get powdered herbs into people and
there are a few tips and tricks that I'm going to show you so that you can encapsulate your own herbs save a bit of
money.
First we have our capsule machine which has a base, a bottom,
top, and
a tamper. And we're doing this in a dish because powder can be a little messy and
we want to try to contain that mess so that we can reuse the power if it's more than
we can fit into one batch. So we're going to take our
bottom and put it onto our stand.
Then, we're going to
take these gelatin capsules, they're 00 capsules, which fit this particular encapsulator, and
the long side is going to go into the bottom
the short side is going to go into the top.
So, we're going to fill this up
and, add our herbs.
So, if we have our capsule machine filled with capsules of
bottoms and tops, now we're going to take our powdered herb and
just
fill the large side (the bottoms).
And you won't be able to
get them all filled, so,
the capsule machine comes with this convenient spreader actually labeled "spreader card" and
I'm just going to
kind of work the power back and forth
so that it is
evenly distributed.
Then, we're going to take our tamper, and we're going to tamp down
the capsules, pressing the powder in. We're then going to work a little bit more powder where
the empty space appeared as we compressed everything.
We're going to tamp down a couple of times until we feel like we get
all of the space filled.
Once we get it filled, we're gonna take our whole card here and just sweep off our excess
that we will reuse. Now, at this point you can fill the tops,
but that kind of makes it difficult to press them out and they aren't always even, so I don't
it wastes a little bit of space but makes it more convenient for the person hand-filling these. So we're going to
take
the bottom off of the base,
we're going to add our top piece in and then there is
a plastic piece on top that allows us to press
the
tops into the bottoms. And, when we
feel like we've got a good compression,
we take the top off and here is our packed capsules ready to go. Now,
we have one more step though, because as
we take these,
one of the drawbacks to capsules is that you don't taste the plant, and
taste is a way that your body knows what's coming it; helps prepare you for any food that you eat or any herb that
you take, so what we're going to do is
we're going to
put our capsules into a jar, and another convenient
part of the capsule machine is that you can just simply press the plastic and
they come out pretty easy. Now,
we're gonna take just a pinch of the powder that came loose, and we're just going to sprinkle it in so that
when we give it a shake, all of the capsules are now coated with a fine dusting of the same plant
that's inside. When we taste that, our body knows what's going to come next, and you'll
digest everything, and
absorb all the good stuff from the herbs. So that's an easy way to save money making your own capsules using the capsule machine.
So here's the list of some of my favorite herbs to use encapsulated.