I never liked the taste of kratom. To put it mildly, kratom has a strong flavor. While most people don’t have a problem with the leafy, grassy taste, I have difficulty dealing with it. But the good news is that there exist a couple of methods that give you complete freedom of molding the herb in a way you like. Instead of taking this herb orally, you can make its powder, capsules, tea and add a couple of your everyday kitchen items, including ginger, and honey, to mask the bitter taste associated with this plant.
Now here’s the best part. For those of you who want to get the most out of their all-natural kratom powder while also customizing the taste to your liking, making a DIY kratom tincture is your best option. Why do I say this? Here’s why: Super concentrated, fast-acting, highly portable, and easy-to-use tinctures hold quite a few advantages to their name that other traditional kratom powders do not. What’s more, you can store your kratom tinctures for an extended period without the fear of ”drying out ”.
Sadly, owing to the restriction on Kratom access by the FDA in many parts of the world, finding and buying high-quality kratom tinctures is becoming increasingly difficult. The answer? Making your very own tincture from raw kratom powder right from within the comforts of your home. Lucky for you, In addition to being perfectly legal, making DIY kratom tincture is easy, simple, and will give you something super fun to do to keep the quarantine boredom at bay.
Now before we go ahead and talk about the specifics of making a tincture, let’s talk about What Exactly is Kratom Tincture?
Kratom tincture is a form of kratom extract made with an alcohol-based solvent. One of the most commonly used solvents is ethanol combined with other organic substances, including water. You see: Alcohol helps keep the alkaloids intact, leaving you with a highly concentrated solution that is super potent and incredibly effective.
A full spectrum tincture is typically used from the various kinds of Kratom tinctures. This means that you get all the alkaloids in the resultant tincture. By contrast, many prefer the isolated tinctures made via specialized methods and contain specific alkaloids, such as the mitragynine or the 7-hydroxy mitragynine. For those of you who want to make an isolated alkaloid tincture on your own, keep in mind that the development process is a great deal more complicated than the full spectrum tincture.
Why Make Kratom Tincture at Home?
If you are someone who has been using kratom for a long time now, you probably have a good idea of how kratom powder and capsules work for you. But what if you could get twice the benefits of your regular kratom at almost no cost at all? Sounds good, right?
Take a look at some of the common benefits of taking kratom tinctures instead of regular kratom. And trust me, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
- Incredibly Fast-acting: Your body can absorb liquid-based products, i.e., Kratom tincture, far better than regular kratom. The result? You are in for a quicker onset of its incredible effects.
- Super Potent: These are highly concentrated extracts. Hence, the required dose will be much lower than you ingested previously with regular old kratom.
- Easy Storage: You can easily store them for an extended period without the fear of it ‘’drying out’’.
- Highly Portable: Considering that you can store the tinctures in resealable bottles, you can easily stick to your kratom regimen while on the go. Convenient, right?
- Subdued Bitterness: Easily, the best part about kratom tinctures is that you can add an array of ingredients, including honey, lemon, and cinnamon, to the concoction that will immensely help cut down on the herb’s bitterness.
If any of the advantages mentioned above appeal to you, feel free to give homemade kratom tinctures a try right from within the comforts of your kitchen.
What is the Best Strain for Making Your Tincture?
The best part about making your homemade tincture is that you have an array of options to choose from. From red Sumatra, Green Malay to White Maeng Da and Bali Gold, you can pick your pie. Because the good news is that there isn’t a single strain out there that you can’t make a tincture from.
All you need to do is figure out what kratom works for you and the effects that you are aiming for. If you have been using kratom for a long time, you will probably be aware of the specific strain that suits your individual needs. On the contrary, if you haven’t got a clue on kratom strains but still want to try making a homemade tincture, you are welcome to mix and match various strains and see what works for you.
How to Make Your Kratom Tincture?
Moving on to why we are all here, let’s look at how you can make your tincture at home. To start with, you have two different options to choose from while making your tincture;
- Making tincture from leaves
- Making tincture from processed powders kratom
Believe it or not: The entire process of making kratom tincture is no rocket science and will hardly take you 30 minutes tops. Though the alcohol quickly extracts all the necessary alkaloids from the powder, you still need to let it sit for at least a week before you start using it.
Equipment Needed
- Measuring scale to measure the quantity of kratom powder
- Glass jar (that can be sealed) or a big mason container
- Multiple tincture bottles made with dark glass
- Funnel (While not essential, it is recommended to use for accurate measurements
- Material for straining (you can use a cheese-cloth as well)
Ingredients Needed
- Powdered kratom (Around 4 to 5 ounces will suffice for personal use)
- Mitragyna Speciosa’s leaves
- Ethyl Alcohol (For about 4 ounces powdered kratom, one-litre alcohol is good enough)
- pH strips
- Citric acid
Making Tincture from Mitragyna Speciosa Leaves
- Take leaves of kratom, some water, and ethanol and mix them well.
- Place this mixture in a jar that can be fitted tightly when needed.
- Add some citric acid as a preservative in the mixture
- Use a pH scale to monitor the pH level of the mixture and observe whether it has dropped to 4
- Now, seal your mixture jar and start shaking it for a few minutes
- Right after shaking, place the jar in some dark area for about 7 to 14 days
- After one or two weeks, use the strainer to strain the saturated liquid
- Discard the leaves and put your liquid in the same jar
- Try evaporating half of the liquid
- One-half of the liquid is evaporated, it will become a thick extract, and your tincture is ready.
- And Viola! Your homemade tincture is ready to use.
Making Tincture with Powdered Mitragyna Speciosa
- Precisely measure the doses of both the powder and alcohol you have taken. Note down their measured quantities. Different amounts of ethyl alcohol can be taken depending upon the powdered Mitragyna Speciosa dose. For one-liter alcohol, taking 4 ounces of powder will suffice. Next, take your mason jar and put the powder and ethyl alcohol into it. Mix it well to obtain a fine mixture.
- Add a small amount of citric acid to the mixture obtained from step 1. Use a pH scale to observe the acidity of the mixture. Keep on repeating the same procedure until you get a 4 or even lower value on the pH scale.
- This step ensures that the tincture has fully extracted all the Mitragyna’s alkaloids. Now, seal your mason jar and shake it for a couple of minutes. Once you are done with it, place your jar in some dark and cool place to store it. Avoid placing it directly in the sunlight. Don’t touch the jar for at least 7 days to get good results. According to many regular users, allowing the mixture to sit for a long time (up to 14 days) can give even better results.
- After 7 days, you can strain your mixture. Before you open the glass jar, shake it well. Open your jar, take a cheesecloth or any strainer and cover the jar with it. Take another glass and use the strainer to pour a liquid into that. If there is still some kratom powder in the mason jar, immediately remove it. After that put your liquid mixture back in your mason jar with the help of a funnel.
- To achieve a higher potency level, allow almost half of your mixture to evaporate. Cover the mason jar with a strainer. This ensures safe evaporation of the liquid. During or after evaporation, the overall alkaloids proportion of your kratom tincture will not be affected at all but it can affect the potency per millilitre of your liquid. Most users keep on evaporating their mixture until it becomes equal to one bottle for one ounce of powder. Its dosage guidance is given below to determine the levels of your desired potency.
- Take an empty bottle and put the tincture into it. If you want to store it for a longer period, seal it for secure storage. For making multiple versions of this herb, you should place separate labels along with their dosage and manufacturing date.
Dosage for Your Newly Made Tincture
As far as dosage is concerned, there exists no hard and fast rule about its dosage for everyone in general. The tincture effects differ from strain to strain, and the appropriate dosage depends on several factors, including diet, physical health, age, health problem, and so on.
For those of you who are keen on taking the exact measurements, here’s one way to calculate its dose. Note down the amount of kratom powder you have taken to make your tincture. Once it is ready, note its volume in milliliters as well. Take the ratio of these two quantities. It can effectively give you an estimate of the potency per milliliter of your tincture. From this, you can determine the milliliters required to reach your desired dosage.
If you plan to start a new Speciosa strain, start with lower doses and gradually move your way up as your body gets accustomed to it. While kratom, fortunately, has no serious side effects, it is nevertheless better to be on the safe side and take it slow.
How to Consume the Kratom Tinctures?
When it comes to ingesting your dirty tinctures, there are several different ways to do so. A few effective ways to consume it are as follows:
- Swallowing
- Sublingual dosage
- Adding them to your favourite beverages or food
Swallowing
If you are someone who likes to keep it straightforward and simple, swallowing your tincture dosing is your best bet. Apart from an easy method of consuming them and requiring no special effort to do so, it is highly efficient as opposed to taking kratom powder orally.
Sublingual Dosage
Another quick and easy way of ingesting the tincture is to put the dose under your tongue for about 1 minute and directly swallow the rest. Placing the tincture under your tongue for a while will help you quickly absorb most of the alkaloids from Speciosa. As for the rest of the organic compounds, they are digested. Most users prefer the sublingual method owing to its improved efficiency.
Adding Them to Your Favorite Beverages or Food
And the last method of consuming your tincture is by far incredibly popular, and might I add, my favourite is perfect for those who are bothered by the bitter taste of this herb. You can add your kratom tincture to an array of beverages or food of your preference. While the downside to this method is the rate of absorption of the alkaloids is delayed, but it is still an incredibly enjoyable process. This is an excellent way to customize your desired dosage. It cannot increase the speed of alkaloids absorption, but you can enjoy it a lot compared to other methods.
Advantages
The more prominent pros are:
- User-friendliness
- More potent
- Quick effects
- Offer different effects
- Long-lasting (up to 1 year)
Disadvantages
A few cons are:
- Costly (especially when purchased)
- There could be a fluctuation in effectiveness depending upon how you take it
Give It A Go.
While Kratom strains can be taken in different ways, taking them in the form of tincture is a fantastic way to get more potent and quicker effects without breaking the bank. And considering that Kratom tinctures are not readily available and few vendors stock them, making your own is your best bet. And the good news is that you don’t have to scour pages after pages on the internet on ways to make it. With our detailed step-by-step guide provided above, it’s safe to say that we have got you covered.
A word of caution: Tinctures are incredibly potent as opposed to regular kratom. It’s best to start with a lower dose initially and move your way up as your body gets accustomed to it.
Here you go. This guide is all you need to make the best homemade kratom tincture right in your kitchen.
So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and start mixing. Share with friends or family who might be looking to formulate their tinctures at home. Good luck!
Jennifer Kurtz is a founder of KratomGuides.com and studied medicine at the New Jersey School of Medicine (Rutgers). She is passionate about developing her knowledge of Kratom, and nutritional supplements. In addition to attending medical webinars and conferences, she loves to write research-based articles for magazines, healthcare professionals, and medical agencies. Jennifer is always looking to develop her knowledge for the Kratom through scientific researches and frequently asked questions of customers looking to buy kratom from reliable sources.
