Hello everyone, I am considering making a new tincture for my product line that would consist of 25% alcohol, 25% water, and 50% honey. I will also need to dissolve 1.2 grams of distillate per 100ml.
What I am wondering is if I can use my normal hotplate stirrer for this task or if some sort of homogenizer would be better. Usually I just use MCT or hempseed oil so this is new to me.
Dissolve the distillate in the alcohol imo. Either on the hot plate @ around 40C, or just with agitation at room temp. Then add the water and honey and homogenize over heat. You can definitely mix all of those ingredients over a hot plate. Just remember to add the water to the alcohol mix before you ramp up the temp any higher, or you’ll start evaporating alcohol.
Also very important to keep the honey below 50C for any prolonged period of time. You will begin to degrade the honey at temps above 50C for more than 30 mins
It will ferment. Had this happen before with a horse tincture before. Alcohol may inhibit growth but if you are going for any shelf stabilization be careful about fermentation and mold.
It is for a retail product, I’ll keep that in mind. I know there are a few companies that just do straight honey with extract and it seems to work for them. Did a test bottle of 25ml alcohol, 25ml distilled water, 50ml honey, and the CBD. it seems to have mixed alright. Skeptical about the quality of the emulsion or if it will eventually separate though
Correct. It has to meet specific parameters (Ph matters too!) I’m just mentioning the xanthan gum is bacteria derived so non experienced formulators will want to be mindful. Gum arabic is a decent alternative and of course many others.
@shattertramp if you want a quick way to test emulsion stability (microscope is best imo) you can throw a sample in a centrifuge of some sort for a quick yay/nay
Very cool, what company would you recommend for a small centrifuge (15ml sample size)
Would using a homogenizer drastically improve my chances of a shelf stable mix? Currently I just have 1/2 gal, 2.5 gal, and 55 gal mag stir plate with various stir bars that I’ve been using for all of my products. (Coconut oil, tinctures, massage oil, topicals etc)
I have like 75ml of 200 proof extracted Goya honey comb in my freezer. I extracted a Goya honey comb and did a lot of shit and needless to say its a thin bit of honey alcohol. Idk if you’d want it it’s not fractionally distilled idk how I did it now that I think of it. But yeah it’s taking up freezer space I’ll probably lose a little volume transferring it but it’s yours if you want it.