Evaporating alcohol in extraction

[Guest guest]

I was told by an herbalist that alcohol can irritate the intestines. Since I've

made a

concoction with Everclear, could be that that is my problem.

Does anyone know how long I need to leave the dosage out in the air for the

alcohol to

evaporate? Will this cause much loss in potency?

Thanks from Sheryl

[Guest guest]

alcohol has evaporation point lower than water--by about 173 degrees F ( far

less than the 212 boil point of water), ethanol will evaporate in several

minutes

at room temperature air,the higher the concentration of alcohol, the faster.

There are rates for lab studies using different alcohols...and you can put a few

oz Everclear on a flat dish and time it to see how fast it evaporates totally

to guess at how long for your tincture---you may wish to use the same size open

container and test pure everclear

when you have the time for half to disappear you can use a ratio ( and a lot of

math) to figure it out--youll need to know the percent of alcohol in the

tincture finished product and then calculate time to remove it using same rate

of evaporation

?using other alcohols:

100 ml of isopropyl alc took about 280 hrs ( over 10 days) to evaporate HALF of

it in a wide mouth beaker

so it seems to be a long time to evaporate at room temp.

ethanol poses a fire risk when evaporating so dont smoke or light a match nearby

and ethanol itself ( most liquors are ethanol based-- " proof " means percent--40

proof has 20% alcohol) has a general rate of evaporation of 50% every 24

hrs--quite slow Im afraid

if you have lets say a bottle of tincture of 10 ml, and its about 40% alcohol

thats about 4 mls of alc. every 24 hrs:

after day 1- 2 ml of alc are left

aftyer day 2- 1 ml of alc is left

after day 3- 1/2 ml of alc left etc etc

IF you gently heat at 175 degrees, it may take several minutes to evap most of

the alcohol.

MY suggestion is gentle heating of the tincture, or use a recipe of glycerin

extraction--you can buy glycerin at drugstores