Botanical extraction, step by step.
How extracts are made, from solvent choice to finished product, written by the people who run the extractions.
Pick a method, a compound or a plant.
Extraction anyone can understand.
We teach extraction plant by plant, from a mason jar on a kitchen counter to industrial systems, so people can make and judge extracts for themselves.
Self sufficiency
Our goal is to give back what we have learned by teaching extraction methods on as many plants as we can, so people have the knowledge they need to take care of themselves.
Explained so you can trust it
Every complex method comes with an example from cooking, mechanic work or another everyday task, plus exact instructions, numbers, equipment and processes.
Old medicine, modern chemistry
We read old texts from around the world next to modern chemistry and equipment. We think the future of medicine is a blend of ancient knowledge and modern tools.
Free to read
Simplified versions of everything we teach are free here as articles, because we want people to have access to this information.
What sits behind every guide.
The guides come from systems we have designed and run, from a kitchen counter to a production floor.
Chilled ethanol at scale
Two 1,000 liter jacketed tanks held ethanol at negative 30 degrees Celsius, pumped inline into a 4 foot jacketed centrifuge, with each load soaked for 20 minutes.
Supersaturated solvent
After many runs the solvent was supersaturated, then stepped through bag filters from 75 to 25 to 5 micron and finished on a 1 micron lenticular filter.
Solvent recovery
A falling film system evaporated the ethanol, recondensed it and sent clean solvent back to the main tank for the next load.
Every kind of solvent
Solventless, CO2, ethanol, pressurized hydrocarbons, methanol and pH adjusted liquid to liquid extraction, pulling flavonoids, terpenes, oleoresins, alkaloids and polysaccharides.
Hundreds of equipment hours
Rotary evaporators, jacketed reactors, vacuum ovens, wiped film, chromatography, crystallization under inert gas pressure and closed loop systems.
Safe at home first
With basic home methods we do not heat the solvent, because it is a fire hazard and it degrades the extract. Heating under vacuum or in a distiller is fine.
How the work got here.
About eight years of hands-on solvent extraction, with a background in C1D1 lab design and food manufacturing.
A kitchen counter
Everclear, coffee filters and mason jars. It is the same operation a hundred-thousand-dollar machine performs.
One limit at a time
Better filtration came first, then vacuum, then heat control, then solvent recovery, each added because the last step ran into a limit.
Learning from the best
Time spent alongside experienced extractors, people who had been pulling compounds out of plants for a living long before it was respectable.
Plant scale
A chilled ethanol system with its own filtration and solvent recovery, designed so a load could be soaked, spun and returned with a few valve changes.
Teaching what works
The goal today is to teach the methods on as many plants as possible, so shelf stable extracts are within anyone's reach who has time and patience.
Start with these.
A few places to begin. Every guide is free to read.
Ebooks and courses are coming.
Each one follows one plant at a time.
Our extraction guides, as full books.
Full-length extraction books, each covering one plant from raw material to shelf.
- Chamomile Extraction
- One plant per book
Extraction courses, in our Skool community.
Step-by-step extraction lessons, one plant at a time, with the method shown at each stage.
- Lesson by lesson
Go deeper on growing at our partner website
Visit our partner website shearerfarms.com for the growing side of this plant, from sowing to harvest.
Short notes on extraction, sent about once a week.
What we learn, with no product pitches in any of it.