Extraction Industry Blog

Extraction 101: What is Tincture?

When it comes to CBD, a lot of terms get thrown around. If you’re unfamiliar with them, it’s easy to get lost. CBD Tinctures are a popular way to use CBD with a history going back a long way. However, many people are unaware of what they are and how to use them. Fear not! Tinctures are one of the simpler ways to try CBD.

What is CBD?

CBD is a cannabinoid. Cannabinoids are chemicals that the cannabis plant produces naturally. There are two main cannabinoids: CBD and THC. THC is the component in marijuana that causes its intoxicating effects. CBD, on the other hand, is found in both marijuana and hemp, but it does not have any intoxicating effects. CBD usually has a relaxing effect. It’s calming and can potentially reduce pain without getting you high.

What is Tincture?

A tincture is an herbal extract mixed with alcohol. A CBD tincture is an extract from the cannabis plant, which includes CBD mixed with alcohol as the base carrier. Tinctures tend to be bitter, so as an end-consumer product, they’re usually mixed with additional herbal extracts and flavors to improve the taste.

Tinctures and CBD oils are very similar. CBD oils are a combination of an extract from the cannabis plant and an oil. The oils are usually medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), like coconut or hemp seed oil. They’re similar to tinctures, but they contain oil in place of alcohol.

People typically use CBD tinctures by placing a few drops of the liquid directly under their tongue. It’s a simple and direct way to use the tincture that absorbs quickly into the body.

Tinctures, like most other CBD products, are commonly used for relaxation, anxiety or stress relief, pain management, and help getting to sleep. Different tinctures can be made and combined with other ingredients to increase the desired effect. Various CBD strains are better for specific uses, depending on the CBD concentration, type of strain, and the terpenes present. Tincture manufacturers try to combine the right strain with the right additional ingredients for maximum effect.

How is CBD Tincture Made?

No two tinctures are exactly the same, so the process will vary, but they all start out with a cannabis extraction system, like the ENTEXS systems. This system will take in raw hemp and produce a high-purity full-spectrum cannabis extract containing CBD, terpenes, and other minor cannabinoids.

First, CBD hemp flower is milled to a finer consistency. Then, that biomass is fed into the extraction system, either bagged for the centrifugal platform or in a feeding bin for continuous feed, on the large-scale systems. Ultra-cold ethanol is circulated with agitation to separate out the CBD, terpenes, and other parts of the plant that you’d want in the tincture while reducing parts of the hemp plant that you don’t want, like chlorophyll and fatty material.

Once the cannabinoids are separated, the ethanol mixture contains the hemp plant’s full cannabinoid profile. Via ENTEXS automation, that mixture is then sent through a wash cycle which removes the ethanol with the highest concentration of cannabinoids and washes through the remaining mixture with fresh ethanol. This allows the system to collect even more of the cannabinoids that were extracted.

The mixture is then continuously automated through a two-stage filtration process to remove any impurities. One stage is dedicated to remove particulates, and the other is for color. What’s left after all of this is a liquid-form tincture mixed with cannabinoids, some remaining terpenes from the plant, and the extraction solvent, or ethanol in this case.

Follow along in our Extraction 101 Series for the next steps in the extraction process following tincture production to learn how to produce high-quality broad-spectrum cannabis crude oil that’s rich in cannabinoids and can be used to create some of the finest quality cannabis products across all categories of the market.