Yew tincture (warm method)

[chaotic_crow]

I collected 14cups of yew needles. Should equal to about 1004g. Split between two people is roughly 500g each (we both want to do this). I don't have a food scale so it's an estimate from what I could get off of google.
We chopped it very fine while still fresh. Used 32oz mason jars that were filled about 3/4 of the way with the yew needles. Filled the mason jars up to the neck with everclear. When we got to the third jar we had so little of the needles left that it only ended up about 1/4 of the way filled so I only poured the everclear to about half full. In total it was 1.75 L of everclear (190 proof).
We let the jars sit overnight and in the morning I started the warm tincture method. I heat the water to about 120-130f and let the mason jars sit in it. Once the water temperature drops to about 100f I reheat it again. It's every 30 minutes or so. Alcohol has a boiling point of 174f and it starts putting off gasses at that temperature which creates a massive fire/explosion risk, the gas can also get you drunk in a very not fun way. Because of that I have the big pot of water with the jars sitting in the window with a box fan blowing it outside even though we're under the boiling point.
I also didn't keep the lids screwed on to prevent any pressure buildup. I did keep the middle circle part on the jars just without the screw on part. Just during the infusion part once it's time for the evaporation phase I'll remove it and increase the water temperature to probably 150-160f.
When you do the warm tincture method you wanna heat it for 4-6 hours. I decided to go with 6 hours. I'll let it cool off a little and strain out the plant matter with a cheesecloth to squeeze out as much of the alcohol as I can before starting the evaporation phase. I plan on reducing the liquid to about two shots worth or even less if I can manage it.
Something fun we learned while making this is that the liquid turns so dark green it looks black and you can't even see a flashlight when you shine it through the other side. That change also happened so quickly, it was a faint green while we poured in the alcohol and put the lit on and as soon as we were done shaking it had already turned black.
I'll update when I'm done reducing the liquid and we take it. Were also planning on taking an anti nausea medicine a little while before we take the yew. Its over the counter though so I doubt it'll do much.
We also plan on drinking a little tequila rose to help better absorb the poison but not getting past the point of tipsy
We may also take some trazadone beforehand but I don't know yet
Fun fact, did you know historically yew tinctures were used in assasinations?

 

[RazzleDazzle]

How did you arrive at the dose, is it just a guess or is it based on something you read?

 

[chaotic_crow]

How did you arrive at the dose, is it just a guess or is it based on something you read?

Online while I was researching, everywhere says minimum lethal dose is 50-100g. For measuring I also just googled. Since you can't really look up exact yew measurements I went off of spruce needles. It's roughly the same size, so not exact but hopefully close enough

 

[RazzleDazzle]

Online while I was researching, everywhere says minimum lethal dose is 50-100g. For measuring I also just googled. Since you can't really look up exact yew measurements I went off of spruce needles. It's roughly the same size, so not exact but hopefully close enough

Thanks for sharing about this. I have some massively overgrown shrubs I can cut that I think are yew. I will investigate it more in the daylight. I clipped a couple of branches and stripped off the needles and it ended up being a very small amount. I can see that this is going to be a pretty labor intensive process getting enough needles to fill a quart mason jar and then chopping them up. But I've got plenty to work with, anyway.

Tincture makes more sense than tea, alcohol extracts more chemicals, not everything dissolves well in water. And we don't have digestive systems for dealing with this kind of plant material.

 

[chaotic_crow]

Thanks for sharing about this. I have some massively overgrown shrubs I can cut that I think are yew. I will investigate it more in the daylight. I clipped a couple of branches and stripped off the needles and it ended up being a very small amount. I can see that this is going to be a pretty labor intensive process getting enough needles to fill a quart mason jar and then chopping them up. But I've got plenty to work with, anyway.

Tincture makes more sense than tea, alcohol extracts more chemicals, not everything dissolves well in water. And we don't have digestive systems for dealing with this kind of plant material.

If you do have yew, get the older leaves not the younger new shoots they put off in spring/summer. We had an easier time with taking those plastic bags you get when shopping. Filled two of those up, we kept pushing the plant down to fill it better. I wouldn't say it was packed tight but the bags were very full. I also only measured the plant after striping the needles off the twigs. We also found it goes a lot faster if you pull the needles off like you would rosemary. Just pull your fingers down the branch the opposite way of the needles growing
While I've heard of people being able to make it work through a tea, the taxine alkaloids are barely water soluble and the tea tastes like ass. I tried it and all it did was make me sleepy that's why I opted for the tincture cause you can reduce it to such a small amount. We'll probably also take a shot of something really strong to get the taste out of our mouths cause the tea nearly made me puke off taste alone

 

[RazzleDazzle]

If you do have yew, get the older leaves not the younger new shoots they put off in spring/summer. We had an easier time with taking those plastic bags you get when shopping. Filled two of those up, we kept pushing the plant down to fill it better. I wouldn't say it was packed tight but the bags were very full. I also only measured the plant after striping the needles off the twigs. We also found it goes a lot faster if you pull the needles off like you would rosemary. Just pull your fingers down the branch the opposite way of the needles growing
While I've heard of people being able to make it work through a tea, the taxine alkaloids are barely water soluble and the tea tastes like ass. I tried it and all it did was make me sleepy that's why I opted for the tincture cause you can reduce it to such a small amount. We'll probably also take a shot of something really strong to get the taste out of our mouths cause the tea nearly made me puke off taste alone

Thanks for the tips, very helpful. I already spent a couple of hours this afternoon stripping needles off of twigs and have 160g on my kitchen scale, although some of that is the less potent newer growth, I was not aware of that at first.

I found this thread:

Perfected Yew Tincture

Hi, I've been busy. I was working on the perfected yew tincture, and after so many failures, I managed to figure it out and suceed. By perfected, I mean, to make a concentrated extract at less volume. Fairly easy, and unlike I anticipated, ethyl acetate is likely not needed. Pretty much what...

sanctioned-suicide.net

Where the post author is talking about a really involved process to refine a tincture. But it also doesn't seem like they ever got a tincture that actually worked, so it seems to me like they may have lost some of the taxine alkaloids along the way.

I am not doing all that shit, if this doesn't work with an everclear extraction I'm moving on to another method. But I will be curious how it reduces down for you, what they describe is ending up with a gloop, rather than a more liquid extract. So keep us posted!

 

[chaotic_crow]

Thanks for the tips, very helpful. I already spent a couple of hours this afternoon stripping needles off of twigs and have 160g on my kitchen scale, although some of that is the less potent newer growth, I was not aware of that at first.

I found this thread:

Perfected Yew Tincture

Hi, I've been busy. I was working on the perfected yew tincture, and after so many failures, I managed to figure it out and suceed. By perfected, I mean, to make a concentrated extract at less volume. Fairly easy, and unlike I anticipated, ethyl acetate is likely not needed. Pretty much what...

sanctioned-suicide.net

Where the post author is talking about a really involved process to refine a tincture. But it also doesn't seem like they ever got a tincture that actually worked, so it seems to me like they may have lost some of the taxine alkaloids along the way.

I am not doing all that shit, if this doesn't work with an everclear extraction I'm moving on to another method. But I will be curious how it reduces down for you, what they describe is ending up with a gloop, rather than a more liquid extract. So keep us postei

Thanks for the tips, very helpful. I already spent a couple of hours this afternoon stripping needles off of twigs and have 160g on my kitchen scale, although some of that is the less potent newer growth, I was not aware of that at first.

I found this thread:

Perfected Yew Tincture

Hi, I've been busy. I was working on the perfected yew tincture, and after so many failures, I managed to figure it out and suceed. By perfected, I mean, to make a concentrated extract at less volume. Fairly easy, and unlike I anticipated, ethyl acetate is likely not needed. Pretty much what...

sanctioned-suicide.net

Where the post author is talking about a really involved process to refine a tincture. But it also doesn't seem like they ever got a tincture that actually worked, so it seems to me like they may have lost some of the taxine alkaloids along the way.

I am not doing all that shit, if this doesn't work with an everclear extraction I'm moving on to another method. But I will be curious how it reduces down for you, what they describe is ending up with a gloop, rather than a more liquid extract. So keep us posted!

I read through that a little bit, from what I learned through my research it sounds like they basically poured out all their taxines. Also they used rubbing alcohol which doesn't extract the same way as drinking alcohol. The soaked the plant in alcohol and dumped the liquid for 3-4 days. That lessened the amount of taxine alkaloids right off the bat. Than they turned the rest into water soluble salts basically that they again dumped before putting it back in alcohol. If there were any taxines left after that they kinda destroyed the batch by adding all the cornstarch and flour. I honestly have no idea why they did that but cornstarch and flour thicken as the heat up do it makes sense that all they got from that was snot unfortunately.

I read through that a little bit, from what I learned through my research it sounds like they basically poured out all their taxines. Also they used rubbing alcohol which doesn't extract the same way as drinking alcohol. The soaked the plant in alcohol and dumped the liquid for 3-4 days. That lessened the amount of taxine alkaloids right off the bat. Than they turned the rest into water soluble salts basically that they again dumped before putting it back in alcohol. If there were any taxines left after that they kinda destroyed the batch by adding all the cornstarch and flour. I honestly have no idea why they did that but cornstarch and flour thicken as the heat up do it makes sense that all they got from that was snot unfortunately.

Wait nevermind I misread that at first, the batch they threw out was just the petroleum wash which gets rid of the oils and such. So that's my bad. I still don't understand the point in the powders but maybe that's the lab process for making the salts. However I would assume that since they turn into a water soluble salt that putting them back in alcohol after may have some type of effects? But i have do education on chemistry so I genuinely have no idea what I'm talking about

 

[RazzleDazzle]

I read through that a little bit, from what I learned through my research it sounds like they basically poured out all their taxines. Also they used rubbing alcohol which doesn't extract the same way as drinking alcohol. The soaked the plant in alcohol and dumped the liquid for 3-4 days. That lessened the amount of taxine alkaloids right off the bat. Than they turned the rest into water soluble salts basically that they again dumped before putting it back in alcohol. If there were any taxines left after that they kinda destroyed the batch by adding all the cornstarch and flour. I honestly have no idea why they did that but cornstarch and flour thicken as the heat up do it makes sense that all they got from that was snot unfortunately.

Wait nevermind I misread that at first, the batch they threw out was just the petroleum wash which gets rid of the oils and such. So that's my bad. I still don't understand the point in the powders but maybe that's the lab process for making the salts. However I would assume that since they turn into a water soluble salt that putting them back in alcohol after may have some type of effects? But i have do education on chemistry so I genuinely have no idea what I'm talking about

Yeah, that makes sense. From what I've seen online, yew poisoning has a pretty high mortality rate, so to distill a large amount of plant matter and not have it work, something must have gone wrong.

I've got 240g of needles right now, which is enough to fill a quart mason jar and then some if I pack it in. I am going to try and collect some needles that are definitely from older growth and chop those up, and then chop up what I have now and add it on top. I don't have it in me to keep going until the winter when things are stronger, so I'm going to maybe have to move on to a different method if this one doesn't work

I am extremely poor right now so I'm just gonna try and see how much I can extract with 750ml everclear. Hopefully for one person that would be enough.

 

[chaotic_crow]

Yeah, that makes sense. From what I've seen online, yew poisoning has a pretty high mortality rate, so to distill a large amount of plant matter and not have it work, something must have gone wrong.

I've got 240g of needles right now, which is enough to fill a quart mason jar and then some if I pack it in. I am going to try and collect some needles that are definitely from older growth and chop those up, and then chop up what I have now and add it on top. I don't have it in me to keep going until the winter when things are stronger, so I'm going to maybe have to move on to a different method if this one doesn't work

I am extremely poor right now so I'm just gonna try and see how much I can extract with 750ml everclear. Hopefully for one person that would be enough.

I feel you on not being able to wait until it's stronger, if you choo the plant fine enough it should be about half the volume it was before. Should have enough alcohol to cover it. Ideally you want about an inch or two above the plant matter because the plant will absorb some of it. It absorbs a lot less when it isn't dry though. Also if you can leave it for a few days in the everclear so its more potent. For a cold tincture you wanna wait at least a week (usually 4-6 weeks for conifers) but honestly it should be enough.
Also when you get to the reducing part, swish the liquid in the mason jar every once in a while so you don't get rings. I really recommend getting a cooking thermometer of some sort. We got a meat thermometer from the dollar store so you don't over heat the alcohol. For the evaporation phase I'm keeping the alcohol at about 140-150f could probably put it to about 165f but I have OCD and I'm overly cautious to be honest

 

[RazzleDazzle]

I feel you on not being able to wait until it's stronger, if you choo the plant fine enough it should be about half the volume it was before. Should have enough alcohol to cover it. Ideally you want about an inch or two above the plant matter because the plant will absorb some of it. It absorbs a lot less when it isn't dry though. Also if you can leave it for a few days in the everclear so its more potent. For a cold tincture you wanna wait at least a week (usually 4-6 weeks for conifers) but honestly it should be enough.
Also when you get to the reducing part, swish the liquid in the mason jar every once in a while so you don't get rings. I really recommend getting a cooking thermometer of some sort. We got a meat thermometer from the dollar store so you don't over heat the alcohol. For the evaporation phase I'm keeping the alcohol at about 140-150f could probably put it to about 165f but I have OCD and I'm overly cautious to be honest

I think I've got a meat thermometer somewhere.

I was planning on taking another week or two anyway to get myself together in general. I'm going to finish collecting the needles tonight and then spend some time chopping everything really fine, so I can just go to the liquor store tomorrow for some everclear and get things started. I might do some gentle heating along the way like you describe with the warm method.

From what I read online, with fresh herbs you want like a 1:2 ratio of herb to liquid, so for 750ml alcohol you'd want 375g yew.

I read that the toxic dose of yew is 50-100g plant material, so I figure that even if it's not as potent now as it is in the winter, that should still be a pretty substantial dose. And if it doesn't work there are other methods and I can try something else.

I spent so long thinking that if I just kept going and kept trying things would get better, and instead things kept getting dramatically worse. I really wish I had started this process a while ago but I didn't. I just, I guess you have to try until you know for sure that it isn't going to work.

 

[chaotic_crow]

I collected 14cups of yew needles. Should equal to about 1004g. Split between two people is roughly 500g each (we both want to do this). I don't have a food scale so it's an estimate from what I could get off of google.
We chopped it very fine while still fresh. Used 32oz mason jars that were filled about 3/4 of the way with the yew needles. Filled the mason jars up to the neck with everclear. When we got to the third jar we had so little of the needles left that it only ended up about 1/4 of the way filled so I only poured the everclear to about half full. In total it was 1.75 L of everclear (190 proof).
We let the jars sit overnight and in the morning I started the warm tincture method. I heat the water to about 120-130f and let the mason jars sit in it. Once the water temperature drops to about 100f I reheat it again. It's every 30 minutes or so. Alcohol has a boiling point of 174f and it starts putting off gasses at that temperature which creates a massive fire/explosion risk, the gas can also get you drunk in a very not fun way. Because of that I have the big pot of water with the jars sitting in the window with a box fan blowing it outside even though we're under the boiling point.
I also didn't keep the lids screwed on to prevent any pressure buildup. I did keep the middle circle part on the jars just without the screw on part. Just during the infusion part once it's time for the evaporation phase I'll remove it and increase the water temperature to probably 150-160f.
When you do the warm tincture method you wanna heat it for 4-6 hours. I decided to go with 6 hours. I'll let it cool off a little and strain out the plant matter with a cheesecloth to squeeze out as much of the alcohol as I can before starting the evaporation phase. I plan on reducing the liquid to about two shots worth or even less if I can manage it.
Something fun we learned while making this is that the liquid turns so dark green it looks black and you can't even see a flashlight when you shine it through the other side. That change also happened so quickly, it was a faint green while we poured in the alcohol and put the lit on and as soon as we were done shaking it had already turned black.
I'll update when I'm done reducing the liquid and we take it. Were also planning on taking an anti nausea medicine a little while before we take the yew. Its over the counter though so I doubt it'll do much.
We also plan on drinking a little tequila rose to help better absorb the poison but not getting past the point of tipsy
We may also take some trazadone beforehand but I don't know yet
Fun fact, did you know historically yew tinctures were used in assasinations?

Finally finished evaporating the tincture to about two shots worth. Took about 12 and a half hours. I probably could've done it faster with a slightly higher temperature but I was trying to be safe.
The smell of the tincture turned inter a sweet grassy and fruity smell. It's not bad hopefully doesn't taste awful. It's also kinda chunky but I'm assuming that's cause I squeezed out the plant matter through a cheese cloth. I'll just blend it in a mixer before I take it.
Not taking it tonight, ended up with a big fear it'll work for my friend and not me. Don't know why cause nobody should be able to survive a dose this big but we'll see tomorrow . I've never had this hesitancy before any of my last attempts and I don't know if it's a sign it'll actually fail or that its really gonna work this time