Helpful List of Equipment to Support Natural Remedy Preparations

Introduction

One of my favorite hobbies is to stock up my medicine cabinet with homemade natural remedies. However, natural remedy preparation requires specific equipment to be able to support the process. Many of the needed tools can be found already at your home. I did notice when I first started making some of the herbal based products that I really did need a few additional pieces. I also realized that I would need dedicated equipment. This is to make sure I did not cross contaminate my herbal preparations with my normal cookware.

Whether you are just starting or well along the way with shifting towards making all natural products having a quick equipment checklist can be a good reference. When I was starting out, I did not find out about many pieces of equipment that would have been useful until I started researching what I needed.

This article lists out equipment that I find useful when making natural remedy preparations. This is definitely not an all-inclusive equipment list, and you may not need all of the equipment detailed below. The equipment I am listing is hopefully a helpful start. Below I have bullet pointed out standard equipment I keep on hand that has been very beneficial.

Take a look at the below article to give you some ideas of what types of medical herbal preparations you can make:

Ten Great Ways for Medical Herbal Preparations

Useful Equipment for Natural Remedy Preparation:

Equipment

• Double Boiler (stainless or non-reactive)
• Pots and Pans (stainless or non-reactive)
• Glass Mixing Bowls and Glass Measuring Bowl
• Drying Racks and Pans (aluminum, stainless steel or non-reactive)
• Mixer (I prefer an immersion handheld mixer)
• Food Processor
• Tea Kettle and Tea Pot with Lid
• Kitchen Scale
• Strainers (in a few different sizes)
• Funnels (in a few sizes)
• Utensils and Measuring Cups and Spoons (stainless or non-reactive)

Product Storage (sized as needed)

• Dark Glass Vials or Bottles
• Droppers and Pumps
• Tins, Glass Jars and Glass Canning Jars
• Labels

Brief Explanation of Each Equipment

I lean towards using stainless steel and glass tools and equipment for many of my natural remedy preparations. The reason for this is stainless steel and glass tend to be less reactive towards fairly abrasive chemicals and they are very easy to clean. They also tend to hold up a lot longer I have had mine for several years and they still are like new. Make sure to avoid aluminum, iron and tin while processing your natural remedy preparations as they can be reactive to many chemicals.

Buying new equipment can be expensive, but I did find that it was worth it especially switching to stainless steel and glass verses microwavable plastic. I did not buy all the equipment I needed all at once, but rather purchased items slowly overtime. You do not have to use stainless or glass you can also use enamel, ceramic, wood, heat resistant plastics and nylon. Look into the equipment material you are purchasing to ensure it can hold up to the chemicals you will be using. Remember some of your medicinal preparations will be made to last year’s. You want to make sure you are not introducing any harmful leachable chemical into them.

Double Boiler

I have found a double boiler to be very useful for when I need to melt down butters and waxes. A double boiler allows for a gentler heating and melting process. It usually consists of a smaller pan or bowl that sits inside a larger pan. The larger pan contains the boiling water, and the smaller pan nestles down inside of this. The butter or wax is placed in the smaller pan to melt. As the water heats up the smaller pan indirectly heats up with it.

The gentle heating process is perfect for heating or melting temperamental things such as chocolate, butters, or sauces. One example of a butter that can be temperamental when heated is cocoa butter. It can become grainy if heated to fast or over heated. You will find that many recipes need you to melt down butters and waxes making a double boiler a very useful piece of equipment.

Pots and Pans

Many herbal preparation remedies require heating ingredients such as water and oils or other additives. You may even need a good pot to prepare a decoction or poultice. Just like any of the equipment you will be using make sure the material of your pots and pans can handle the chemicals you will be placing in them. Also, it is important that you have dedicated pots and pans to support your herbal preparations. You may be dealing with toxic chemicals and herbs that you would not want to mix with your regular food preparation.

Glass Mixing Bowls and Measuring Bowl

I use my glass measuring bowls of different sizes for measuring and mixing my ingredients. I like to use glass since it is not reactive to most chemicals, I use in the natural remedy preparations I make. Glass also holds up fairly well to the heated ingredients used during the preparations. The bowl type is very sturdy and does not get nicked and scratched. Mixing in glass a bowl is nice because you do not have the chance of getting slivers of plastic or metal in your preparations. They can also handle fairly high temperatures that many of my ingredients are at when I am mixing them.

Drying Racks and Drying Pans

You may not require a drying rack or pan for all of your recipes, but they are very useful to have on hand. I use my drying racks and pans for many activities, including drying fresh herbs, curing my homemade soaps, and letting my bath balms dry. There are of course many other uses. Using a drying rack to dry your herbs allows airflow to pass through your herbs. Doing so helps eliminate moisture that in turn can grow mold over time. This is a great way to dry herbs in a natural process.

Mixer

A mixer will be required to blend your ingredients together allowing for a homogeneous mixture. It is important your ingredients are well blended. You do not want to have one extra concentrated dose and then the next not so concentrated. Many mixtures require mixing to work at a molecular level such as emulsions a process for making lotions.

I lean towards using an immersion mixer for many of my preparations. This is because there is less chance for splashing. There are many immersion blenders that have interchangeable parts which can be useful. A few examples include a whisk so you can whip verses mix, or a chopper needed for other activities.  

Food Processor

I made do for many years without a food processor. However, I do find that my herbal preparations go a lot quicker and smoother when I make use of mine. I do not need a large one typically if I am making my preparations for just my family. They are fairly inexpensive, so it was a nice addition to my equipment when I made the decision to purchase one.

I use mine for shredding or chopping my herbs used in my natural remedy preparations. I have used my food processor to make herbal pesto or mixes that I use in my poultices. It is a great quick way to chop up fresh herbs as well.

Tea Kettle and Tea Pot with Lid

Tea kettles make a great tool to heat up or boil the water you will need for teas. Once the water is heated it is poured into a teacup or teapot. Then the herbs are added to the heated water to start the herbal steeping process. Teas are a great way to take delicate herbal infusion.  Teas do not typically take long to prepare so using a tea pot that is glass or ceramic materials are both reasonable choices.

Kitchen Scale

The kitchen scale you select does not have to be a large scale, just one that can weigh out the ingredients for the natural herbal preparation sizes you plan to make. I will recommend getting a scale that can measure by grams, ounces, and pounds. I have seen recipes list ingredients in ounces and in grams.

Another thing to keep in mind when deciding what scale to purchase is precision. Many recipes will call for very small ingredient additions even as low as .01 oz, especially if you are not making very much. You need to find a scale that can weigh out the minimal amount in a recipe but still be able to measure a larger amount if you are making batches in bulk. I don’t typically make more than 10 pounds of any of my recipes, but I have a scale that can read the 0.01 oz weight and up to 20 pounds. This was my choice you may not need to weigh out that much so you could go to a lower upper weight specification.

Funnels

Having a few different sized funnels on hand can be very useful, especially when you are pouring a powder or liquid into a container with a small opening. I like to have a few sizes as I have many different container types, everything from jars, to vials or even to wine bottles. Pouring using a funnel definitely cuts back on a mess at times.

I do like to use stainless steel and glass funnels; however, you can use a variety of materials. Just keep in mind the interaction of the material you are using with the chemicals that are in your herbal preparation. The material you choose needs to be strong enough to handle your product and not react to it.

Useful Utensils for Natural Remedy Preparations

We don’t often think about the utensils we use when we prepare our products, but it is important to think through the material of anything that may touch your product. You do not want any adverse reaction of a material you are using to scoop a specific ingredient with to get into your product. I lean towards stainless steel or glass utensils but there are any number of materials that you can use.

A few examples of utensils often used in preparing your products can include:

• Cutting Boards
• Knives or Cutting Utensils
• Measuring cups and Spoons
• Mortar and Pestle
• Scissors
• Sieves
• Spatulas
• Spoons and Scoops
• Tongs
• Whisk
• Thermometer

Storage for Natural Remedy Preparations

Storage containers are meant to help protect your product from the elements of the outside environment. For example, dark containers can help protect light sensitive product from degrading to light. However, it is also important to think through what your storage containers are made of. Just like the tools you use to prepare your product you can introduce toxic chemicals into the product over time if you choose the wrong material for storage.

Dark Glass Vials or Bottles

Many natural remedy preparations store well in glass vials or bottles. A few examples include tinctures, wines and even many oils. Many of these products can be too abrasive to store in plastic especially since alcohol-based products can last for years. Choosing tinted dark storage vials or bottles can help lengthen shelf life of your natural herbal preparations. There are clear glass vials that can be used, however many products are light sensitive. They degrade when constantly exposed to light. Wine and other alcoholic based products are a few examples of such products. It is best to store these in dark glass vials and bottles.

Droppers and Pumps

Pumps work well with bottles for use with lotions and liquid products. You can use glass bottles with a pump, depending on how long you plan to store your product. Plastics such as PETG are also usually pretty safe to use for homemade lotions and other pumpable products. Storing your product in an airtight container or close to it will reduce the chance to introduce microbes and bacteria into your product. A pump allows you to be able to extract your product without using your finger or other item to dip into the product. This also cuts back in introducing contaminants.

Just like pumps, droppers are used to retrieve product from a bottle or jar without using your finger which can help reduce introducing contaminates into the product. They do sell vials and bottles that have a dropper as the cap. Keep in mind some of these may not withstand long-term sitting in an abrasive product such as alcohols or essential oils. They do sell glass droppers that can help with this or disposable droppers where you use the dropper once and then discard.

Tins, Glass Jars and Glass Canning Jars

Many products such as thick creams, lotion bars, ointments, powders, balms and salves are very thick and cannot be poured into a container such as a bottle or vial. Products such as these store well in tins, glass jars or canning jars which are easy to scoop the product from. Tins are great for products without abrasive or reactive ingredients. Glass jars can store almost any type of product. Just keep in mind the lid that may come in contact with the product also needs to be made of a material that can handle the product.

Canning jars are very useful as you can store a product in an airtight environment if you pressurize it. This is a great method if you have made a larger batch of product and need to store a few jars. Wide mouthed canning jars can be used to store in the freezer, but you need to be careful to allow enough headspace for expansion of your product during freezing.

Labels

This is actually a very important part of storing your product. You need to label the product that you are storing so you can identify it later. For example, you may be freezing many different types of products at the same how would you be able to identify one product from another if you did not label anything. Labeling is also a great way to include date of preparation so you can know when the product expires. There are many recommendations on what to include on your label. If you are not sure, do a little research to think through what information you should include?

It is also important to choose labels that can handle the storage conditions that you are choosing to store your product at. Many labels will lose adhesiveness when frozen. You may need to write directly on a jar or bag to help with this. Also, what you use to write your labels is important, using indelible ink that does not fade or wash off is important. Typically, permanent marker or printed labels work very well and do not typically fade.

Final Thoughts

There are many other useful pieces of equipment you can keep in your stockpile but the ones I have listed work very well for most recipes. If you are planning on making medical herbal preparations often keeping some of these on hand will be very helpful. I have made very good use of each item I have listed in this article.  If you have a recommendation for equipment that you have found useful, I welcome your comments. I am still building my collection and am always happy to add other tools to my collection to help make preparations easier.