Make infusing oils, alcohol, butters & water less of a PITA

[Savage Daughter]

I have been going through all of my equipment, colorants etc in preparation for full-on soap making for this year. I take a bit of a break during the winter as I don't do markets & I don't do seasonal-type designs for the most part. Just not something I enjoy.

Anyways, as I was going through my natural colorants & testing them after nearly a year of infusing, I was feeling underwhelmed by their results, so decided I need to beef all of them up before I actually require them for full-on use. I was not looking forward to this because doing a water bath is time consuming & you need to keep your water levels up in order to have the best results. It also uses up a LOT of my propane for my gas stove.

So I dug out my Magical Butter Machine, which is a stainless steel infusion machine meant to be used with cannabis. I bought this piece of equipment several years back when I was dealing with very intense chronic pain after beginning walking again & began making my own cannabis salves after trying what was available for sale & finding them all lacking. With this machine, you can make a plant infusion - ANY plant infusion - much more quickly, with less time hands-on / watching a simmering pot.

In one afternoon / evening, I managed to re-infuse all of my natural colorants (adding more dry plant material to the base oil & then re-processing). I will continue processing all of my natural plant colorants this way. It has different options for the timer, it has choices for temperature with its built in thermostat, and grinds up most plant material very finely due to the fact that it has a blade similar to one of those old milkshake machines. Great if infusing more woody type materials like roots & whole leaves.

This one unit makes it possible to infuse:

• oils
• butters (including ghee)
• honey
• water
• alcohol
• glycerine

with anything you wish to infuse them with, from natural colorants to herbs to cannabis to barks & roots to vanilla beans to nearly anything you can think of. I am actually curious to see if it would be any good for salve & cream making, to be honest. I will definitely be testing this out in the near future.

This machine is definitely worth looking in to if you do a lot of infusing, tincture making & so on. I have gotten at least 10 years use out of it by this time, with zero issues in how it operates, and do not regret buying it. Ity has paid for itself many times over.

Link to the product: https://magicalbutter.com/

 

[Nona'sFarm]

Thanks for the recommendation. I infuse a lot of my oils with calendula. Normally I warm the oil, add dried calendula petals, then let it sit for several days before straining and storing in the refrigerator. Do you think this would be more efficient?

 

[Savage Daughter]

Thanks for the recommendation. I infuse a lot of my oils with calendula. Normally I warm the oil, add dried calendula petals, then let it sit for several days before straining and storing in the refrigerator. Do you think this would be more efficient?

It would be a lot more effective for oils infused for soap making or skin care making, and efficient, for sure. It's an awesome machine, and it's still at the same price many years later, being sold with the same accessories as well.

I did a good load of coffee beans into an oil base yesterday, have done vanilla beans this way too, and will be doing tonka beans & testing some of the resins I ordered using this machine as well, which hadn't occurred to me before.

An image of the machine for those who are more visual. The top part of the unit, which completely lifts off, houses a heavy duty motor. It's got a fair amount of weight to it. I am not sorry I bought this piece of equipment. It can even be used to make some beautiful, whipped hot chocolate or other warm drinks

 

[Vicki C]

@curlycoat2 also recommends this device for making infusions. Hmmm do I need another device for my soap business? My brain says no but my heart says yes

 

[Nona'sFarm]

Yes, I need to think carefully on this or my skincare side needs to increase substantially for me to justify this purchase, but it looks amazing. There are many YouTube videos on it. Watched one last night where someone used it to infuse dandelion blossoms as a base for salve.

 

[Kcryss]

I use alcohol intermediary infusion for all of my oil infusions. Would this work for that as well?

 

[kelsoe.kat]

I use the levo c for infusions. I love it. I can do up to 8 Cups at a time. I can see everything happening. I don't use the pod that comes with, I use the magic butter press. So convenient. It twists onto canning jars. I am not a soaper, mostly. You guys have gotten me to try for due diligence researching.
Have used 2 magic butter machines and although I've broken one it was the original version of MB machine. Mainly because we would use it every time people came to visit. I have the MB 2 but I prefer my levo.

Edited to add: I can pick my temps, and the replacements for the basin are only $30.

 

[Savage Daughter]

@curlycoat2 also recommends this device for making infusions. Hmmm do I need another device for my soap business? My brain says no but my heart says yes

Oh really?? That I was not aware of. I need to go back & look at her e-book which I purchased last year.

It's a great unit & very well made. I finally pulled it out again after not using it for a couple of years & was standing there thinking *DERP* why haven't I been using this piece of equipment all of this time for this purpose??

For me, it would make sense to buy it even now as I even use it for infusing honey, oils, ghee, even infusing hot chocolate, alcohol for tinctures of some types etc. For someone who doesn't do a lot of infusing, it might not make sense in terms of cash outlay.

I use alcohol intermediary infusion for all of my oil infusions. Would this work for that as well?

I see people saying you must allow your oil to 'vent' - IOW don't put a lid on - while heat infusing the herb into oil after soaking it in alcohol, but I disagree. If you're leaving your herb saturated in alcohol overnight to allow the alcohol to evaporate anyways, there will be a minuscule amount to zero % alcohol left in the plant material.

So I would say yes, it would absolutely work without issue.

If you're still concerned, take the top off the MBM after your infusion period ends & let it all cool to room temperature. You would absolutely have no alcohol left at that point whatsoever.

 

[Kcryss]

I see people saying you must allow your oil to 'vent' - IOW don't put a lid on - while heat infusing the herb into oil after soaking it in alcohol, but I disagree. If you're leaving your herb saturated in alcohol overnight to allow the alcohol to evaporate anyways, there will be a minuscule amount to zero % alcohol left in the plant material.

So I would say yes, it would absolutely work without issue.

If you're still concerned, take the top off the MBM after your infusion period ends & let it all cool to room temperature. You would absolutely have no alcohol left at that point whatsoever.

Geez, guess I'll need to save up for another device. lol

 

[curlycoat2]

I don’t use my MBM very often, it is an advantage but I make bigger amounts and a great variety all at the same time and the MbM limits my batch size. I soak the plants in alcohol for months until I remember them. I use a paper towel lid and slowly evaporate the alcohol off with heat from the crockpot (just like a heat infusion) and then let them sit again till there is no alcohol slick or haze at the top. Yes there is definitely some alcohol left in the plant material. If you don’t remove it all the soap is like jelly straight after pouring it into the mold and completely hard about 10 minutes later. Hilarious things have happened over the many experiments with this technique