Hi Calum
Id' be interested in getting some made. Is it alcohol based?
Hi Calum
Id' be interested in getting some made. Is it alcohol based?
Hi, yes. The cheaper variant is 70% the more expensive is more like 10%
Great that you are doing this with ethanol rather than propylene glycol. The commercial products in the UK all seem to use glycol but the FAO guide indicates that a drawback of that is the higher temperature needed to make the extraction which degrades some of the compounds in the extract. Could be a good selling point ... although it is also said that some water-based lotions make it harder to disperse the propolis extract if you are mixing them. The glycol products declare themselves 'alcohol free!!' so the equivalent on the ethanol products should be 'propylene glycol free!!' which seems a better selling point to me.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/w0076e/w0076e14.htm
Do you ever get feedback on how yours performs compared to the usual commercial products? Does its ethanol base ever give problems with it drying up?
PS fatshark - we really need a 'Like' button!
Hi
no problems with it being alcohol based, I think most people understand this is the gentler extraction method. .
No problems with it drying up, there is a lid on the bottle.
My own product, and the products I produce for others have the advantage of the propolis being from a known source.
Commercial producers rely on buying propolis wherever they can get their hands on it. - that could be from anywhere, really I do not believe there is even a standard test method to reliably identify the propolis source (I suppose its pollen could be analysed - after it is extracted).
That's a big marketing difference. You can tell from which local woods the propolis was most likely harvested from by the bees.
Seeing from the attached that propolis has some effectiveness against AFB, I wonder whether scorching and scrubbing beehives to remove propolis is as beneficial as we might think. Maybe we should leave the inside of the hive covered in a protective propolis layer?Originally Posted by gavin
Great that you are doing this with ethanol rather than propylene glycol. The commercial products in the UK all seem to use glycol but the FAO guide indicates that a drawback of that is the higher temperature needed to make the extraction which degrades some of the compounds in the extract. Could be a good selling point ... although it is also said that some water-based lotions make it harder to disperse the propolis extract if you are mixing them. The glycol products declare themselves 'alcohol free!!' so the equivalent on the ethanol products should be 'propylene glycol free!!' which seems a better selling point to me
http://www.fao.org/docrep/w0076e/w0076e14.htm
Do you ever get feedback on how yours performs compared to the usual commercial products? Does its ethanol base ever give problems with it drying up?
PS fatshark - we really need a 'Like' button!
20180103_173613[1].jpg Got to get the half of this filled and labelled for the post tomorrow. Are Santas elves on zero hours contract and free just now does anyone know?
Last edited by Calum; 03-01-2018 at 09:01 PM.
That looks like a fun evening ... er, not.
I can recommend these though it depends what volume is needed ...
139864.jpg
thats a nice bit of kit, nice price too! Will propolis gum it up? Another option is to use one of these and overfill, at about 18 pounds a pop its almost but not quite throw away item ....
Depends how viscous your propolis solution is ... they work well with blood, er, and syrup
Update 2018:
got 1,5kg propolis to process right now. Still some capacity to do some more.
I have also started batch sizes with 70g propolis. With the product in 10/20ml bottles and the option of 50/50% split 20% propolis in 80% alcohol and low alcohol saturated solutions.
Did my first batch of ginger infused propolis solution too, that will go well once I balance out the recipe...
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