Chalenge

[hedgewizard]

Quite right, valerian used to be commercially grown in the UK and was widely prescribed as a "minor sedative", until the land was turned over to food production during WWII. After the war a synthetic alternative was manufactured which was brand-named "Valium". It's still widely used as an anxiolytic, but is falling out of favour because it is addictive.

I'd have a hard time overdoing it on valerian tea because it's, and say it with me now, absolutely revolting!

Lemon balm... bath... sock. Now there's an image I didn't need in my head! (grumbles)

[ina]

Lemon balm and elderflower is nice - at least fresh, I've never had it dried.

My parents used to make their own syrup from sugar beet after the war and told me how to do it - but you are right, it's an awful lot of work. Better to cut back on sugar altogether, and buy it for the few things where you can't do without, I think.

[hedgewizard]

Just out of interest - what was the method? And wombat, what method did you use?

[Wombat]

Quite simple mate, from memory..............

Grate them up and then mulch them in water with a potato masher, strain and boil to concentrate. I tried reducing the "beetyness" using activated charcoal and was spectacularly unsuccessful. The next step is to crystallise the sugar out by concentrating even more, but I did not know that then!

Nev

[hedgewizard]

If there are any chemists on the forum, how could you make the solution more concentrated without having to boil it right down? It makes it horribly eco-unfriendly in a home setup... something involving a semi-permeable membrane perhaps?

[Wombat]

Yep, I'm an ex-chemist! I could have tried lowering the air pressure with a vacuum pump to allow the water to evaporate more rapidly. As for the semi-permeable membrane, reverse osmosis is the way to go!

Nev