I am starting a series of post on herbs that will be posted on Wednesdays ” Herbal Wednesdays” I tried to start it last year but got busy with some other things so I will be bringing it back this year. I will start with the how-to basics then each week I will highlight a different herb, I will put the habitat and description, medicinal benefits and how to use in the post.

We will start with how to make your own capsules. 

Making your own capsules is very easy, a little time consuming but well worth it for what you can save. Capsules are so much easier to take than having to make a tea and are easy to take with you when you travel.

By filling your own you know the quality of your herbs. You can purchase in bulk from a reputable store or you can grow your own. By making your own you know exactly what is in them, and they have no added fillers. The FDA allows a certain amount of fillers so a lot of companies take advantage of this, so you are not getting 100% herbs.

Making your own capsules is so much cheaper especially if you use herbs you have grown yourself. Even if you have to buy your herbs it is still cheaper to make your own.

You can make them with a single herb, or mix together as many as you need for your specific needs, and you don’t have to rely on whatever combination the stores have or buy several different ones to get what you need.

You do need a capsule maker, most health food stores sell them, and the capsules. They are cheaper if you can go online to get them.

This is the one I have it will fill 50 capsules at a time.

A capsule maker will cost around 25 to 30 dollars and the refills depending on what size around 10 to 20 dollars for a 1000. There are 4 different sizes of capsule makers

“3” “2” “1” “0” “00” You can go to Here for information on the different sizes and how much they hold, here is a little of the information that they have.

Capsule Sizing Information

• “00” holds about 735 mg.
• “0” size holds about 500 mg.
• #1 holds about 400 mg.
• #2 about 300 mg.
• #3 about 200 mg.

One teaspoon will fill about 7 “0” capsules and about 5 “00” capsules. The weight depends on the density of the powder you are using. Some powders are much denser than others. It also depends on the fineness of the powder. The only way to be sure is to check the weight of each individual material. On a scale accurate to within one-tenth of a gram or even to one-tenth of an ounce or even to a gram, you can weigh 24 empty capsules and then compare with the weight when full. If you only want a small amount of active ingredient, then you can mix with a material such as milk powder or rice powder as a filler. That way you can use “0” or “00” size capsules with various weights of active ingredients.

You can get vegetarian capsules or gelatin capsules. Vegetarian capsules are made from poplar trees and are a cellulose product.   They are kosher, free of gluten, free of preservatives, and free of BSE and TSE. While gelatin capsules are made from beef gelatin. Whatever you prefer.

Empty capsules are sold in bags of 500 or 1000 capsules. The size of the encapsulation machine will determine what size of capsules you will need to get.

Health food stores carry them or you can order online. Amazon carries them and seem to be the least expensive
                                These are some that are from Amazon

Now, how to fill them. Start with your herb or herb blend put in a small bowl, grind them if they need it. I use a coffee grinder to grind mine.

Then get out the Handy dandy pill maker.

Put it together

Get out the capsules and put into the machine

Then  take my herbs and put on the machine

take the scrapper and slide the herbs to fill the capsules. ( yes I know my nails need some attention)

after you do that take the tamper and tamp it down add more herbs, do this several times until you tamp down and the capsules are full.

drop down the top tray.

put the tops on the capsules.

Remove the top tray and you have your capsules. I put mine in a used jar with a homemade label on it.

There you have it, pretty easy to make, better for you since you know just what is in them and saves a ton of money.

Do you think you would like to make your own capsules?