Preparing your Dit Da Jow is very straightforward and easy to do, just follow the steps below.

Items Needed:
Dit Da Jow  or Iron Palm Liniment Kit
A One Gallon or larger Glass Jar
Two 1.75 liter bottles of Vodka to start
This short video explains briefly how to prepare your Dit Da Jow or Iron Palm liniment kit after you receive it.We make the kits fresh per order to maintain potency. As described in the video we double wrap it the traditional Chinese way, keeping plastic or other contaminating materials away from the herbs (Update: since the video was made, we now triple wrap our kits). Mixed together these herbs become somewhat active and synergistically stronger. Using heat to vacuum seal or wrapping in plastic could cause issues with the herbs. As with boiling herbs to drink one must always boil in a glass vessel, metal pots cause a metallurgic reaction to the herbs, same goes for plastic, so always use a glass jar.

Short Video With Helpful Tips on Preparing Your Dit Da Jow or Iron Palm Liniment

One tip we are suggesting that is not in the video, is making a small mark with a magic marker at the level line of your Vodka after you added your second bottle of Vodka. You will notice that the level of alcohol (liniment) will have gone down in a few days as the herbs absorb the alcohol like a sponge. In a few days you can add more alcohol to the mark you made, this alcohol does not count against the total amount of alcohol maximum amount of alcohol you can use which is 144 ounces. One more point, you do not need to use all that alcohol if you want to make your liniment a little more concentrated.

Making a good Dit Da Jow or Iron Palm that can be used in a short period of time requires the right alcohol, Vodka seems to be the best, 80 proof and 40% alcohol is what you need to buy, if 37% is all that is available that will work also. Using just grain alcohol or Everclear is not recommended due to fast evaporation. When applied on the skin the grain alcohol based Dit Da Jow does not have a chance to be absorbed in the skin. If you wish to use Everclear or grain alcohol it must be diluted down with distilled water. Depending on the kit purchased this can be anywhere from 37% to 57%.

To really speed up the extraction process, the liniment you are preparing should be shaken at least twice daily for around 2 minutes and for a minimum of 3-4 weeks. If you can shake it more often then your Jow will be stronger in a shorter amount of time and you can can use it faster.

After a month or so you can take a little bit out for use and store the rest. The longer the Dit Da Jow or Iron Palm liniment sits and is shaken periodically the stronger it becomes.

So important facts to remember are:

1. Always use glass
2. Vodka is a very good solvent
3. Shake as often as possible
4. The aromatic nature of some of the herbs requires preparation as soon as you can upon receipt
5. The longer the Dit Da Jow or Iron Palm sits, the stronger it becomes

 

 

 

 

The photos show what the finished Dit Da Jow and the Iron Palm looks like. Notice the herb floating to the top of the Dit Da Jow that is Hong Hua a very important herb for blood stagnation. We need to shake the jar so the Hong Hua mixes in and interacts with the rest of the herbs, you will see a distinct delineation between the other herbs, that is why shaking is so important. Same goes for the Du Zhong and Su Mu in the Iron Palm, very important for bone and tendon health.

 

 

 

 

If you have the right jar you can store upside down for one week and upright the next, alternating each week. After the first few months you do not have to do this as often. Once a week or three times a month should be sufficient. Speaking of jars if you do not have one yet a nice jar on Amazon is the Bormioli 5 liter jar pictured below.

I have been using Dit Da Jow for close to 40 years and have had great success with the tips I mentioned above. If you are using a jar larger than one gallon and you used 128 ounces of vodka you can add an additional 16 ounces or 473ml of Vodka if you wish. Some customers like the Dit Da Jow to be more concentrated and do not add any additional vodka. Always make sure the lid is securely tightened and that the lid is airtight on your jar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picture above shows the Dit Da Jow extracting properly with most of the the herbs settling to the bottom and the deep red color separation. This will be a powerful Dit Da Jow in a short period of time as long as I keep shaking it daily.

Always store your Dit Da Jow in a dark cool place

Below is a photo of the Dit Da Jow I made on the video after 5 weeks, check out the deep red color, this is really going to be a great batch of Jow. I could take some out and start using but I am going to leave it a little longer before I open it up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of our good customers David, was kind enough to take some photos and send them to us showing him preparing his Authentic Dit Da Jow and Iron Palm Liniment Kits right after he received them.

Below is a collage of his photos showing the proper steps he used in his preparation, we would like to thank David for sharing this with me and allowing us to place them on our website.

Advanced Preparation Method

If you are a lab geek like me then you might want to try this variation if you are in a hurry and want to save a week off of the brewing time. This will not necessarily make a stronger Jow but will extract it faster.

You will need a couple of extra jars that are at least 1.75 liters (59 oz) in size or larger. The first step is to add your herbs in the big gallon jar and add one 1.75 liter bottle of vodka, which technically is called a solvent and after it is added to the herbs it is called the Menstruum. Seal up the jar and shake twice daily for 7 days, for about 2 minutes each time.

After the seventh day pour ONLY the Menstruum from the big jar into your smaller jar. You will not get the full 1.75 liters out because the herbs will have absorbed some of the alcohol.

Get what you can and then seal up the jar and place it in a dark cool location. The next step is important but you must be careful, you need to heat up the second bottle of vodka so it is warm to hot anywhere from 90-120 degrees is good.

The easiest way to do this is to pour your second 1.75 liter bottle of vodka into your extra 1.75 liter jar, seal it up and place in a water bath. A water bath is just a pan or pot of water that is being heated up on the stove and then a jar or other type container is placed inside and then is warmed up by the heated water. USE SAFETY GOGGLES AND GLOVES FOR THE NEXT STEP!

Heat up your jar of Vodka ( solvent) until it gets warm to the touch or by using a thermometer (90-120 degrees) then while the Vodka is warm pour it into the jar with the herbs. Seal up the jar and shake hard for a couple of minutes.

The next step is to shake daily twice daily for 7 days. After the seventh day you can pour the contents of the first jar that you tucked away into the big jar with the herbs. For the next seven days shake twice daily, after the seventh day it is ready to use.

What you have done is called a double maceration. By removing the solvent after seven days then adding fresh new hot solvent you have sped up the extraction process. Solvents as they add molecular compounds from the herbs and become the Menstruum slow down their ability to absorb the compounds. Adding fresh solvent that has been warmed up starts the extraction process up again at full speed allowing the solvent to absorb more compounds at normal or faster speed.

The most important aspect of making a strong Jow in a short period of time is agitation or shaking the jar. Without it you will never pull all the compounds out of the herbs in a timely manner, the ancients did not worry about how long it took, they just buried the vessel and left it for a year or longer. By following this more advanced method you will save yourself at least 7 days, if time is not a issue the standard method will work the same, it will just take about a week longer but the end result will be the same. But shaking your jar the first 3-4 weeks is crucial no matter what method you use.

Jars

If you read all of the above information without falling asleep congratulations! The jar you use is very important. It must be large enough to hold the herbs and the correct amount of alcohol but must be able to be sealed airtight so when shaking it does not leak. We have had customers purchase those beautiful glass jars with a lid that just sets on the top of the jar but those jar do not work very well.

We recommend a few jars on the main page of this website, so take a look so you are using the correct jar.
Shaking your jar is imperative. Some customers have asked “can I stir the herbs”? The answer is you can, but it is not as effective as shaking back and forth and up and down.