Mortar and Pestle Materials?!
Question: I've been looking at Mortar/pesstle sets. I intend to use mine with herbs (herbalist), not for cooking.
What material is best? I need a good material that won't leave any grains or peices from the mortar in the finished product. (That will give me a pure product with little impurities.)
Marble, granite, porcelain, agate? I was thinking marble. I heard it's the best for pharmacy, but then I heard agate was the best if you were looking for purity. What do you use and why?
Answers: I've been looking at Mortar/pesstle sets. I intend to use mine with herbs (herbalist), not for cooking.
What material is best? I need a good material that won't leave any grains or peices from the mortar in the finished product. (That will give me a pure product with little impurities.)
Marble, granite, porcelain, agate? I was thinking marble. I heard it's the best for pharmacy, but then I heard agate was the best if you were looking for purity. What do you use and why?
I understand that marble has a hardness rating of only about 3-4 and agate is around 7. If you want absolute purity you'd best go with the agate. However, it costs about 4x as much as marble.
I use a marble set that I've had about 10 years. The only place that the wearing is obvious is around the top edge. I deliberately bought a mortar with a rough inside because the perfectly smooth finish won't hold onto things and they just slide around instead of grinding. Personally I don't have any worry about such a miniscule amount of powdered rock winding up in my medicine.
Porcelain is not acceptable - smooth finish and it chips. Granite, I believe, is used mainly for coarse food like corn and nuts.
Doesn't matter. All are designed to easily cleaned. The claims that one type are "better" than the others are just a sales pitch. Why not just use glass, if you're worried about "impurities"?