I use a mixture of water/ethanol because I want to coprecipitate dextran with an hydrofobic drug. So I need ethanol. By my experiment, I understood that I can't use a mixture 50:50 and so I reduced the % of ethanol. Now from literature I read that I can use a mixture of water/ethanol 70:30 v/v % to dissolve dextran without problem.
DId you try to drip Dextran solution (water solution) in your drug solution (ethanol solution)? this method could encapsulate your drug in dextran "gel"
when u add ethanol, you will "disrupt" the hydration of the dextran allowing the polysaccharide molecules to come closer together, interact and form "gel".