Best recipes for cannabis edibles/extracts

March 12, 2023 12:59 PM

It's my understanding/experience that the gummies available from the (newly legal) recreational dispensaries near me are not very effective. In contrast, I've heard that the quality of the "raw plant" that's available is extremely high. Smoking/vaping makes my lungs ache, so I would like to experiment with making my own edibles/extracts. Doesn't have to be gummies – baked goods, infused honey/oils, etc., would be great, too!

Where do I find the best instructions/recipes for this? Also, where is the best place to get guidance on which strains do X, Y, Z in their edible/extracted form, specifically? (Or is that a thing I ask the person at the dispensary? Or are those effects usually comparable to when something is smoked/vaped, so it's a stupid question?)

I'm somewhat experienced with edibles (and their cautions/dangers, as far as variation in impact/timing), I've just never made them myself, so I'm looking for good ELI5 descriptions of how to do it.

posted by anonymous to Food & Drink (5 answers total)

I've been asked this question often enough that I have a standard blurb about it:

The first step is to decarb your weed using heat. Decarb is short for “decarboxylate”, the process of converting cannabinoids in the plant into a format that produces psychoactive effects. (Smoking and boiling does this automatically but they also denature a lot of the more delicate compounds that are nice in topical and/or medicinal applications).*

The easiest way to decarb is to set your oven to 240 F and spread the weed in an even layer on a foil- or parchment-lined baking sheet. Leave the weed in the oven for an hour.

Once you remove and let it cool a few minutes, grind up the weed to a more-or-less uniform powder using a mortar and pestle, a coffee grinder, or whatever. No need to pick out the stems, because it’s all just gonna infuse and then be discarded.

Now you’re ready to extract the cannabinoids from the plant and infuse them into a medium! I recommend doing this in mason jars because they’re non-reactive, they don’t leech any chemicals, and you can get another one by finishing whatever thing of pickles or jam is in the fridge.

It’s useful to weigh (and write down) the amount of weed you put into each jar so you can calculate strength later. A good ratio to start with is 7 g (~1/4 oz) per 350g of liquid medium. This should make a strong infusion that can be diluted later, or kept as-is if the weed turns out to be shitty.

The basic procedure for all these infusions starts the same way. You’ll want to put the ground-up weed in the bottom of the jar and add the medium on top of it until the jar is 1/2 full (the proportions described above are perfect to use a 1-quart jar for this). Seal the lid on the jar tightly.

Place something in the bottom of your cooking vessel so the jar doesn’t make direct contact with the vessel, like a wire rack or some canning lid rings. Then fill up the vessel until the waterline is above the line of liquid in the jar.

For a tincture, use a metal pot on the stovetop, and use high-proof grain alcohol (spyritus, devil’s springs, everclear, etc) as your medium. Shake the jar a bit so the liquid mixes with the ground-up herb. Bring to barely a simmer, then turn off the flame and let cool for half an hour, then shake the jar again. Repeat this process twice more, then take the jar out of the liquid and let sit overnight. You now have a tincture. **

Pour the liquid through a strainer lined with cheesecloth (or a stocking or a sock), leaving out the last bit where all the sediment is if you want it extra-clean.

For infusing oils, my two favorites are coconut oil and cocoa butter. The process is the same for both (and for most cooking oils, too). Coconut oil works best for incorporating into food and and as a massage oil because it's , cocoa butter works best as a salve (but you can use either for each). Make sure you use *refined* coconut oil, though, the unprocessed stuff turns brown and gets a kind of acrid taste when it’s infused (it still works, but it’s just kinda unpleasant to handle).

For all oils, add half a gram of powdered lecithin to each batch, which will increase the rate and total amount of bioabsorbtion.*** The lecithin may not completely dissolve and some will be left in the sediment at the bottom of the jar. That’s fine.

Both cocoa butter and coconut oil are solid at room temperature but melt above 90 F, pretty close to human body temperature, so if you’re fastidious about measuring, let the container sit in warm water for a bit until melted. Put your jar of oil and weed in a water bath at 160 F for two hours, shaking occasionally.

If you don’t have a temperature-controlled water bath lying around, use a slow cooker with a “keep warm” setting, which will be at 165 F.

Let this mixture cool overnight at room temperature, then heat it up again to lower the viscosity enough to filter it (again through cheesecloth, a sock, etc).

(in addition, infused coconut oil makes a great lube, but it can’t be used with latex barriers)

*Aw geez, it’s the first paragraph and I’ve already got a footnote. If you’re interested in the chemical process, the form that THC is in raw plants is called THC-A; heating the plant changes the shape the molecule is folded, and causes it to shed a carboxyl group, which makes it non-polar and able to cross the blood-brain barrier.

**If you dilute this tincture it’ll become cloudy, because some of the chemicals extracted from the plant are soluble in suitably strong alcohol, but come out of solution when the alcohol concentration decreases. It’s nothing to worry about, it’s actually the same thing that happens to ouzo when you add water to it.

***Lecithin is found in all living cells, but soy lecithin is the most common because is easy to grow and extract. If someone wants to avoid soy products, you can get sunflower lecithin from the vitamin store. Lecithin t’s a lot of properties that are useful for stuff; it’s an emulsifier, a surfactant, and a phospholipid. Its surfactant properties allow the oil to more quickly cover surface area that can absorb it, and the fact that its a phospholipid promotes the oil containing it to be absorbed through cell membranes, which are also phospholipids.
posted by Jon_Evil at 1:40 PM on March 12, 2023

The High Times Cannabis Cookbook -- available from good bookshops (and Amazon)
posted by anadem at 1:49 PM on March 12, 2023

If prices are good for shatter or budder or whatever, I recommend it bc it's one step decarb and mix. Since that comment, I've learned that the easiest, hands-off, least smelly way to decarb is in the instant pot (random first Google link) and I love it.
posted by atomicstone at 3:39 PM on March 12, 2023

I once made butter with about 3/8 of Volcano vaporizer leavings and one stick of butter, and it made something that was like wow. I could just spread a little (1/2T? something like that) and be WELL FINE all evening. I was surprised, but outside of the wonderful instructions above, it was super easy for me to just guess to melt the butter and add the stuff, then stir, and let it steep for (I may have Googled this part). See if you can find a dispensary that sells shake (some used to) and you'll have plenty to experiment with.
posted by rhizome at 7:36 PM on March 12, 2023

I used to go to a dispensary that sold pre-made pot butter/ghee. That would be the easiest way to make brownies and stuff.

Firecrackers are a an easy first recipe though you still have to start with the decarb process like what Jon_Evil explained above. I’ve heard that the decarbing produces a strong, distinctive stench so you might look into that if you’re worried about bothering neighbors or them judging you.
posted by bendy at 8:52 PM on March 12, 2023