How to Make Cannabutter

[Toker]

Butter is a delicious and versatile carrier for THC and other cannabinoids, although it isn’t the only one. You can also use coconut oil, olive oil, or any other fatty oil for your infusions. Just keep in mind, butter burns easily, so keep a close eye on your cannabutter as it cooks.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of butter
  
• 1 cup (7-10 grams) of ground cannabis, decarboxylated
  

Directions for Decarboxylating Cannabis

Before making your cannabutter, you’ll need to decarboxylate the cannabis flower you’re working with. Skipping this step will result in a weak or inactive finished product. Here’s why: Cannabis buds produce a non-intoxicating acidic cannabinoid called THCA. When we smoke or vaporize cannabis, the heat converts THCA into THC, the molecule that delivers euphoric effects. If preparing CBD edibles, this same process should be applied.

Some recipes may instruct you to decarb cannabis in the hot butter directly, but the less time you spend soaking the buds, the better your infused butter is going to taste. For this reason, we recommend decarbing in the oven first.

Here’s how it’s done:

1. Preheat your oven to 245ºF.
   
2. Place your cannabis buds on a non-stick, oven-safe tray. You can also cover the tray with parchment paper to prevent sticking.
   
3. Insert the tray into the oven and set a timer for 30 to 40 minutes. Older, drier cannabis may require less time. (Tip: you can also set your oven to 300ºF and heat for 10 to 18 minutes, although low-and-slow is the recommended approach when decarbing to better preserve cannabinoids.)
   
4. Every 10 minutes, gently mix the buds with a light shake of the tray. This helps to expose the surface area of the buds equally.
   

Now, your cannabis has been decarboxylated and you’re ready to cook your butter.

Directions for Slow Cooker:

1. Grind your cannabis coarsely with a hand grinder. (Tip: A coffee grinder will finely pulverize the flower and prevent effective straining of bad-tasting plant material.)
   
2. Set your slow cooker to low, or somewhere around 160ºF. (Tip: Avoid exceeding 200ºF to prevent burning or wasting cannabinoids. You can also add a little water to help prevent scorching.)
   
3. Add the butter and ground cannabis. Stir occasionally.
   
4. After about 3 hours, turn off the crockpot and wait for the butter to cool.
   
5. Proceed to straining instructions below.
   

Directions for Stove Top:

1. Add 1 cup of water and 1 cup of butter into a stock pot or saucepansauce pan. Simmer on low and let the butter melt. Adding water helps to regulate the temperature and prevents the butter from scorching.
   
2. As butter begins to melt, add in your coarsely ground cannabis product.
   
3. Maintain low heat (ideally above 160ºF but never exceeding 200ºF) and let the mixture simmer for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally. The mixture should never come to a full boil.
   
4. Proceed to straining instructions below.
   

Straining Your Cannabutter:

1. Set a funnel on top of a jar and line it with cheesecloth. Once the butter has cooled off, pour it over the cheesecloth funnel and allow it to strain freely. (Tip: Squeezing the cheesecloth may push more bad-tasting plant material through).
   
2. Refrigerate the jar of butter. Refer to dosing information below before adding your butter to any snacks, dishes, or desserts.
   

Tips for Dosing Cannabutter


Your butter’s potency depends on many factors, from how long and hot it was cooked to the potency of your starting material. To test the potency of your finished product, try spreading ¼ or ½ teaspoon on a snack and see how that dose affects you after an hour. Decrease or increase dose as desired. You can then use this personalized “standard” dose as a baseline for your recipes. For more information on why potency is so difficult to measure in homemade cannabis edibles, check out part four of this series.

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More info can be found HERE

Enjoy...

 

[Snooky]

If you don't mind, I shall add my own method. It is much simpler, and uses Coconut oil, which is easier to convert from liquid to solid and vice versa, melts quicker, and doesn't burn as easily. It is up to the chef which base ingredient will work better for their intentions.

Needed:
1. Crockpot or slow-cooker with similar heat settings. Low heat will be used. Smaller crockpots without multiple heat settings use the low heat setting.
2. Cheese-cloth or a similar type of mesh filter.
3. A GLASS jar of coconut oil. You must save the jar. Hot liquid cannabutter will be poured back into this jar, which could melt plastic.
4. 1 oz. (28 grams) of cannabis bud per jar of coconut oil. One half ounce may be used per jar also, or in the case of non-bud material, use more to compensate for the lower cannabinoid content.
5. 1 rubber band.

Directions:
1. Empty the jar(s) of coconut oil into the crockpot.
2. Throw the cannabis on top of it.
3. Activate crockpot. Set to low heat
4. Let sit for 12 hours, heating on Low all the while. There will be a very strong smell, unless you are smoking trash
5. After 12 hours, grab the glass jar you set aside and take a square of cheese cloth. Push the cheese-cloth down into the opening of the jar and secure it with the rubber band to create a bowl-shaped cheese-cloth filter. Same shape as a coffee filter, basically.
6. Take some oven mitts. I usually do this while it's still hot to prevent any solidification of the solution prior to collecting and filtering the product. Pour the cannabis-infused coconut oil back into the jar!
7. If you want it to solidify (it will look very pretty and smell super nice), stick it in the fridge! If you need to turn it back into liquid again, stick it in front of a heater for a few minutes.

This method is great because the heat of the crock-pot is just right to infuse the coconut oil, AND to convert the THC into absorption-ready THCa. That makes this one of the quickest methods of making effective butter! And it will be effective, trust me. I kept feeding it to my girlfriend one day and she actually passed out while walking. (I didn't give her as much after that.)

NOTE! Cannabis is legal in my area. If you do not live in an area where cannabis is legal, DO NOT follow these instructions!

Edit: To use in place of butter, just use the same amount that is called for in the recipe. This extraction will incorporate the full flavor of the bud into your butter. That is how I like it. If that is not how you like it, you should edit technique to suit your own needs.