Once you get beyond roach clips and hot knives, then there is the art of infusing food with cannabis.
Most commonly, people start by infusing cow butter because butter contains a decent amount of fat and it’s easy to use in any recipe.
Technically, the medicinal components found in cannabis require fat to bind to and fat is also needed for the components to be absorbed by the body, once it’s ingested. This makes butter a viable infusion medium for cannabis, that works efficiently.
In the photo (below) you can see what I see:
It’s a whole pound of butter that I infused with 30 grams ( or 1 ounce) of cannabis.
In the cannabis culture, this level of infused butter is often referred to as Canna-Budder, so when you read this term, just know that it is describing infused butter.
Ghee (or clarified butter) can also be very successfully used as an infusion medium. Ghee provides an even more health-conscious infusion option because it (the ghee) itself is a powerful food medicine on its own.
In the photo (below) you can see what ghee looks like.
Ghee contains the perfect ratio (1:1) of omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acids. It offers all the benefits of butter without the impurities and it feeds the beneficial micro flora of the gut. It’s the better choice for anyone who is concerned about addressing inflammation in their body. Be prepared, ghee is more expensive to buy than butter because it’s a concentrate.
To make infused butter you’ll need:
- a full pound (454 grams) of cow butter or ghee
- an ounce (30 grams) of the cannabis strain of your choice (I prefer to blend strains and will often use 4-5 different strains, combined to make up 30 grams in total.)
Directions:
- Decarboxylate the cannabis at 240 degrees F for 45 minutes if you want to decarb specifically for THC.
If you are using a strain or strains predominantly containing CBD, then decarboxylate specifically for CBD. (Set your oven’s temperature to 295 degrees F and decarb for 75 minutes.)
CBD Decarbs At A Different Temperature For A Longer Amount Of Time To Effectively Activate.
Many people will say that they never decarb their cannabis before they make an infusion and that their finished edibles still provide a psychoactive effect.
All I can say to this is:
Yes, you will achieve a certain level of psycho-activity but if you take the time to decarb properly, you will extract even more of the available medicine contained within the material that you used.
I would also offer that cannabis (as a crop) usually takes about 3-4months to produce material that is ready for use. In most parts of the world it’s still expensive, difficult to buy, and not to mention, illegal.
This makes me question why anyone would take a chance, not extracting all that they could by simply taking a realitively short amount of time to decarb it.
So what if it takes another hour?
Its street value is $300 (at the moment) in Canada.
Why risk the potency or active effect for the sake of saving an hour?
Respect To The Herb:
If you’re not going to decarb, at the very least, strain the plant material out of your finished infusions and use it in a baking recipe. For the Love of Good Ganja, do not throw it out... or be forever hexed by Becca’s Blunt Curse.
Never tempt a green witch. Blunt Rant over (wink, wink).
Ok, back to the directions:
- Melt the butter in a sauce pan over a low flame.
- Add the decarbed cannabis to the canister of a Magical Butter machine.
- Pour the melted butter over top of the cannabis.
You won’t have to grind the herb in advance because the machine has an immersion blender built right into it and it will grind and stir the pot as it keeps the infusion at the selected temperature consistently for the selected amount of time.
- Secure the lid of the machine in place. Then set the temperature to 130 degrees F, for 2 hours.
- After 2 hours, turn the machine off. Open it up and make sure that the buds are ground. Scrape any plant material (that may have clung to the sides of the canister or to the bottom of the lid) back down into the butter mixture.
Secure the lid of the machine and run it again for another 2 hours at 130 degrees F.
Once completed, strain the cannabis pulp out of the butter using a fine mesh strainer while the infused butter is still warm.
Pour the strained infused butter into a mould. As it is still warm, it will be a liquid which makes it easy to pour but also easy to spill.
Refrigerate the mould for 4 hours or until the butter returns to its solid form.
Respect To The Herb:
I used a glass bowl with a lid secured in place so that in case the infusion got bumped while it was in the refrigerator, it would remained contained. I then put the left over cannabis pulp into the freezer and froze it for future use.
You’ll recapture about 1/3 of a cup of cannabis pulp in which you will be able to bake right into cookies or squares. Once you do this, each baking recipe should yield between 35-40 cookies or squares. This will produce a comfortable dose (per portion) for a person who regularly eats cannabis.
If you are new to edibles, start with a 1/4 of a portion and wait 2 hours before you eat another piece.
- At this point, you can easily remove the infusion from the mould by slowly running warm tap water around the outside of your mould.
- Cut the infused butter into portions and freeze it in individual portions for longer term storage.
In most recipes, a 1/4 cup of infused butter will get the job done nicely.
Lets take a closer look:
Now how about a practical application?
...like melted over organic, gmo-free popcorn that was popped by using cannabis infused mct coconut oil for double the high.
I welcome your comments and I invite you to follow me on my journey...not even popcorn is safe from the green herb, in my hands. ;)