Welcome to another blog post. In this article, I’ll show you an in-depth and easy way to make very potent medical-grade cannabutter. I’ll also teach you how you can incorporate this cannabutter practically with any meal.
I’ve tried practically every method of consuming cannabis. Edibles have always had a soft spot in my heart, and it’s probably one of my favorite ways to partake.
Cannabis-infused foods are a great alternative to those who might not like smoking, whether because it burns their lungs or because they have a medical issue in which smoking is not recommended.
Edibles have also been rumored to be one of the safest ways to consume cannabis.
Contents
What is Cannabutter?
Cannabutter is a combination of cannabis and butter. It is unsalted dairy-based butter infused with activated medical marijuana flowers.
Cannabutter is most commonly used to make cannabis edibles, particularly baked goods like cookies and brownies.
How to make Cannabis-infused butter or Cannabutter?
There are a lot of different ways to make cannabutter. Some are better than others. Most of the recipes that I currently see online seem to miss a very few crucial steps that can make or break a proper infusion.
Ingredients
- 50-60 grams of cannabis
- 1 pound (450 grams) of unsalted butter
One of the essential factors in achieving medical-grade cannabutter is using top-quality cannabis. You can use your leftover trim from harvest, but I find the actual flowers produce the best results.
In this recipe, I will be using White widow cannabis strain, but you can use any cannabis strain. White widow is probably one of my favorite strains, and it’s a very potent Sativa, which gives a pretty nice high. If a head high is not what you’re into and you’re looking for pain relief, sleep aid, or muscle relaxation, then I’d recommend you do this same method but swap out the Sativa for an India strain or even a better strain that produces high levels of CBD.
It is very important how much cannabis you use to create a batch of cannabutter. Most traditional cannabutter recipes are tailored for a single batch of edibles, and this is where they go wrong. The cannabutter that we will be making today should last you a good while and can be infused with tons of different meals without adding a huge quantity of butter.
You will also need
- An oven-safe baking sheet
- Cheesecloth
- Hemp cord or cooking twine
- A double boiler
- A fine mesh strainer
Step 1: Grind the cannabis
Grind up all of your flowers first and remove all the stems as well. It will allow the butter to easily pass through and saturate the pouches that you will make later.
Step 2: Decarb the cannabis
Another very important step is to decarb the flower. Decarboxylation is the process of activating your cannabis and converting THCA into THC and CBDA into CBD. It might sound intimidating, but it’s just as simple as spreading your weed on an oven-safe tray and baking it for a short time.
Preheat the oven to 250° F. Once the flowers are evenly spread out on the baking tray, place it in the oven and leave it for about 45 minutes. Make sure that you leave the oven closed during this process. When it’s done, the flowers will be extremely dry, and the color should change from bright green to a deep brownish-green. Let it cool down now.
Step 3: Prepare the cannabis for cooking
Once the buds are all cooled down, carefully separate the flowers into two separate piles. Take some cheesecloth, layer it up a few times, and then cut it to size.
Take the first pile of flowers, and place it on top of the cheesecloth then almost like a burrito roll the cheesecloth up and secure it with some of my hemp cord.
Repeat this same process to wrap up the rest of the flowers as well.
Step 4: Melt the butter
First, cut the butter into cubes, which will help melt it down faster. Place a moderate amount of water into the bottom of the double broiler until the level reaches the bottom of the bowl.
Once the water starts to boil, add the cubed butter and wait for it to meltdown.
Step 5: Add the cannabis
Once the butter is entirely melted, drop the pouches into the butter.
Step 6: Simmer
Add a cup of water with the butter. Every thirty minutes or so, remove the lid and gently stir and flip over the pouches. Maintain low heat (ideally above 160ºF but never exceeding 200ºF) and let the mixture simmer for 2 hours.
Make sure to add water when needed to the bottom of the double boiler.
Step 7: Strain the cannabutter
Now grab your strainer place it over another bowl and drain the cannabutter. Make sure you squeeze out all of the remaining butter from the pouches. Once you pressed out everything, rerun the butter back through the strainer to further remove any remaining plant matter.
Step 8: Refrigerate the butter
Let the butter cool at room temperature for 30–60 minutes.
Now place the bowl into the fridge until it’s completely cooled down and hardened up. It will separate the butter from the water. You will have the clean infused cannabutter on top and the dirty water towards the bottom.
Carefully scrape the butter from the bowl. Reheat this butter once more, then strain it back into a new clean bowl, and that’s it. You have now successfully created some super potent medicated cannabutter.
One of the reasons I like this method is that you don’t need to add much of it to dose yourself properly. i find it anywhere between 1/8 and 1/4 of a tablespoon is enough to get me feeling good for about 3 to 4 hours. It will also depend on the quality and strength of the cannabis strain that you use when making it.
How to use Cannabutter with Food?
You can spread a small amount on some toast in the morning, add some in with your favorite pasta for lunch, or even drizzle some butter over a steak for dinner.
There are so many ways that you can apply this to practically any meal without needing to rewrite the entire recipe. It’s also pre-activated, so if you wanted to, then I guess you could eat the butter directly, but that would be pretty gross, and I don’t recommend it.
Calculate THC Dosage for Edibles/Cannabutter
There is a simple formula to calculate the THC dosage for edibles.
First, you will need to convert grams to milligrams.
1 gram of cannabis = 1000 milligrams
You can do this by adding three zeros after the grams. For example, 1 gram is 1000 milligrams, 7 grams will be 7000 milligrams, and the same way 10 grams will be 10,000 milligrams.
Let’s go to the next step. Now we will convert the THC into milligrams.
For example, you have 1,000 milligrams of cannabis, and the THC content of it is 15%. To get the THC content in milligrams, you multiply .15 with 1000, and the result is 150 milligrams of THC.
Another example, you have 10,000 milligrams of cannabis, and the THC content of it is 20%. To get the THC content in milligrams, you multiply .20 with 10,000, and the result is 2000 milligrams of THC.
Now that you know how to calculate the amount of THC in your cannabis flower, you can easily determine individual doses for your edibles.
Let’s use one of the above examples. So you infuse the 1 grams (1,000 mg) of cannabis flower with 15% THC in 1 cup of oil or butter, which means you have 150 mg of THC per cup of butter.
But the recipe calls for eight tablespoons of butter, and there are 12 servings in the recipe.
8 tablespoons = 1/2 cup
1/2 cup THC content = 150 ÷ 2 = 75 milligrams
75 mg (THC) ÷ 12 (no. of Servings) = 1.25 mg/serving