Really baked goods: Making medical marijuana-infused foods at home for yourself

mojito2.JPG
Ganja mojito anyone?
There's no shortage of manufacturers creating medical marijuana edibles, but sometimes the best medicated food comes out of your own kitchen. To help get you cooking, I've compiled some basic formulas for making infused oil, butter and tinctures, and also collected a few recipes from people in the local cannabis community. The recipes are for making small batches too, so you don't have to use a lot of herb to get started.

With all of the methods, dosing isn't exact and more of a general recommendation. Finding your own comfort zone with edibles takes time and it is best to start out with light doses and small quantities and build up over time.

A quick note on where to find trim to cook with: If you've got a caregiver, ask them if they have any laying around you can use or if they can save you some on the next harvest. You can also purchase shake and trim at some dispensaries for around $50 an ounce.

CannabisButter.jpg
Infusing butter
For this method - one I adapted from recipes passed on through ganja-friendly kitchens and friends - you'll need a mesh strainer, a colander, cheesecloth, a quarter stick of butter and a pot in which to boil water. The rule of (sticky green) thumb is a quarter ounce of herb for every quarter stick of butter. You can add more or less herb depending on your tolerance, or just thin out the ganja butter with regular butter when cooking.

Bring the water to a low boil and add the stick of butter. Return the mixture to a low boil, then add in the pre-ground ganja and allow to simmer, stirring regularly. (Yes, it's a drawn-out process, but it's important not to let the butter burn.) After an hour, remove the mixture from the heat and pour it through a metal strainer into a large bowl, removing the herb. Put the bowl in your fridge to chill, so that the butter floats to the top and solidifies in one large mass. After a few hours, remove the now-solid ganja butter from the water put the it in the cheesecloth to squeeze out the remaining water.

Made like this, one stick can be enough medication for up to a dozen people, depending on tolerance.

Infused Oil
Grind three to six grams of any strain of your choosing down to shake and set aside. On medium-low heat, bring four ounces of cooking oil to temperature in a small nonstick pan being careful to not go over 200 degrees. (Regular vegetable oil works best for all-round cooking, but you can infuse any oils you want this way, including olive oil for salad dressings.)

Test the oil by throwing in a small chunk of leaves; when it begins to bubble and sizzle like french fries, you're ready to go. Drop in the shake and cook on low for about 45 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool, then strain the oil from the fried ganja through a mesh colander or reusable coffee filter. What you're left with is uber-potent oil good for eight-to-twelve individual doses - or use it all at once in something large, such as a cake or sheet of brownies.

dixie elixer tinctures.jpg
If making it is too much effort, there is always pre-made tinctures like these from Dixie.
Non-alcohol glycerin tincture
The formula to remember is one gram of herb for one ounce of glycerin. Infusing it takes time: You either have to steep the herb and glycerin in a slow cooker overnight, or let it infuse at room temperature for about a month and a half, then cook it for about an hour at 200 degrees. Either way activates the THC, and after you strain the mix, the tincture is super-potent. It's a perfect way to medicate stealthily -- either with a few drops on its own or mixed in a fruit drink.

Now that you've got the basics, below are a few ganja-infused sweets and treats recipes from folks around the Colorado cannabis community to try out:

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18 comments
LexHighlifer
LexHighlifer

has anybody ever tried commercial chocolate with THC? i have ordered some just now from:  http://www.zamnesia.com/91-cannabis-food  after a friend of mine brought some from Amsterdam. But i am curious if they actually contain thc?...   could be bullcrap of course..

imahead
imahead

edibles can really mess you up.  RM3 labs tests ours so we can make edibles at a specific level of medication.  typically 100mg per 'edible' .  best start with a half

DonkeyHotay
DonkeyHotay topcommenter

 @imahead Science + Stoners = Fail.

 

If you start with a known concentration / quantity of THC, simple math dictates the dosage unit.

tutonehcc
tutonehcc

Just some of the responses copied and pasted from these damn spammers and trying to sell weed over e-mail.  What a crock!!!!

 

Mine too. My center gets them. Please remove anything with ean@

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

 

 

Remove my name as well.

Thanks.

This us...how you call it...?

Spam?

Are these medicated?

Dude,

 

I'm not responding to all, I'm getting MAD CRAZY SPAMMED by you!  Get me off this shit!  My iPhone is buzzing at work with this crap, and I wouldn't by weed from you off the internet in a million fucking years!!!  Just mail it like everyone else, no one actually pays for pot in Colorado!

Tom

 

Not interested either, please take me off the list

Folks, why am I getting all of the return "take me off the list"  Please do not reply "to all".

 

Have a great day folks, don't forget the NCIA regulations and Compliance Panel tomorrow night.  NCIA (National Cannabis Industry Association.  

 

Call me if you have questions, but should be a shallow pool of professionals, "US" that attend. 

 

See you there.

 

tutonehcc
tutonehcc like.author.displayName 1 Like

Colorado Wellness is currently spamming my e-mail inbox to death about this!  I've gotten a hundred 'reply all' e-mails over the course of the night from people who want off this list!  Medically infused e-mail spam is bullshit.  I'm not even a patient and people and these idiots are trying to mail me weed!

Matt-in-Boulder
Matt-in-Boulder like.author.displayName 1 Like

Don't you find it ironic that you are spamming the Westword blogs with your complaints about spam!?!?!

tzadik42
tzadik42

the best way I've found to make budder is to put your herb and butter into a mason jar, seal it shut and submerge it in boiling water for, like, an hour, and strain through some cheesecloth.  I vape a lot, so I save the leftovers and use some cheap shake, like the $40/oz stuff and it makes some pretty kick-ass brownies.

muzzylu
muzzylu

Medical marijuana works the best for pain and you can overdose on it. I found a great medical marijuana book that has great recipes, uses less valuable marijuana, and has smaller candies to use for pain on a daily basis: MARIJUANA - Guide to Buying, Growing, Harvesting, and Making Medical Marijuana Oil and Delicious Candies to Treat Pain and Ailments by Mary Bendis, Second Edition. How about just $2.99 for great e-book on medical marijuana? This book has great recipes for easy marijuana oil, delicious Cannabis Chocolates, and tasty Dragon Teeth Mints.  

 

TheSpleen
TheSpleen like.author.displayName 1 Like

You really should be telling people to fully de-carboxylate their cannabis in order to maximize usable THC. When you smoke it this occurs naturally with the flame but doesn't  always occur when making butter or extracts in the way you describe. The fresher the cannabis (ie, green budtrim from a personal garden) the more important decarboxylation before extraction becomes.

 

While boiling for a while will help activate some of the THC, much of your extraction will happen before you have reached that state of ultimate potency. It is much, much more effective to decarboxylate first!

 

Essentially, there is an extra molecule attached to the THC that consists of a carbon atom, a hydrogen atom and two atoms of oxygen. The technical name for this cannabinoid is THC-A, or the acid form of our favorite medicine. THC-A is not psychoactive.

 

The best and easiest way to achieve maximum efficacy for medicine is to fully active it BEFORE you attempt extraction. Take a measured amount shake/sugar leaf/bud (potency is personal preference, nothing more.) , grind it fine and place it on a foiled cookie sheet. Put it in the oven at 212 or so for at least 45 minutes. You will know it is working properly when you being to smell the delicious terpenes wafting through the air -- they vaporize much faster than THC. 

 

If you choose to cook with "bubble" hash this process is important as well, although it can be skipped when using other solvent-based extracts such as butane honey oil.

 

This short process will maximize the potency of your meds. If you have ever had homemade edibles that did not effect you, the lack of this step in the process may have been the cause.

tutonehcc
tutonehcc

 @TheSpleen Have you ever considered just growing good bud and smoking it?  I really feel like all this complication = way to disguise shitty weed

DonkeyHotay
DonkeyHotay topcommenter

 @tutonehcc Riiiiight ... because BURNING "medicine"and INHALING the noxious smoky effluent into the DELICATE tissues of the LUNGS is the doctor recommended method of ingestion  ...

 

... for idiots.

DonkeyHotay
DonkeyHotay topcommenter like.author.displayName 1 Like

Home-made Cheeba Chews --

 

Melt down a quantity of Tootsie Roll® candy

 

Add quantity of activated Hash Oil sufficient to obtain the THC dosage / gram of candy desired

 

Allow to cool and form into desired shape

 

 

 

Matt_in_Boulder
Matt_in_Boulder like.author.displayName 1 Like

1 gram of dried flowers per ounce of glycerin will make for some weak tincture.  3 grams of ice-water hash (73 micron preferably) or 7 grams of dry-ice extracted hash is much more effective.

DonkeyHotay
DonkeyHotay topcommenter

 @Matt_in_Boulder ... or just use Hash Oil ... and calculate how many milligrams of THC you want per gram/ounce of Glycerin.

BackOffImStarving
BackOffImStarving topcommenter like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @DonkeyHotay Stoners don't do math.

DonkeyHotay
DonkeyHotay topcommenter

 @BackOffImStarving Sad reality ... many of the self-proclaimed stoner-dealers don't even know how many grams are in a pound.

 

It was such a pathetic occurrence that one of the dispensaries on Broadway had to post a sign in the back room -- "Attention Vendors: there are 454 grams in a pound, not 448"

 

LOL! 

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