How to Make Edibles

If you’re wondering how to make edibles at home without getting way too high, you’ve come to the right place. Edibles are a great way to consume cannabis as the effects last longer and are more deeply felt than smoking. Determining the THC content of a homemade edible can be tricky, and using too much is common.

At the dispensary, you can find all kinds of edibles from gummies to beef jerky, but the old fashioned baked edibles are still the favorite among many cannabis users. Most THC edibles are available in 10mg from dispensaries, all the way down to 1mg. This is because 10mg is a standard dosage for most people looking for a psychoactive effect from edibles. You can find edibles that are sativa, indica, hybrid, or just CBD. Depending on the effect you’re looking for, there is a strain that is just right for you to learn how to make edibles at home with.

You may have heard horror stories of people having terrible experiences after eating an edible, and that’s just because they ate too much. 

Making homemade edibles is a bit of a science, and when you have your measurements right, you’ll hit the nail on the head each time. Typically, a bad experience is not had when eating edibles. It’s all about dosage and moderation, and knowing what you’re getting into before you take the first bite. We’ll give you a great recipe for how to make edibles at home, how to make cannabis-infused butter, talk about the benefits of edibles and eating cannabis, and answer some common questions about how to make edibles safely.

How to Make Edibles

Starting with a strain you know and like is the most important part of making edibles at home. The THC content in the stain you choose will greatly impact the effect of the edibles, and you want to make sure that you are already accustomed to consuming that particular strain. To ensure that the THc is distributed throughout the batter, it is best to cook with cannabis by making cannabis-infused butter, or cannabutter. 

Cooking with cannabis at home is difficult to determine an accurate dosage. This guide and recipe will help you get as close to a predictable dosage as possible. 

How to Make Cannabis-infused Butter

The trick to making cannabis-infused butter is low and slow. In order to obtain the psychoactive effects of the THC, low and slow is necessary to maintain the structure of the molecules and not dismantle them. Butter is a great carrier base for THC and other cannabinoids. You can also use olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, or any other fatty carrier oils. THC is fat-soluble, so using a carrier oil or substance with fat in it will help the body metabolize the THC and will hold the THC within the molecules of the carrier oil until consumed. 

It’s incredibly easy to burn cannabis-infused butter, compromising the taste and potency. Keep a close watch as you learn how to make edibles at home with this cannabis butter recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 cup of butter or fatty carrier oil
• 1 cup (7-10 grams) of ground cannabis, decarboxylated*

Decarboxylated cannabis is essential to this recipe. Skipping this step will result in a weak or inactive edibles, and you’ll have wasted a lot of cannabis. 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.

How to Decarboxylate 

1. Preheat the oven to 245 ºF 
2. Place the full buds (not ground up) of cannabis on baking sheet with parchment paper. If your cannabis is already ground up, put it in for less time and watch it frequently to ensure it isn’t burning.
3. Heat the cannabis for 30-40 minutes, gently mixing the buds every 10 minutes with a wooden spoon or spatula
4. Remove the tray and grind the buds into a mixing bowl

Cannabis-infused Butter Recipe 

Infusing the cannabis into the butter is where the magic happens, and is the most important part in how to make edibles. Infused butter will last a long time, and you’ll be able to use this for more than just homemade edibles. 

1. Add 1 cup of water and 1 cup of butter (or oil) into a stock pot or saucepan. Simmer on low and let the butter melt. Keep stirring the butter to ensure it cooks slowly and evenly
2. As the butter begins to melt, add the cannabis and gently stir it into the mixture
3. Maintain low heat (ideally above 160ºF but never exceeding 200ºF) and let the mixture simmer for 2 to 3 hours, stirring occasionally. The mixture should never come to a full boil
4. Take the mixture off the heat and let it cool, but not harden
5. Strain the cannabis out of the butter by placing a funnel lined with cheesecloth over a glass jar. This will be a slow and delicate process, so be gentle as you pour more butter into the strainer
6. Once all the butter is strained, you can use a dose to cook with immediately, or you can store it in the refrigerator and use in recipes, on toast, in pasta, or even in your coffee

Now that you have your butter ready, you can made edibles at home! Not sure how much is one dose? If you’re not into math and need some assistance, this calculator can help. Even once you’ve measured the percentage of THC or CBD in your cannabis-infused butter, you’ll still have a period of trial and error as you find the perfectly balanced dosage and learn how to make edibles. As a general rule of thumb with homemade, or store-bought, edibles, start with a little bit and see how you feel in 45 minutes to an hour. If you’re still not feeling the effects after an hour or so, it’s generally ok to take a bit more. 

How to Make Edibles Recipe

Now that you have your cannabis-infused butter, you can make edibles at home! The possibilities are endless when it comes to making edibles, and anything that you can eat, that will taste good with butter, can be made into an edible. Some of the most common homemade edibles are:

• Brownies
• Popcorn
• Rice Crispy Treats
• Chocolate
• Cookies
• Cake
• And so much more

Once you’ve chosen your desired baked good, calculate how much THC you want in your batter, and supplement the rest of the butter or oil with regular product. You’ll only want to use as much cannabis-infused butter as that dosage that you want. Meaning, if a recipe calls for 1 cup of butter, don’t use ALL cannabis-infused butter for this.

Depending on what type of baked good you want, you’ll have a different flavor, but the delicious flavor of the cannabis-infused butter will be the common thread.

Homemade Edible Dosage

In Colorado, it is mandated that the standard dosage of a THC edible be 10mg. Although marijuana strains differ in potency, it’s safe to assume that the average version is about 10 percent THC. According to The Cannabist, “Every 1 gram of cannabis bud has 1,000mg of dry weight. If a strain has about 10 percent THC, 10 percent of 1,000mg would be 100mg. So for cooking or baking at home, it’s safe to assume that a gram of cannabis contains at least 100mg of THC.”

However, with a wide range of THC content now available in dispensaries, this can differ greatly from strain to strain. Most strains available in dispensaries rage from 7% to 25%, with around 12% being the average and most common.

Use discernment when choosing a strain of cannabis to cook with at home, and test, test, test. 

Benefits of Edibles

A great alternative to smoking for those who either don’t enjoy it or don’t respond well to smoke, edibles are a great way to consume cannabis and get all the positive effects. 

The world of edibles has expanded greatly from the original pot brownies. Now available in pretty much every form, edibles are more popular than ever, and for good reason! 

Dietary Benefits of Cooking with Cannabis

You don’t have to get high when cooking with cannabis. While the recipe we outlined here is specifically to preserve the THC content for the psychoactive effect, you can also cook with raw cannabis and gain all the dietary benefits from the plant. 

Vitamins and Minerals

Raw cannabis is high in:

• Vitamin K (Essential for blood clotting)
• Vitamin C (Essential for immune systems)
• Iron (Essential for blood oxygenation)
• Calcium (Essential for bones)
• Folate (Essential for DNA repair)

More specifically, cannabis is super high in fiber. So, if your diet is lacking, it could be a good solution. 

Antioxidants

Cannabis is also high in antioxidants, which are best absorbed through the digestive tract. Antioxidants help protect us from stress and other damage, as well as against things like blood vessel disease and cancer. They’re also our body’s only defense against “free radicals,” which can turn into cancer and manifest as other diseases that wreak havoc on the body over time.

Healthy Alternative to Smoking

Whether smoking bothers your lungs, makes you cough, or you just don’t like to inhale smoke, eating edibles is a healthy alternative to smoking. Regardless of the long list of benefits to cannabis, smoking it will still create and accumulate tar in the lungs. There’s no avoiding this if your preferred method is smoking.

However, using cannabis in cooking has none of these drawbacks and will actually help the body more because of the way cannabis is digested and absorbed by the body. The liver metabolizes cannabis first and converts it into a totally different type of THC that is created from heat and fire when smoking. This THC, 11-OH-THC, is more potent than regular THC (Delta-9THC), and leads to a more intense and longer-lasting high.

Pain Relief

With the current opioid epidemic and painkillers being prescribed like candy, eating cannabis is a safe way to relieve pain. Because of the longer-lasting high and the way it is metabolized by the body, pain can be kept at bay with edibles. Whether you want some psychoactive properties with your pain relief, or want to stick to the non-psychoactive effects of CBD, this is a great way to safely relieve pain.

Reduces Nausea

Cannabis is a clinically proven and natural way to reduce nausea and induce appetite. This is wonderful for anyone going through chemotherapy or taking medicine that can induce nausea. It’s in the manipulation of the endocannabinoid system that cannabis can regulate nausea and vomiting (in both humans and animals) and help increase appetite. 

Most edibles can take up to 90 minutes to kick in, however, so this is not a great option in a situation that needs immediate attention. Edibles are great to help prevent nausea and vomiting, and to calm the stomach down after a bout of illness.

Health Benefits of Concentrates and Oils

With the legalization of medical marijuana, there have been many more clinical studies and trials where cannabis has been used to treat symptoms of cancer treatment, including nausea, vomiting, and severe pain. Medical marijuana has long been prescribed for this, but what researchers have recently discovered is that highly concentrated cannabis oil has also been shown to reduce tumors in animals in clinical research. This is exciting news for the world!

Making edibles at home is a fun way to play in the kitchen and expand your understanding of the positive impact cannabis can have. Even if you want to just save your cannabis-infused butter to use in daily meals, cooking with cannabis is fun, rewarding, and healthy!