this post was inspired by @captcha in their quest to figure out what to do with their cannabis-infused coconut oil. this is a secret, forbidden technique! jk it was taught to me by a college friend who sold edibles. his method has never failed me. this method can be used for p much any type of fat extraction. once i extracted weed into heavy whipping cream to make ricotta for a weed lasanga. but you have to tweak the concentration if you use heavy cream bc its not pure fat.
before we start, you need some ingredients and equipment:
- 250 g of any fat (eq. to 2 sticks of butter, but you can use any cooking oil) USE UNSALTED BUTTER
- 7 g of ur finest bud
- 4-8 oz distilled water (you can use tap water, but i prefer water as soft as i can get for this)
- cookie tray
- aluminum foil
- oven/toaster oven
- oven thermometer
- saucepan
- mason jar
- something to stir with
- cheesecloth
- cup with opening thats wider than its body (mason jar's narrow opening wont work for separating the water and oil) i prefer a plastic cup bc you can squeeze it to more easily remove frozen oil
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decarboxylating weed is very important bc it converts THCA (not psychoactive) to THC. but dont decarboxylate too long, THC eventually converts to CBN! CBN is psychoactive but not as fun as THC, just makes you sleepy. line cookie tray with aluminum foil, grind up/break apart ur 7 g of weed, and spread it out over the foil (spread it out dont bunch it up). make sure you preheat ur oven using an oven thermometer bc this process is very temperature sensitive. i go 250F(120C) for 25 minutes (maybe a bit less if ur cooking it a lot later) (THIS TIME AND TEMPERATURE WORKS BEAUTIFULLY, DONT TAKE IT FOR GRANTED).
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once ur weed is decarbed it should look a bit more brown but still have a bit of green. transfer it to a mason jar along with 250 g of ur fat of choice. place this mason jar (NO LID) in a pot of boiling water (using this double boiler method is important so you keep ur oil and weed below the boiling point of water). stir this mixture for 30 minutes (it gets tiring but just do it so all the THC dissolves, if you need a short break make sure you use something heavy to secure ur jar in the water).
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after stirring for 30 minutes, add 4-6 oz of distilled water and mix for another 10 minutes. the water extracts tannins and plant alkaloids from the oil (these chemicals have an unpleasant, bitter taste and this step removes a lot of them)
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using a cheesecloth to strain out the weed chunks, transfer to the cup with a wide opening. rinse out the jar with a few oz of water and squeeze that cheesecloth, you dont want to miss out on any THC!
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now pop that sucker in the freezer! butter freezes the fastest, but all oils will freeze in a freezer. oils also don't crystallize, so when theyre solid they all have a consistency similar to butter so theyre easy to manipulate. wait for the oil and butter layers to freeze and then just separate the frozen oil layer from the ice layer. it should be pretty easy, the frozen oil usually slides clean off.
now you have a beautiful cannabis-infused cooking oil thats cheaper and only takes an hour of work and an hour of waiting!
dont decarb in a sealed jar, it will slow down the reaction significantly. when decarbing, CO2 is being released, and when ur doing it in a sealed jar the partial pressure of CO2 increases and slows the reaction time via Le Chatelier's principle. some decarbing will still happen but you dont know how much and the time and temp i described are to maximize THC concentration
as for the smell, im sorry i dont have a good fix for that. tbh the smell goes away that day and its a lot less pungent than when i smoke inside so i dont really mind. if you have a toaster oven you could always do it outside. you can also buy an odor eliminating spray, Zep works well