Making Products

Edibles

Caution is advised. Edibles are a great way to consume cannabis and save your lungs, but they take longer to take effect. For this reason some people will not feel the effects they expect as soon as they expect them, and go on to consume more than they should.

Video Links

These Awesome Weed Recipes Are a High Priority
(Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunch Balls, Sativa Baked Coconut Bars, and Indica Cookie Dough Cups)

Legal Weed: How to Make Safe Edibles in Your Kitchen (Global News)
(Cannabis Infused Brownies)

How to Make Chocolate Cannabis Edibles

Cannabis Tea - Three Easy Ways


How to Make Weed-Infused Honey

How to Make Cannabutter With Water for Smooth Taste

Gummies

How to Make Cannabis Gummies With Infused Coconut Oil Cannabisics #86

This recipe calls for
- Cannabis Flowers (buds) and/ or rosin
- 1/2 teaspoon of Sunflower or Soy Lecithin
- 1/4 cup coconut oil (MCT oil is fine)
- 1/2 cup of water
- 1 ounce of unflavoured gelatin
- 1 package of Jello

Note: DO NOT USE gummy bear candy molds due to the danger of having children find the gummies and think they are candy.

More suitable molds are available on Amazon.


 








 

 

Oil Elixirs

If you want to protect your lungs during the pandemic by switching from smoking cannabis to using edibles, here is how you can make an infusion:



Note: This video is about making tinctures from fresh cannabis. If you want to make tinctures from dried cannabis buds, the process is the same but you can use less herb - 7 grams of cannabis (1/4 ounce) for each 2 ounces of oil.

This video is over 30 minutes long. If you don't have time for that, here is an outline of the procedure:

1. Cut your fresh cannabis and process it much as you would to prepare for drying and curing, by removing the fan leaves and stems. (Alternately, if you are interested in the "whole plant" approach, which will produce a tincture that is less potent but may contain other compounds not found in the leaves and flowers alone, just cut off the stems and use all the leaves and flowers. Please note that this will produce a tincture that tastes more "grassy".)

2. Cut the herb into small (dime-sized) pieces, removing any small stems, and put it in a measuring cup.

3. For each 2 ounces of fresh cannabis (dry volume measure, not weight), add one ounce of MCT oil. If you are using dried cannabis buds, a good ratio is to use 1/4 ounce (7 grams) of bud for each 2 ounces of oil.

4. Process it in a blender until all pieces of cannabis are pin-head sized. This is to try to break apart the tricomes, which are the structures on the leaves and flowers that look like small mushrooms under a microscope. They contain the cannabinoids and terpenes.

5. Place a baking tray in your oven along with an oven thermometer. Adjust the thermostat until the temperature maintains steadily at about 250 degrees Fahrenheit (about 120 degrees Celsius).

6. Pour the oil and cannabis mixture into a sterile mason jar. Put the lid on the jar but leave it loose enough for steam to escape. The purpose of the lid is to try to retain as many fresh terpenes as possible.

7. Put the mason jar on the baking tray in the oven and let it cook for about 3 hours. The water in the fresh cannabis will boil off. When there are no more bubbles from the boiling (after about 3 hours) remove the mixture from the oven and let it cool.

8. Strain the mixture to remove the herb from the oil. Note: if you have ground the cannabis finely, as suggested above, cheesecloth will not work to remove the herb particles. I recommend using a plastic filter base of the type available for single cup coffee, and a good quality paper towel. Fold the paper towel in four, open one pocket on the folded towel to create a filter to fit the base.

9. (Optional) To conserve as much of the tincture as possible, I recommend wetting the paper towel with a bit of MCT oil before you fill the filter with the tincture oil and herb mix. if you do not do this, some of the tincture you are preparing will end up being lost in the paper towel filter.

10. Once the filter has stopped draining, you may want to thoroughly clean your hands and give the rest of the contents in the paper towel a squeeze. This will result in more of the tincture being saved.

11. The tincture is usable immediately (just 3 or 4 hours after the cannabis is cut!)

My preference is to put it in spray bottles of the type that are available from Amazon. Olilia is a good brand, and a good size for future use is 1 or 2 ounces per bottle.

Advantages of This Method:

1. You get to sample the cannabis for its effects long before you could if you dried it and cured it (1 month minimum).

2. The cannabinoids and terpenes have not degraded because of the drying and curing process.


Enjoy! If you have reasons why you believe this method will not work, you can:

- try it for yourself and check out the product, and/or

- post a comment with your opinion below this video, and/ or

- send me an email at cannabisforseniors@outlook.com

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Video Links:

How to Make CBD Oil as a Complete Beginner
(March 25, 2020)

Cannabis Capsules - how to make capsules that contain either cannabis infused oil or decarboxylated dry cannabis flower.
(Video from RevealCannabis.com)


Tinctures

While the term "tincture" is often used to refer to infusions of cannabis in oils (as I have done in the section to the left), the correct usage of the term is to refer only to infusions that are made with alcohol. Infusions in oil are actually elixirs.

In Ontario, Canada, where I live, most alcohol is limited to 80 Proof, which means that it is only 40% alcohol.

In the USA it is possible to buy a product called Everclear, which is much stronger. It is bottled at 120, 151, 189 and 190 proof, which means that it is available in strengths ranging from 60% to 95% alcohol by volume. Since the alcohol is used to extract the cannabinoids and terpenes from the cannabis, the stronger the solvent the better, but it is still possible to create good tinctures with 40% alcohol products. I would not use any alcohol product containing less than 40% alcohol since the extraction of the cannabinoids and terpenes from the cannabis will be less effective.

Here's the method I used for a 40% alcohol base:

1. Grind the dried cannabis to small pieces, but not to a powder.

2. Decarboxylate the cannabis by placing it on a baking sheet, preferably on some parchment paper so it will be easier to transfer later on. Temperatures recommended for decarboxylation vary, but 240 degrees Fahrenheit would be a good choice. Bake the cannabis for about 30 minutes.

(Note: you will be able to tell if the decarboxylation has been effective by placing some of the herb under your tongue after it has cooled. It will transfer subligually to your bloodstream and you should feel the effects within 10 minutes.)

3. Put the decarboxylated cannabis in a mason jar or measuring cup, and add your alcohol of choice. A moderately strong mixture would be 3/4 of an ounce of cannabis (21 grams) for each 10 ounces of alcohol.

Using this method, the alcohol will be evaporated, so 10 ounces of 40% alcohol will result in 6 ounces of liquid after evaporation.

(I do not make alcohol tinctures any more since I find the oil method easier and faster, but when I did I used brandy as the alcohol base. This results in a very pleasant tasting product when you use it later on.)

4. Place the mason jar in a crock pot bath with boiling water and keep the water on a gentle boil. The water will evaporate as it boils and you will need to supplement it with more boiling water to maintain a level that is approximately as high as the liquid in the container for the cannabis.

(Caution! Alcohol will be evaporating from the tincture mixture, so you need to keep it away from all flames or sources of ignition and use strong ventilation in the work area.)

5. Allow the tincture mixture to evaporate the alcohol until it is reduced in volume by the same percentage as the amount of alcohol in the product you have chosen tp use. This will likely take 6 to 8 hours.

6. Allow the mixture to cool, then strain it to remove all the herb. Coffee filters work fairly well for this.

7. Bottle the tincture in bottles with an eyedropper, or in spray bottles. It is best to store the finished tincture in a refrigerator. Suitable spray bottles or bottles with eyedroppers are available from Amazon and other sources. They are very helpful in allowing the user to be precise about the dose being taken.

Alternative option:

You can retain some of the alcohol in the tincture by stopping the heating process before the mixture is reduced in volume by 40%.

For example, if you boil the mixture down only until 10 ounces of alcohol had been reduced to 8 ounces, the amount of alcohol in the mixture will have been reduced by half, but since there is less quantity of the mixture it will actually be 6 ounces of non-alcohol (mostly water) to 2 ounces of alcohol. This makes the final mix 25% alcohol.

Personally, I find that tinctures with alcohol left in them can sting when the product is placed under the tongue, but if you enjoy leaving a little alcohol in the tincture, there is nothing wrong with doing that.


 


 

 

 

 

 



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© 2022, Robert Foster