Ingredients: Butter, Cannabis
This recipe is written with the assumption that most people will be using a stove, there are other arguably better methods. I hear a lot of great things about crock pots. If you are cooking on something other than the stove don't leave! This recipe still works for you, just adapt the final cooking method at the end of the instruction to whatever you are using.
So you're interested in making some medical edibles? Maybe bake some special brownies? Righteous. But before you bake anything you gotta make your special ingredient, cannabutter.
Cannabutter opens up countless possibilities of foods to make with cannabis, you can LITERALLY make anything that calls for butter... or olive oil, coconut oil, or any other type of fatty oil (I've got my own plans to experiment with bacon grease).
Okay so how do we get started making it?
The first thing we've gotta do is decarboxylate the cannabis flower we’re working with. Skipping this step will result in less potent cannabutter.
Here's how you do it:
First, preheat your oven to 245ºF.
Next, place your cannabis buds on a non-stick, oven-safe tray. You can also cover the tray with parchment paper to prevent sticking.
Then, insert the tray into the oven and set a timer for 30 to 40 minutes. Older, drier cannabis may require less time.
Finally, gently mix the buds with a light shake of the tray every 10 minutes or so. This helps to expose the surface area of the buds equally.
If you're interested in finding out more about the decarboxylation process, Leafly has a fantastic article explaining that here:
https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/what-is-decarboxylation
They also have another article covering their own recipe and instructions for making cannabutter:
https://www.leafly.com/news/lifestyle/recipe-how-to-make-basic-cannabutter
Once the process is complete we can seriously start to make the cannabutter.
Before we mix butter into this equation we need to finish preparing the bud, don't worry we're almost there.
Just like you should be doing before you smoke your weed, before you bake your pot you gotta grind it. Now, I have heard that your average hand grinder WILL WORK, however for better quality try grind it finer than that. I use my coffee grinder which works amazingly, you really can't go wrong with an electric motor here.
Once all of the ganja is ground, begin to melt a stick of butter in a saucepan.
When the butter has melted add your ground cannabis to the pan, make sure to cook on low heat 150 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Stir slightly more than occasionally... Okay honestly every recipe will tell you to stir occasionally which is fine especially if you are using coconut or olive oil, butter on the other hand burns real fast. Any time i'm cooking with butter, especially with something as delicate and expensive as cannabis, I tend to stir as often as I can.
Continue to simmer and stir your cannabutter for 2-3 hours.
ALRIGHTY, congratulations you have made cannabutter! But if you're observant you may realize that now you have this refined cannabis oil but its got a bunch of burned out dehydrated bits of bud in it.
You've gotta strain that gunk out, I recommend using a cheesecloth, double layer it if you need to.
All you have left is to put your cannabutter into a container and refrigerate it.
Aloha