How To Make CannaButter

Making weed butter can be very simple. But let’s explore a few points anyway!

Decarboxylation: Is it necessary?

Not necessarily

Let me explain. Well, first of all: what is decarboxylation? Decarbing your Cannabis is the action of using heat to convert non-psychoactive compounds (cannabinoids) from their acidic forms into their psychoactive activated forms.

If you are looking to make your infusion as potent as possible then you will want to decarb your Cannabis flowers, yes. But the Cannabis plant has many beneficial compounds other than just THC and CBD, and more of those will be preserved and infused into your butter without the added heat that would otherwise vaporize them. Even the non-psychoactive acidic forms of THC and CBD have their benefits. Therefore you’ll first want to decide whether you want a more potent infusion, or an infusion that may be less potent but has beneficial compounds as well.

How to decarb Cannabis

Decarbing is quite easy:

• Preheat oven to about 200-220f.
• Break up your buds so they’re all about the same size, but do not grind it up fine.
• Place in an ovenproof dish and cover tightly with tin foil.
• “Bake” in the oven for about 30-35 minutes.
• Let cool without removing tin foil.

The Butter

I prefer to clarify my butter prior to infusing. This is to remove impurities and in doing so you will be left with a higher fat content. Since cannabinoids love fats, this process may increase the efficacy of the infusion.

To clarify butter simply place butter into a pot and let it go undisturbed on low heat on the stove. It will foam and separate and eventually you will be able to see right through it. This is what you want. Carefully strain it out. It’s important to note that you will lose a measure of butter through the clarification process so you may want to add a little extra if needed.

Alternatively you can purchase Ghee and skip this step.

How much Cannabis to Butter?

Good question.

In short, I will normally infuse 2oz (or 56g) of Cannabis to 1lb (454g) of Butter.
I like to make my infusions stronger. In fact sometimes I will even add concentrates and/or kif to my infusions.

If the infusion is made stronger you won’t need as much of it and it can be “diluted” with regular butter in your recipe.

One of the most important things of making an infusion is knowing how much active THC is in there. You don’t want anyone to have an uncomfortable time from consuming too much. It is important to know the THC% of the product you are infusing with to do the math correctly.

For this reason it is a great option to use legal product that has been lab tested with all those numbers accessible.

Fortunately here in Canada Cannabis is legal and there are many producers of fine goods with more micro grows coming online in the future.

Check out the post: How To Calculate Infusion Strength

How to Infuse

The process of infusing is basically “steeping” your Cannabis flowers in butter. Understand this and you can picture that there are many ways to achieve an infusion: in a crockpot, slow-cooker, sous-vide, in a pot, double boiler etc.

There are even devices on the market that will take care of the entire process with ease, such as the Levo device from Levooil.com – don’t forget to use promo code: THEBUDDERCHEF at checkout for 20% off your order.

If you don’t have an infusion device yet and you’re just getting into making infusions, the method I recommend is The Mason Jar method.

Mason Jar Method

This is a great method in that it doesn’t require constant attention to make sure it isn’t burning and since it is tightly sealed it won’t give off a strong odour.

1. Break up your decarbed Cannabis, or run through your dried Cannabis with a knife as you would any other herb, and place into the jar.
2. Add your clarified butter, or ghee, to the jar.
3. Place in a pot with some sort of buffer so that the jar isn’t directly touching the bottom of the pan. I use a clay disc but a small rag or something similar will work.
4. Fill the pot with water in line with the butter.
5. Set it on a medium to medium-high heat. You don’t want it to be boiling but you need it to be hot enough to heat up the butter inside the jar.
6. Let it go for 4 to 6 hours.
7. Once in a while carefully lift the jar out and give it a swirl, and ‘burp’ the jar by opening it and releasing any pressure build up.
8. And lastly, top up the water as needed. If you have the heat up high it will evaporate quicker and require more attention.

That’s It!

As stated: that is it! Wait for it to cool slightly so you can handle the jar comfortably and strain it. Let it the butter cool fully in the fridge and it’s ready to cook with.

Store in the fridge or wrap tightly and put in the freezer for prolonged storage.

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