Weed Infused Coconut Oil

***IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS POST OR REGARDING WEED INFUSED OIL / BUTTER PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST INSTEAD OF EMAILING ME DIRECTLY.

Hi everyone!  Just wanted to post a small update here to let you know that I’ll be releasing a weed infused recipe e-book in the summer of 2018!  It’ll include 20+ weed infused VEGAN recipes for y’all, perfect for people just entering their edibles journey, or for the novice edible consumer.  Make sure to subscribe to the blog, or follow me on Instagram @plvntfood to keep up to date on release dates!

I’ve been getting SO many requests for this recipe, and questions about how I make my weed infused coconut oil, so I figured I’d go ahead and make this post for you guys!  As you all should know by now, I’m no stranger to the world of marijuana and cannabis infused cooking.  I’ve been an avid marijuana user since I was 14 years old (crazy, I know), and I really believe in the medicinal benefits of this amazing plant.  I’m going to give you guys some more information on that incase you’d like to learn a bit more about it!  If not, you’re welcome to skip to the bottom of this post for the recipe.

There are two active chemicals in marijuana that researchers think have medicinal applications. Those are cannabidiol (CBD), which seems to impact the brain without a high; and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which has pain relieving (and other) properties.

Marijuana use can be used to treat and prevent the eye disease glaucoma, which increases pressure in the eyeball, damaging the optic nerve and causing loss of vision.  Marijuana decreases the pressure inside the eye, according to the National Eye Institute: “Studies in the early 1970s showed that marijuana, when smoked, lowered intraocular pressure (IOP) in people with normal pressure and those with glaucoma.”  These effects of the drug may slow the progression of the disease, preventing blindness.

So first, you’re of course going to need some marijuana.  I personally like to use a sativa dominant hybrid for edibles, that way you won’t become a huge couch potato like you would with an indica.  Different types of weed have different benefits medically, but for me I really enjoy sativa dominant hybrids.  When cooking with weed, you don’t necessarily need to get the highest quality, top shelf weed.  I like to use a lower quality weed that isn’t trimmed (meaning the stems and leaves are still attached), mainly because it’s far cheaper than top shelf weed.  Obviously, feel free to use whatever kind of weed you’d like / can get your hands on.  For my recipe, you’ll need 28 grams (one ounce) of weed, per 14 ounces of coconut oil.  This makes each tablespoon of oil equal 100mg THC (depending on the percentage of THC in the weed you use), which is the dosage I like to work with when making edibles and such.  This way, your edibles don’t have a really overwhelming weed flavor, and they don’t end up turning dark green, meaning they’ll be a bit more discrete.

Let’s actually talk about dosage while we’re at it.  To figure out the dosage, we first need to identify the percentage of THC in the strain we’re using as raw material for our edibles. Most of today’s strains are tested somewhere between 15-20% of THC when grown properly, some weaker material might only have 10%. We will calculate with 10% to simplify things:

• 1 gram of cannabis equals 1,000mg of dry weight, with a total THC content of 100mg.

• Beginners can start off with as little as 5-10mg THC per serving, assuming they might one to eat more than just one (e.g. one cookie).

So, if there are 2,800mg of THC in 28 grams of weed (one ounce), and there are 28 tablespoons in 14 ounces (the amount of coconut oil we use), that makes our oil come out to 100mg per tablespoon.  This is the dosage I use for this current recipe, but if you’re adjusting the amount of weed or oil used, you’ll have to do your math accordingly.

Theoretically, just 2g of dried bud would be enough to infuse 20 beginner-friendly cookies or edibles with 10mg of THC. 

The first thing we’re going to do with our weed in order to turn it into oil, is decarboxylation.  Let me explain to you a little more about what that actually means.  All cannabinoids contained within the trichomes of raw cannabis flowers have an extra carboxyl ring or group (COOH) attached to their chain. For example, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) is synthesized in prevalence within the trichome heads of freshly harvested cannabis flowers. In most regulated markets, cannabis distributed in dispensaries contains labels detailing the product’s cannabinoid contents. THCA, in many cases, prevails as the highest cannabinoid present in items that have not been decarboxylated (e.g., cannabis flowers and concentrates).  THCA has a number of known benefits when consumed, including having anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective qualities. But THCA is not psychoactive, and must be converted into THC through decarboxylation before any effects can be felt.

What causes decarboxylation?  The two main catalysts for decarboxylation to occur are heat and time. Drying and curing cannabis over time will cause a partial decarboxylation to occur. This is why some cannabis flowers also test for a presence of small amounts of THC along with THCA. Smoking and vaporizing will instantaneously decarboxylate cannabinoids due to the extremely high temperatures present, making them instantly available for absorption through inhalation.  While decarboxylated cannabinoids in vapor form can be easily absorbed in our lungs, edibles require these cannabinoids present in what we consume in order for our bodies to absorb them throughout digestion. Heating cannabinoids at a lower temperature over time allows us to decarboxylate the cannabinoids while preserving the integrity of the material we use so that we may infuse it into what we consume.

When I decarboxylate my weed, I turn my oven to 200F, transfer the weed to a dry baking tray, and bake for 15 minutes.  You want to make sure your oven is no hotter than 235F, otherwise you could burn your product, and you also don’t want to allow it to be in the oven for longer than 40 minutes total.  The amount of time you want to decarboxylate your weed is up to you, the longer you let it go, the stronger your oil will end up being.  But for my recipe, I like 200F for 15 minutes.

Once you take your weed out of the oven, you’ll notice it will look slightly toasted, and will be very fragrant.  That’s something that is definitely going to happen throughout this whole process, so just be very aware that whatever area you are cooking the oil in, will smell a lot like weed for the day.  You’ll want to transfer your weed to a very dry blender or food processor and just pulse a few times until it’s ground up slightly.  You don’t need to completely pulverize it, you want there to be some chunks still, but just not huge nuggets of weed.

Once your weed is all ground up, we can wrap it and get it ready to cook!  You’ll need some cheesecloth and cooking twine to do this.  Double layer your cheesecloth and cut it into a large rectangle.  Pour out your weed, in a flat / even layer, and start rolling.  Fold in the sides first, and then roll up like a burrito.  Once you have it rolled, cut 4 long pieces of twine, slide them down the cheesecloth & tie in a triple knot.  I like to do this just to insure that the twine doesn’t come undone while cooking, because then you’ll just have a huge, really hard to strain out mess on your hands.  Cut the twine so that you don’t have much excess hanging around, and pop this guy in the freezer!  Why the freezer?  This helps to release the trichomes in the marijuana to produce a more pure oil.  Freeze this for twenty minutes.

While your weed is in the freezer, we can prep our oil & slow cooker.  I like cooking my oil in a slow cooker because it makes sure you get even heat distribution throughout, and it will stay at a steady temperature, making sure the oil doesn’t burn.  You’ll want to turn your slow cooker on the ‘low’ setting and allow it to start getting warm.  Ideally you want 187F for cooking weed oil, but the low setting comes just in under 200F so it works perfect for this.  You’ll also want to use organic virgin coconut oil.  You can substitute olive oil, or other cooking oils, but I find the high fat content of coconut oil really soaks up all that weed the best.  You also want to make sure you never are using a microwave in any part of this process, to either heat up your coconut oil or your weed infused oil after it’s made.  A microwave can damage some of the compounds in the weed, so make sure to not microwave any step of this if possible.  If your coconut oil is solid, you’ll have to melt it down to measure it out before adding to the slow cooker.  I like to just set my coconut jar on top of my oven / stove while my weed is decarboxylating, and usually that will have it melted in no time.  For this recipe you’ll need 14 ounces of coconut oil.  Measure that out, and add it to your slow cooker.  Allow everything to come up to temperature while your weed is in the freezer.

Once your weed is done in the freezer, you can add it to the slow cooker & oil.  Make sure you flip it around a couple times, spoon some oil over the top, and really move it around in there to make sure oil is fully saturating the cheesecloth full of weed.  Put the lid on and allow it to cook for four hours.  You’ll want to go in and stir the oil around every 45 minutes or so, and make sure to flip the cheesecloth over half way through.

Once your four hours is up, you’ll notice the oil will be a dark green color.  That’s what you want.  It’s honestly amazing to me to watch a clear oil go to being this dark emerald green in just a few hours.  You’ll also notice that it will be very fragrant, both of coconut oil & weed.  Get a large bowl or measuring cup ready, and place a fine mesh strainer on top of it.  Transfer your cheesecloth into the strainer, and pour the oil from the slow cooker over top so it goes through the strainer and into the bowl.  Allow your cheesecloth to sit and drain over the bowl for about 30-45 minutes until it’s cooled down enough for you to squeeze it.  It really will take that long trust me, theres molten oil inside of that thing that will burn you and that’s no fun.  Once it’s cooled, make sure you wring it out really really well, you’ll get almost double the amount of oil if you wring it out properly… so much oil gets trapped inside of that cheesecloth!  Once you have everything strained out, simply transfer it into very clean mason jars, screw on the lids, and keep in the fridge.  You don’t necessarily have to keep this in the fridge, but I prefer to.  When I need to re liquify it, I simply heat a shallow pot of water over low heat on the stove and just stick my mason jar in there until enough has melted to where I can measure it out.

For cooking with this, you’ll have to do some math to make things dosed properly.  With the oil I make, it equates to 100mg THC per tablespoon of oil. So say I’m making cookies, and my cookie recipe makes 12 cookies & I want each cookie to be 20mg THC each.  You’ll need to use 2.5 tablespoons of weed infused oil in that recipe to make each cookie 20mg.  If your recipe calls for say, 1/3 cup of oil?  Add your 2.5 tablespoons into a 1/3 cup measuring cup, then top the rest of the amount off with normal liquified coconut oil.  Make sense?  Obviously the amount / dosage will vary depending on what recipe you’re using, and what you want the overall dosage to be.  You can use this oil in any recipe that calls for oil, or most that call for vegan butter.  It just takes a little math to get things right, but it’s nothing too hard.

Well, that’s my super long post about how to make weed infused coconut oil.  If you guys have ANY questions at all, please don’t hesitate to send me an email at brianna@plvnt.com, or reach out to me on instagram @plvntfood, I’m happy to answer any questions you guys have about this recipe, or dosing in general.  Weed responsibly & enjoy this recipe!

***IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS POST OR REGARDING WEED INFUSED OIL / BUTTER PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST INSTEAD OF EMAILING ME DIRECTLY.

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Weed Infused Coconut Oil

Learn how to make your own weed infused coconut oil at home, measuring out to 100mg THC per tablespoon of oil. 

Prep Time 35 minutes

Cook Time 4 hours

Total Time 4 hours 35 minutes

Author Brianna Gallo

Ingredients

• 28 grams marijuana (we used a sativa dominant hybrid)
• 14 ounces virgin coconut oil

Instructions

1. Place your weed on a baking tray and bake at 200F for 15 minutes to decarboxylate the weed. This converts the THCA into THC so that you get high when you consume the oil.

2. Once your weed is decarboxylated, grind it up coarsely. You don't want it to be too fine / powdery.
3. Heat up your slow cooker on low (ideally you want 187F but the low setting comes just in under 200F so it works perfect). Add in your coconut oil to melt it down if not already melted (do not microwave the oil to melt it!). 

4. Wrap your ground up weed in a cheesecloth and secure with a few sections of twine to make sure it doesn't come undone. Make sure you make the weed into a flat, even layer in the cheesecloth and not just a big ball. 

5. Freeze the cheesecloth of weed for 20 minutes. This helps to release the trichomes in the weed to produce a more pure oil. While this is in the freezer, allow your coconut oil to become warm by sitting in the slow cooker on low. 

6. Fully submerge and saturate the cheesecloth of weed in the coconut oil. Using two spoons press it firmly to the bottom of the slow cooker until it seems the oil has fully penetrated. 
7. Cook this for 4 hours, making sure to flip the cheesecloth and re saturate half way through & stir the oil around about once every 45 minutes. 

8. Once it's done, wring out the cheesecloth of weed over the slow cooker very well (make sure you've allowed it to cool a bit so you don't burn yourself). Try and get as much oil out as possible (also try and wear gloves if possible, or wash your hands really well to keep the oil clean). 

9. Pour the oil through a fine mesh strainer into a mason jar. Store in the fridge. You can also use this as a body lotion as well, it has several healing benefits.