Cooking with Cannabis: A Guide to Making Marijuana Edibles

Wondering how you can benefit from cannabis? If you don’t want to smoke cannabis, you can make edibles that give you the same effect. So, you don’t need to consume cannabis with its conventional method that some people don’t prefer.  Opting for marijuana edibles will give you a delicious flavor and save you from the smoke. 

So, if you need to benefit from cannabis, start preparing marijuana edibles. Just make sure to follow the right methods when making them. Read the article further to get an idea of how you can quickly make edibles in your house. 

Make Edibles with Cannabis

If you want to make edibles with cannabis, you must first decarboxylate them. This process is important, as the dried flowers can only give you CBDA or THCA.  These compounds are in the form of acids that don’t give you benefits when consumed. 

To get the benefits of cannabinoids, you need to convert them to THC or CBD.  Heating or decarboxylating the flower help in the conversion.  This is similar to smoking weed. When you grind the flowers and inhale them, the heat naturally converts the cannabinoids.  So, to make cannabis edibles, you need to follow similar steps. 

 Decarboxylation  

 This process requires you to have the following items in the workstation:

•  Some parchment paper

• A baking tray

• Cannabis 

Also, make sure to remove the seeds and stems of the cannabis before you do anything. This will help you get good-quality edibles.  

 When you are ready, follow the below-mentioned steps for decarboxylation:

• Set the temperature of your oven to 225 degrees Fahrenheit and preheat it.

• Take the dried flower and break it into pieces.  Avoid using a grinder, since you don’t have to grind it. 

• Place the parchment paper on the baking tray. Spread the cannabis on the tray and keep the layer thin so it can bake smoothly.

• After preheating, place your tray in the oven and bake it for 45 minutes. 

• Check the tray after the specified time and check whether the flowers are brown. 

• If the flower has changed color, take out the baking tray. 

• Let it cool for a few minutes.

• Once the flower gets cool, store your flowers in a sealed container if you don’t need to use it right away.

How to Cook Edibles?

Before making marijuana edibles, you need to prepare cannabutter or cannaoil. Since you can’t add cannabis flowers directly to your food, you need to transform them into something that can be added to the edibles like cookies or brownies. So, start making cannabutter or cannaoil to prepare your favorite edibles. Here are a few ways that you can prepare these edibles. 

Make Cannabutter 

Making cannabutter is the simplest and easiest part of the process. You simply need some time and a few ingredients and kitchen essentials to prepare them. Also, this method helps you get rid of the pungent smell and unpleasant taste that comes with cannabis that most people don’t want to have in their edibles.

Once you prepare your cannabutter, you can add them in anything you want. This includes cookies, brownies, and other baked items.  Wondering how you can make them? Here is the straightforward method to making cannabutter. But before you follow the procedure, make sure to decarboxylate your cannabis. 

Things you will need:

• Butter based on the amount you want to prepare 

• Saucepan

• ¼ cup of water

Once you bring everything to your countertop, here’s what you need to do:

• Keep the saucepan on low heat and toss the butter in the pan to melt.

• After melting, add your dried flower and water to it. 

• Let the ingredients cook for 3 to 4 hours on low flame. If you have a thermometer, try keeping the temperature below 190 degrees Fahrenheit. 

• Remove your pan from the heat and let it cool.

• Transfer your butter to the bottle and keep it in the fridge. You can use air-tight jars or simple jars for storing.

• Once the butter gets solidified, take it from the fridge. 

• You can see the water on the surface of the butter. This is what you need to remove in the next step.

• Open the jar, tilt it, and start removing water from it.

• Be careful, since you don’t want your butter to come out with the water.

• Use your fingers to block butter and keep removing the water until all the water comes out from the jar.

• When all the water will be removed, your butter will be ready to use in your desired recipe.

Do you want to make a great amount of cannabutter for different recipes?   In that case, you need to take 10 g of flower to make one cup of butter.  This way, if you need one cup of butter, you will need to decarboxylate 10 g of cannabis flower. 

Note that 10 g of cannabis will offer you 2,000 mg THC, as 1 g of the flower contains 20% of THC, i.e. 200 mg of THC.   If you take 1 cup of butter, you can make around 60 small cookies to make things easier for you. With 10 grams of cannabis, you will get 60 cannabis-infused cookies. 

Now that you know how to calculate the cannabis amount and butter, it might be easier for you to make butter.  You can keep this calculation in mind to prepare anything from your butter. Also, if you make more butter than necessary, you can keep the butter in the fridge for a few weeks. 

How To Make Cannaoil

If you want to make edibles with oil, you need to make cannaoil from your cannabis flowers instead of butter.  Marijuana edibles taste and smell good with cannaoil, and many prefer oils over butter.  To start preparing your cannaoil, you need to have the following things:

• Decarboxylated cannabis

• Cooking oil

• Saucepan

If you need to make large batches of oil, you must opt for a 1:1 ratio. This means for one cup of oil, you need one cup of cannabis. Using these measurements is ideal for anyone, looking for quality oil with the right potency. 

Here are the steps you need to follow to prepare your marijuana oil.

• Take the saucepan and add all your oil to it. 

• Heat the oil, and dry to maintain the temperature to 240 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Add your flower to the oil.

• Cook the oil for three hours. 

• After that, take a jar and cheesecloth. Place the cheesecloth on the jar and start pouring your oil on it. This will help you remove the flower pieces that have not completely dissolved. 

•  Close the lid and sealed your oil in the fridge. 

• Once you cool your oil, you can take it out and use it to make your edibles. 

Make Cookies with Your Cannaoil or Cannabutter 

Now that your cannaoil and cannabutter are ready, you can start making your favorite recipes. Though you can cook anything from the prepared oil and butter, cannabis cookies or brownies are especially popular.  Here we have mentioned the simple steps to making cookies. 

• Open your cookie dough and take it out

• Smoothly kneed the dough with your hands 

• Read the instructions to check how long and what temperature you need to preheat your oven

• After that, adjust the setting of your oven and preheat it

• Based on the number of cookies you need to make, add a few teaspoons of butter or oil to the dough

• Kneed your dough again until the butter or oil completely mixes

• Cut your dough in your required shapes

• Take a baking tray and place parchment paper on it

• Now put your cookies on it

• Keep the cookies in the oven and bake them for a while

• Bake the cookies based on the specified temperature on the package

• Take out the cookies and let them cool

• Enjoy your cookies or store them in the jar 

Summary of Marijuana Edibles

 In a nutshell, if you need to make marijuana edibles, you must first make cannaoil or cannabutter. You can add these things in different recipes like Jell-O and gummies when making your edibles. But for that, you need to decarboxylate your flowers to turn THCA and CBDA into CBD or THC. This is the only way to attain the medical benefits from marijuana.