Cannabutter Recipe

Cannabutter, or marijuana butter, is the foundation of pretty much all cannabis cooking. Knowing how to make it will ensure that everything you cook has the potential to deliver you a great, vibrant buzz.

It should be noted that there are quite a few recipes to make cannabutter, the following is just one of many.

First of all a warning. Cooking with fats and water can be very dangerous if you are clumsy or unprepared. It is highly recommended that you wear long-sleeved clothing and gloves that can deal with heat. If you do not, you run the risk of burning yourself – which we take no responsibility for.

It is possible to make cannabutter with your bud, but many people see this as a waste of perfectly good smoking material. Alternatively, you can use the offcuts and trimmings from your harvest. This will allow you to make a marijuana butter that still has a decent kick, without eating into your personal stores. When selecting your offcuts and trimmings, it is important to prioritize leaves. These have a much higher cannabinoid content that stems or branches due to having a higher concentrate of trichomes. This is not to say you should not use stems or branches. These can still be added in, it will do no harm whatsoever and can bulk up the amount you produce.

Recipe for cannabutter

Recipe time:

3 hours – full day

What you will need:

• Marijuana
• Butter
• Water
• Cooking pots
• A blender
• A wooden spoon
• Two sieves (and possibly cheese cloth depending on how finely you blend you marijuana)
• Plastic containers

Instructions:

1. To prepare your weed you will need to grind it up as much as possible. This will increase potential surface area and allow for a much better reaction when the time comes to meld it with butter. The best way we have found to do this is by using a food blender. You can turn whole bags of trimmings into a fine paste in a matter of minutes. The way the process of making cannabutter works is by bonding the oils of cannabis with the oils from the butter using heat – effectively merging the two separate entities become one. This is why it is important to get as much surface area as possible. More surface area equals more cannabis oil, which means better butter.

2. Next, choose a cooking pot that you can fill to 1/3 capacity with your blended marijuana. If you are making a small batch, then choose a small pot; if you are making a big one, then choose a big pot/multiple pots in accordance.

3. Next add sticks of butter and water into your pots at a 1:4 ratio. So for every 250g stick of butter you add, add in one liter of water (1000 ml). Do this until you fill all the pots you are using to 2/3 capacity.

4. It is important to use the previous pot capacity measurements (1/3 and 2/3 respectively) because you are going to be adding heat to this mix very soon. Once the mix begins to boil you are going to be having scorching fats and oils bubbling all over the place. If you fill your pots too much you are likely to put the warning we placed at the top of this article into good use. Boiling fats and oils are going to go everywhere, burning you and making an absolute mess of your kitchen.

5. Now that you have a weed and butter “soup” in your pots it is time to start heating them up. There are two opposing options here, with options being hotly debated. You can either bring you water to a very high temperature causing a fast and violent boil, or you can hit 100 degrees Celsius and boil it slowly. Violent boiling will be much faster, but you run the risk of losing THC and CBD particles in the accelerated evaporation/vaporization. Lower boils will take much longer, but you are likely to lose less THC and CBD (see our articles on vaporizing your cannabis for more information on this process and the temperatures that cause it). Advocates of the faster method will say the loss is minimal to non-existent, whereas those who prefer a slow boil will argue the opposite. We recommend experimenting and doing what you feel gets you the best results.

6. As you boil the mixture, stir it regularly with your wooden spoon and keep topping it up with water when it reduces by half the original volume. Depending on the speed you boil it will dictate how frequently you have to do this.

7. You know your butter is ready when you see a separation in the liquid, with a decent layer of oil floating on the top. This can take anywhere from 3 hours to a whole day.

8. Once you have this, strain the liquid into a container, removing the blended marijuana. Take this marijuana, and with gloves on, hand squeeze it over the container and another sieve to get additional oil out of it. There will be quite a lot left in the weed you have taken out – you should be able to get some substantial amounts out of it.

9. Once you are done with the blended marijuana, you can put it aside for use in future endeavours, (should you wish). It can be used as a part of a salad dressing or a spread to supplement your other foods. It will still have a small amount of cannabinoids in it, so you can still put it to use if you are someone who wants to get the absolute maximum from your cannabis crops.

10. You are now left with a container that has a layer of cannabutter oils on top of a layer of water. Place the container in the fridge overnight. This will solidify the oils into your final cannabutter.

11. When you come back the next day, carefully remove the layer of cannabutter from the container. Be careful not to spill any of the water by-product or drop the butter into it, it can make a nasty mess.

12. Now that you have your marijuana butter, you can store it in the fridge. It should last about 2 weeks or so before it begins to go off. If you want it to last longer, you can store it in the freezer for use at you own leisure. Bear in mind you will have to let it thaw before use though, so it is best to cut it into portion sized chunks before you freeze it. This will mean that you do not have to thaw your entire stock when you want to use some.

Cannabis-infused butter (cannabutter) is one of the simplest and most common ways to make infused cannabis edibles. However, making infused butter can be a little bit tricky. In order to activate its psychoactive potential, the flower must be heated slowly at a low temperature. This recipe will first guide you through this process–called decarboxylation–before walking you through a step-by-step guide to infusing butter.

Note: Homemade edibles are very difficult to accurately dose. This guide will give you some tips for more precise dosing, but all DIY cannabis cooks should be aware that there’s no way to guarantee the potency or homogeneity of their batch.

How to make cannabis-infused butter (or ‘cannabutter’)

Butter is a delicious and versatile carrier for THC and other cannabinoids, although it isn’t the only one. You can also use coconut oil, olive oil, or any other fatty oil for your infusions. Just keep in mind, butter burns easily, so keep a close eye on your cannabutter as it cooks.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of butter
• 1 cup (7-10 grams) of ground cannabis, decarboxylated

The essential (and often missed) first step: Decarboxylating the cannabis

Before making your cannabutter, you’ll need to decarboxylate, or “decarb”, the cannabis flower you’re working with. Skipping this step will result in a weak or inactive finished product. Here’s why: Cannabis buds produce a non-intoxicating acidic cannabinoid called THCA. When we smoke or vaporize cannabis, the heat converts THCA into THC, the molecule that delivers euphoric effects. If preparing CBD edibles, this same process should be applied.RelatedHow to make edibles: Leafly’s guide to cooking with cannabis

Some recipes may instruct you to decarb cannabis in the hot butter directly, but the less time you spend soaking the buds, the better your infused butter is going to taste. For this reason, we recommend decarbing in the oven first.

Basic cannabutter recipe

1. Decarb the cannabis. Preheat your oven to 245ºF. Place cannabis buds on a non-stick, oven-safe tray. Cover the tray with parchment paper to prevent sticking. Insert the tray into the oven and set a timer for 30-40 minutes. Older, drier cannabis may require less time. (Tip: you can also set your oven to 300ºF and heat for 10 to 18 minutes, although low-and-slow is the recommended approach when decarbing to better preserve the cannabinoids.) Every 10 minutes, gently mix the buds with a light shake of the tray to expose the surface area of the buds equally.
2. Grind. Grind the decarboxylated cannabis coarsely with a hand grinder.
3. Melt the butter. Add 1 cup of water and 1 cup of butter into a stock pot or saucepan. Simmer on low and let the butter melt. Adding water helps to regulate the temperature and prevents the butter from scorching.
4. Add the cannabis. As the butter begins to melt, add in your coarsely ground cannabis product.
5. Simmer. Maintain low heat (ideally above 160ºF but never exceeding 200ºF) and let the mixture simmer for 2 to 3 hours, stirring occasionally. The mixture should never come to a full boil.
6. Strain the cannabutter. Set a funnel on top of a jar and line it with cheesecloth. Once the butter has cooled off, pour it over the cheesecloth funnel and allow it to strain freely. (Tip: Squeezing the cheesecloth may push more bad-tasting plant material through).
7. Refrigerate the jar of butter. If excess water forms at the bottom of the jar, you can remove the solid butter with a knife and drain the water out. (The butter will need to refrigerate for about an hour before removing the water.)
8. Dose carefully. Refer to dosing information below before adding your butter to any snacks, dishes, or desserts.