While Exclusive is proud to stock all types of tempting cannabis edibles, there’s nothing quite like fresh-from-the-oven homemade cookies … or brownies … or muffins. You get the idea. If you’re handy in the kitchen, there are a few dishes you can’t improve with a little THC-infused butter, also referred to as “cannabutter.”
From the supplies you need on hand to detailed step-by-step instructions and even a nifty guide to determining the dosage and potency, you’ll be on your way to making stoney, mouthwatering treats in no time. Keep reading to learn how the team at Exclusive makes and uses cannabutter.
What Do You Need to Make Cannabutter?
To turn cannabis flower into a versatile (and potent) cooking product, the only ingredients you need are butter or oil and fresh cannabis flower.
Why butter or oil? THC binds to fat, so it’s not readily extracted into water. However, butter and oils are both fatty, giving the cannabinoids something to bind to. This allows them to be infused into the butter or oil while keeping their many medicinal properties.
Our recipe for cannabutter is simple, and you only need a few things to get started:
- 1 cup fresh cannabis flower,* ground
- 1 cup butter or oil (your preferred type/brand is fine)
- An oven and stovetop (unless using slow cooker)
- A baking sheet or low-rimmed baking dish
- Aluminum foil or parchment paper
- A double boiler or slow cooker
- A cheesecloth (preferred) or fine mesh strainer
- A mason jar for storage
- Optional: Kitchen thermometer
*Pro tip: If you use a flower vape, you’re already one step ahead of the game: You can “recycle” that already-vaped bud to make an infused oil or butter. You can also skip the steps leading up to slow cooking and dive right into the waiting portion of this weed butter recipe.
How to Make Cannabutter: Step-By-Step Recipe
It’s surprisingly easy to make cannabutter. Even though it takes a while to infuse, it’s well worth the wait when you can cook up some of your own delicious edibles right afterward.
Step 1: Measure Ingredients
Measure out a cup of fresh cannabis flower and one cup of your favorite cooking oil or butter. We love butter for its versatility, but you could also go with a fruity olive oil or neutral-tasting coconut oil as your base. Remember that the finished weed butter recipe will carry a fairly distinct “weedy taste” as well.
Step 2: Grind Your Flower
Since you’ll be straining the final product at the end, you’ll want to use small chunks of your bud rather than grinding it to a fine powder. For a job like this, you can do a quick once-through with a hand grinder and be good to go. Aim for a more coarse grind if you’re using an electric grinder, like a coffee grinder.
Step 3: Decarboxylate Your Flower
Decarboxylating the cannabis is essential. In fresh flower, cannabinoids like THC and CBD exist in a chemically different structure than when we consume them via smoking, vaping, tinctures, or edibles. Gentle heating converts cannabinoids from their “acidic” (THCa and CBDa) state to their “active” form, taking THC from a non-psychoactive state to a psychoactive one. This process is called decarboxylation.
Line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper and heat your ground cannabis flower in the oven at 230°F for 25 – 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Step 4: Start Slow Cooking
Combine the butter or oil with the ground decarboxylated flower, and place them in a double-boiler or a slow cooker. If you don’t have a double boiler, a carefully placed bowl inside a pot of boiling water can work as a makeshift one if it doesn’t tip into the water.
You’re going to heat the butter or oil and cannabis on “low” or “warm” for several hours—the lower, the better. You can use a regular saucepan, but be aware that this will require regular checking to ensure it’s not burning.
Here comes the slow part of the process: Let the cannabis and oil infusion cook for as long as possible. We recommend 4 – 6 hours in a slow cooker, 6 – 8 hours in a double boiler, and at least 3 hours in a saucepan.
Pro tip: Regardless of using a slow cooker or stovetop, it’s wise to have a kitchen thermometer close by. Your goal is to ensure that the temperature of the cannabutter doesn’t exceed 245°F to avoid wasting those precious cannabinoids.
Step 5: Prepare For Use or Store
When time’s up, allow the cannabutter to cool long enough to be safe to handle. Then, carefully pour it through a kitchen strainer, ideally one lined with cheesecloth. If you’re tempted to squeeze out the plant matter, restrain yourself: This will add more chlorophyll (and more of that “weed flavor”) to the mix but won’t release any more cannabinoids.
That’s it! Your delicious THC butter should keep for at least one month on a dark pantry shelf and roughly twice as long if it’s stored in an airtight jar in the refrigerator. Be sure to label infused butter or oils clearly so they aren’t confused!
How to Determine the Potency of Homemade Cannabutter
If you know the THC content of the flower you’re using and aren’t afraid of a little cannabis math, you can label your homemade weed butter with the THC content of a teaspoon, tablespoon, or any other measurement you’d like to include.
Assuming you bought your cannabis flower from a dispensary, you should have a label that tells you the potency of each cannabinoid in the raw flower you started with. It’s a little tricky, but take note of how much THCa is listed on that label.
You’ll want to estimate on the high end that you’ve decarboxylated roughly 90% of the THCa into active THC. Understandably, you won’t be able to extract every cannabinoid during the infusion process, so estimating the high end of 60% being infused into the butter will ensure you don’t underestimate the potency of your homemade edibles.
Translating your flower’s potency into milligrams will be the most challenging part. First, calculate the total number of milligrams in the amount of flower you’re using. If you decarbed an eighth of flower, you’ve used about 3.5 grams (or 3,500 milligrams). With flower that contains 22% THC, you will multiply 3,500 milligrams by 0.22 to get the approximate total milligrams of THC: 770 mg.
You can then calculate the potency of smaller portions of your infused butter or oil using a tablespoon or teaspoon, or you can divide by your ideal milligram dosage (ex. 5 – 10mg) to see how many portions you may get from your cannabutter. For easy reference, one cup contains 16 tablespoons and 48 teaspoons. If you’ve infused a cup of butter using the 22% THC flower mentioned above, then there would be about 48 mg per tablespoon and 16 mg per teaspoon.
What to Make With Cannabis Infused Butter
So, now that you know how to make cannabutter, what dishes and cuisines should you make with it? The only limit is your imagination! Swap it for the fat in your favorite recipes, or use it to butter steamed or roasted vegetables, stir it into rich Mexican cocoa, or baste steaks and chops on the grill.
Whatever you choose, we recommend limiting the cannabutter to no more than half the fat any given recipe calls for. Otherwise, the weed flavor tends to dominate, and you could potentially end up getting higher than you planned since edibles often have more intense and longer-lasting effects than from smoking weed.
Remember to always keep cannabis-infused foods from minors, pets, or anyone else who isn’t ready for a full-on edibles experience.
Your Exclusive Source for Everything Cannabis
Infused butters and oils are foundational ingredients when you’re getting into homemade edibles. Not only are they simple and easy to make, but—just as oil and butter are in standard cooking—cannabutters and cannaoils are extremely versatile ingredients to have on hand, whether you want to whip up a batch of fresh cannabi cookies or add a pat of infused butter atop your next grilled steak.
Have more questions about our recipe, making cannabutter, or how to use it? Just ask! We’re always here to help. Need to pick up some fresh flower for making your very own cannabutter? Stop by any of our Michigan dispensaries to browse the state’s best selection of frosty flower ready to be made into delicious edibles. We look forward to seeing you!
