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How to make edibles

Learn How To Make Edibles At Home

March 2, 2022

With the rapidly changing attitude toward marijuana worldwide, an ever-increasing number of consumers are looking for new ways to enjoy their favorite herb. For this reason, cannabis-infused foods are rapidly gaining popularity worldwide, with more and more tokers looking to find out how to make edibles at home.

Beneficial for medicinal and recreational uses, our knowledge of how to use marijuana in food advances all the time. This progress makes these products a delivery system that keeps reinventing how users consume their cannabis

Edible recipes like weed brownies and cupcakes remain exceptionally popular. Besides looking and tasting great, they're also quite powerful. However, there's no denying that creating the perfect batch of these consumables requires at least some knowledge of marijuana and cooking. 

Not to worry, though. When it comes to making edibles at home, we've got you covered. 

Marijuana edible and buds
Marijuana edible and buds

What are cannabis edibles?

Cannabis edibles are weed-infused food products created to deliver cannabinoids to your endocannabinoid system and brain through oral consumption. 

In other words, homemade edibles are consumable marijuana goodies that deliver the recreational and medical benefits you desire. These delectable treats come in a broad spectrum of products with various infusion methods. While you can use almost any food to make these delicacies, baked goods, cannabis candy, and chocolates are the most common.

Why should you make your own edibles?

Making your weed edibles at home allows you to create your favorite cannabis treats while controlling the quantity, flavor, and dose. In essence, it allows you to produce custom-made products suited to your needs.  

As marijuana strains contain varying THC and CBD content, it's possible to select a cultivar to tailor these substances to meet your requirements. For instance, if you intend to reap the medical benefits of cannabis, you should choose a high CBD hybrid. For recreational purposes, a high THC specimen, such as Gorilla Glue #4, is a better option.

When making edibles, the wide variety of marijuana cultivars permits you to balance the effects of your consumables, perfectly catering to your needs. It allows you to keep in line with conscious practices, permitting you to stick to local, organic ingredients from cruelty-free and free-trade sources.

Homemade edibles also let you choose your ingredients according to your dietary needs. For instance, people with diabetes can control the type and quantity of sweetener used, while vegans can ensure their treats contain only plant-based components.

Is it cheaper to make your own edibles?

If you're not producing your own cannabis edibles, the chances are that you're being overcharged.

Learning how to make edibles is cost-effective, therapeutic, and immensely rewarding. It's also considerably cheaper than buying from state-licensed dispensaries, especially if you're growing your own weed.

Cultivating homegrown cannabis allows you to use all aspects of the plant, including the stems and leaves, for cooking purposes. Looking at the price of bud, this significantly reduces the cost of making edibles at home, provided that the recipe requires using oil. 

While buying the herb called for by edible recipes makes things more expensive, it's important to remember that a little goes a long way. After producing your consumables with store purchased weed, you'll have loads of leftovers to enjoy at a later date. This excess makes it much cheaper than the ten small cookies you can buy at the dispensary for the same price.

Cannabis brownie
Cannabis brownie

How long does it take for homemade edibles to kick in?

When consuming homemade edibles, it takes longer for the effects to kick in than smoking or vaping weed. However, the time it takes for cannabis-infused food products to take effect depends on whether it is:

  • Solid and must be chewed, such as brownies
  • In a liquid form like weed tea
  • Orally soluble, for instance, marijuana-infused cotton candy

Regardless of which cannabis edible recipes you used, you must decarboxylate (explained below) the weed before or during the manufacturing process. If you don't, your product will have no psychoactive effect. 

After chewing and swallowing a solid homemade edible, it passes through your digestive tract to your stomach. On reaching its final destination, it gets broken down by your tummy's enzymes and acids. This process allows the cannabinoids to pass through your belly's wall and into the small intestine and liver before finally being released into the bloodstream.

Depending on your metabolism, this process can take as much as two hours to complete. However, if you're consuming liquid or orally soluble homemade edibles, the process is much quicker.

How to make edibles

To make marijuana edibles at home is a relatively straightforward process. Before starting, learn the essential process of decarbing weed.

Decarboxylating cannabis involves using heat to turn non-psychoactive THCA in raw marijuana into THC, the cannabinoid responsible for the uplifting sensations. This process naturally occurs when vaping or smoking weed. However, when using bud in cooking, you must first activate the THC to produce the desired results.

Here's how to decarb weed:

  • Preheat your oven to between 194 and 202 °F (be careful, exceeding 221 °F evaporates cannabinoids). Keep to 194 °F if you wish to preserve the strain's terpene profile.
  • Grind the buds until they reach a fine consistency.
  • Cover a baking sheet with tin foil or a sheet of parchment paper and spread the ground cannabis all over it, leaving you with a thin layer of weed. It'll prevent the marijuana from decarboxylating properly, wasting precious cannabinoids, if it’s too thick.
  • If you're decarbing around 5g of weed, it should turn into a light brown color after about 20 min. If you're processing more than 5g, check on it every 15–20 minutes until it's ready.
  • After decarboxylating your weed, remove it from the oven and let it cool down before using it according to the recipe's instructions.

There are many ways to make edibles. However, the type of infusion method you use typically dictates what kind of cannabis consumable you can produce. While plain decarbed weed will get you high, few people fancy chewing on a nugget. It doesn't taste great, and there are more efficient ways to strengthen the buzz.

Making firecrackers is an excellent solution if you prefer to decarb and chow down. Alternatively, spread some weed over a cheese or peanut butter sandwich. If you're the more creative type and enjoy baking, produce canna-oil, canna-butter, marijuana sugar, or weed honey. Having these products on hand makes your choices near limitless.

Other edible recipes, like cannabis-infused jello shots, gummies, and canna cocktails, call for the use of marijuana tinctures. Adding a few drops of these extracts is a versatile and convenient method for bestowing the benefits of bud on any food product. For instance, drizzle some over a pizza or pasta.

How to Decarb Weed
How to decarb weed

How much weed for edibles?

When making edibles DIY, such as weed cake, it's essential to remember that not all marijuana strains contain the same amount of THC. 

For this reason, it's crucial to calculate the THC dose, knowing how much you're adding before making weed edibles at home. Here's an estimated breakdown of THC content per gram:

Cannabis typeTHC%THC content per gram
Brick weed3–6% THC30–60 mg/g
Home-grown bud15–20% THC150–200 mg/g
Top-shelf marijuana20–30% THC200–300 mg/g
Extracts and tinctures60–90% THC600–900 mg/g

Remember, your THC tolerance dictates how much you can handle, and once you've consumed an edible, there's no way to stop the effect. For these reasons, it's crucial to take it slow, experimenting with different amounts until you know what works for you. Here's a quick summary of the recommended THC mg per serving depending on tolerance:

ToleranceTHC mg per serving
Very low tolerance3–10 THC mg
Low tolerance10–15 THC mg
Medium tolerance15–25 THC mg
High tolerance 25–60 THC mg

How to make canna-butter?

Learning how to make canna-butter is crucial to mastering canna-cuisine.

To make edibles at home, you’ll use cannabis butter, oil, or tinctures. While the latter is perfect for treats such as ice cream or gummies, baked goodies require canna-butter. While lard or ghee will work for this purpose, butter is tastier and by far the best choice. The only ingredients you'll need are:

  • 7 oz. of butter
  • ¼ oz. of cannabis (roughly 14mg of THC)

Here's how to produce canna-butter at home:

  • Decarboxylate the cannabis.
  • Mix the butter with 200ml water in a heat-proof glass jar and place it in the middle of a pot. Add H2O to the pan until it reaches the middle of the container holding the butter.
  • Set the heat to low, allowing the butter to melt slowly.
  • Mix in the weed. When the temperature gets to about 85 °F and the butter is in liquid form, let it simmer for 2–3 hours, stirring occasionally.
  • After this period, the butter takes on a dark green color. Strain the mixture using a cheesecloth, then pour it into a glass container and refrigerate.
  • After the fat solidifies, use a spoon or knife to remove it from the glass jar, making it ready to use.

Alternatives to canna-butter

Learning how to make weed brownies and other consumables from home typically involves educating yourself on producing and using canna-butter. It's a staple in marijuana cuisine and easy to create, even if you have only a small amount of flower.

If you're trying to avoid unsaturated fats or looking for a pure plant-based solution when making edibles, there are several viable substitutes you can try. Here are five of the best alternatives to canna-butter:

  • Instant edibles: The easiest way to make edibles, such as weed cupcakes, without canna-butter is to add the decarboxylated bud directly into your products after activation.
  • Kief butter or oil: If you want to try a different type of fat in your edible recipes, kief oil or butter is a superb alternative. It's quicker and easier to use than canna-butter, and it doesn't leave a marijuana aftertaste behind.
  • Cannabis-infused coconut oil: Weed coconut oil is high in saturated fats, making it more versatile than butter and excellent for extraction. It's ideal for use in edible recipes, topicals, and suppositories.
  • Cannaoil: Walnut, olive, canola, and avocado oils, amongst others, are superb substitutes for canna-butter. These high-fat content products do well in extracting activated cannabinoids, meaning you can use them in most cannabis edible recipes.
  • Tinctures: These products are an excellent, no-fuss way to make edibles. They don't add fat to consumables, and alcohol-based tinctures are much better preservatives than oil or butter, which can go bad.

What are the effects of edible weed?

The effects of marijuana consumables depend heavily on how you make your weed edibles. Higher cannabinoid content results in more potent effects while adding less produces a milder buzz. Although the effects are typically stronger and longer-lasting than when you vape or smoke cannabis, you can rely on it taking longer to kick in. 

When combusted and inhaled, the THC gets passed straight into the bloodstream. As a result, it has an almost immediate effect on the endocannabinoid system and brain in the form of delta-9-THC. However, if you consume homemade edibles, the delta-9-THC first passes through the liver converting it to 11-OH-THC, which is 3.7 times more potent than delta-9-THC.

Even though this process takes considerably longer, the THC that eventually kicks in is mostly 11-OH-THC, resulting in more potent sensations. The buzz also remains at its peak for much longer. Be warned, though. Due to the duration of the feelings induced by cannabis edibles, some consumers report experiencing residual effects the following day, so take it easy.

Take note: The explanation provided above is a generalized explanation of the effect of cannabis edibles on the body. These results can vary significantly depending on the user's metabolism, frequency of use, and tolerance.

Cannabis infused chocolate cupcakes
Cannabis infused chocolate cupcakes

How to make edibles hit faster

Although orally consumed cannabis products take up to two hours to set in, there are a few surefire ways to make edibles kick in faster. These include:

  • Eat your treats on an empty stomach: Having nothing else in your belly means your system only needs to process the edible.
  • Bypass the digestive process by consuming tinctures orally: A few drops under the tongue hit much faster than other consumables while permitting better control over the dosage. It also delivers a shorter duration of effects. 
  • Keep to cannabis-infused & THC drinks: Products such as weed infused rum and weed infused tequila pass through the digestive tract faster than most weed consumables. It's also a discreet option, making it ideal for use when you're on the go.
  • Temporarily increase your metabolism: The metabolic system greatly influences the time it takes your body to digest food and drinks. Drinking green tea and coffee reportedly boosts this process. Alternatively, eating protein, drinking plenty of water, and exercising are vital habits that increase your metabolism.

What are the best homemade weed edibles?

Now that you understand the basics of cannabis-infused ingredients and how to decarb weed, it's time to start experimenting. We've listed four of the best homemade edibles for you to try out.

Firecrackers

As an essential stoner snack, Firecrackers are easy to make edibles (under 30 min) that satisfy both sugar and cannabis cravings. After decarbing your weed, follow the recipes instructions and, within no time at all, you can create a delicious marijuana-infused snack.

Brownies

As far as homemade edibles go, nothing is as traditional as brownies

Mary Jane Rathburn, aka "Brownie Mary," invented these treats during the '80s. She became notorious after being arrested for sneaking these delicious cookies into hospitals and giving them to AIDS patients, providing them with much-needed relief. Rightfully so, her bust created a worldwide media frenzy surrounding marijuana legalization.

Making these tasty treats is surprisingly easy. Select your favorite homemade brownie recipe, exchange the butter it requires with an equal amount of canna-butter and bake away.

Weed gummies

Learning how to make weed gummies is an essential part of cannabis cuisine as it's an exceptionally popular and enjoyable way to consume marijuana.

We all grew up with gummy bears and worms by our side, and now, by adding some THC, you can rekindle your love for these mouthwatering treats. They provide you with a delicious, ideal bite-sized way to dose. These homemade edibles are also a breeze to make. 

Follow the recipes instructions, and in a short time, you'll have a batch of chewy titbits to indulge in. Just remember to hide them from the kids.

Weed tea

Few things beat the relaxing effect of homemade tea to wind down at the end of the day, especially if it's cannabis-infused. Use leftover flower stems to produce a potent brew for you to enjoy. Alternatively, if you've already made tinctures, canna-butter, or marijuana-infused oil, stir some into traditional tea, dissolving the cannabis into the liquid.

Cannabis infused gummy
Cannabis infused gummy

Experimenting with homemade edibles

Learning how to make edibles with weed is a delicious and fun way to experiment with new methods for consuming marijuana. It allows you to get the sensations you desire without dealing with the fire, smoke, or smelly odors associated with smoking marijuana. 

Whether you're making drinks, baked goods, or entire meals, remember that decarboxylating your cannabis is the key to making edibles successfully. 

Feel free to share this article on social media, and remember to check out the HMG store. We stock a wide selection of the highest-quality home-growing seeds to produce the best weed for cannabis-infused edibles.

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