Hi everyone.
I'm not overly experienced with the practice of making cannabutter, I whip some up occasionally to put all that ABV (already been vaped weed) I've been saving to good use.

I see that not everyone agrees on the duration at which the butter should be heated to extract all of the goodies though. Last time I made some I put my stove on medium instead of low (not a great practice) and mixed 30 grams of ground vaped bud with 2 sticks of butter (250g) and heated it while stirring for an hour or 5, maybe 6. The weed to butter ratio was about half of what is usually recommended at the bare minimum, but I figured I'd make mine a bit weaker since I had little experience with edibles at the time. I ended up not baking anything with the butter, but simply adding a small scoop of it to a mug of hot coco or simply melting it into other meals. I found the dosing was a bit precarious since a tiny teaspoonful was already enough to get me uncomfortably high at times, though once I was used to eyeballing it I found my sweet spot. I really can't imagine anyone eating edibles with multiple grams worth of pot per serving

Today, I'm making a fresh batch using the same ratios, but this time preparing it using lower heat for a longer duration, and adding water which is supposed to prevent the butter from scorching too easily and also separate some undesirables from the goodies at the end, as it can be poured off after the butter hardens in the fridge.

My main question though, is that a lot of people seem to disagree on the length of the butter extraction. A lot of sources say butter should be heated at least 24 hours, whereas I seemed to have good results last time with only 5-6 hours, which is considerably less. Since it was already quite potent to my tastes while I used half of what was advertised, I can't imagine much was left unextracted. I'm planning on doing around 12 hours at least this time. Would it be worth it to let the mixture sit overnight after those 12 hours and melt it again the next day to go for another 12 hours? I don't have any automatic tools to do this, so I pretty much have to watch and stir the mixture the entire day, which makes it a bit of a hassle.

Does anyone prepare their butter in less than 24 hours, and if not, is there really such a big difference in potency?

Whenever I use to make cannabutter, I would heat it all together for no less then 12 hours, on a very low heat, just enough to bring the water to a simmer.

I have also done it for longer then the 12 hours, and while you may think its a waste, it did make a difference according to everyone that ate those edibles. You should also throw in some soy lecithin, as it aids the absorption of the cannabinoids.

I put my AVB into hot (about 60°C) whole milk + cocoa for about an hour and a half. 3g ABV per person. Works well everytime...even if the milk only has 3.5% fat.

...what I want to get at is even 6 hours _appear_ to be overkill to me.

Don't know about butter, but to make cannabis infused vegetable oil, you don't need to heat your oil for any longer than five minutes. THC is super fat-solluble. If you have good hash, it will have dissolved completely within a minute.

I decarboxylate trim in a covered ceramic casserole dish for 1 hr at 220F. Then tranfer to coconut oil (1/2 Cup for every 7G herb) in a double boiler for 3 hrs stirriing occasionaly. Then i add h2o to the oil and move it to the fridge. Herb stays in the water and the oil cake solidifies on top and goes in a tupperware for later use. The results are excellent. IMO coconut oil grabs the goodies best.

I use a half-stick of butter per half ounce powdered ABV.

Put in a 500ml beaker along with 250ml hot water.

Stand beaker on a trivet, in a pressure cooker, in an inch or two of water.

Cook at max pressure for one hour.

Remove, and chill in fridge, to get a disk of solid cannabutter atop some stock.

The stock goes well in any kind of stew...makes a nice, healthy 'happy meal'

Nice to hear everybody seems to be having good results with shorter durations of heating
My concoction has been on low heat (barely simmering) for around 10 hours now. I'm going to give it 2 more hours just for the hell of it and then put it in the fridge.

I might try coconut oil or vegetable oil next time around, thanks for sharing your personal methods



This is exactly what seems so confusing to me. If it is indeed dissolved into the fat so quickly (which certainly seems to be the case), why do so many people seem so adamant about incredibly long cook times?

Guess I'll have to look for some hard research on this topic, I'm sure it's out there somewhere
The best information I've found so far was this High Times article:
http://hightimes.com/edi...tter-experiment-results/

Though it compares a few different preparation techniques rather than focusing on comparing extraction durations using the same herb and technique. Still, a good read

This one!! http://hightimes.com/edi...ter-experiment-method-1/ The ethanol spritz after decarb is genius.

Just the info I was looking for, great thread


I was thinking of trying to infuse some coconut oil next time I do a batch, this sounds perfect. I'll be using already vaped bud but I expect this will work very nicely

Being AVB, you wouldn't bother decarboxylating, would you? Seems like a stupid question...but I wonder if just vaping it once will actually fully decarb all of it.

You are correct, probably decarbed enough already. I am about to do the same thing. Not sure how well it will do, I vape mine until it is pretty dark I use vapor genie's wooden dry herb vaporizor. A lot of people don't like it but I found the sweet spot in technique. Game changer from combustion...

I vape mine at a pretty high temperature as well, not dark as in black but definitely darker brown I'm going to use about three times as much as I would with unvaped buds so hopefully it's up there potency-wise. For vaping I use a nice battery powered unit that's amazing for dried herbs like Cannabis. It works well for changa too The Arizer Solo.

http://arizer.com/store/en/arizer-hand-held/31-arizer-solo-portable-vaporizer.html

We lipofy our freshly harvested leaves and stems by cracker drying in air and powdering up - then to the stove-top with 1/1 ratio of butter and plant. Simmer on low for several hours.
Results are super mellow, high functioning stuff

I've always had the most success using straight butter and ground bud in a crockpot on "warm setting" for 24 hours. Start it on "low" or "high" then let it sit on the "warm setting. Let cool until you're able to handle it safely, strain it (I use heat resistant gloves to strain it through a Cotton T shirt while it's still hot), put in desired container and refrigerate. You should be left with a nice dark green puck of cannabutter I have done it with successful results and some of the most potent highs of my life with up to 28 grams of bud per pound of butter.

Magic Butter Machine

Bought one of these and never looked back!

Thanks for sharing that link!

i set my ganja extracts for 20-24 hours on low in crock pot, if its fresh plant or wax. i use coconut oil tho

if its ashes (from a vaporizer) then only a few hours is all thats needed since it got decarbed in the vape

What I have had good luck with is I start with a cookie recipe. Whatever amount of butter needed for the recipe is what I use to extract the cannabinoids. I'll set up a double boiler which is sometimes just one pot floating in another. Heat the butter up to about 70C and place the ground up bud in it. Keep the butter around 70C for 3-4 hours. Filter through a fine sieve as to keep the finer particles in the butter. I would have figured how much bud to use by the amount of cookies the recipe makes.

Make cookies and enjoy!