People who like to smoke weed usually use a lot of things for this to make the process more interesting and to have more experience with utilizing marijuana in new ways. You can smoke joint, use a bong, vaping, dabbing or to choose the most interesting way of this which is cooking with cannabis. The first thing that needs to be said is that people usually ask a lot of questions such as what is the difference between smoking cannabis and edibles and how to make edible cannabis in general.
First and foremost cooked weed, as opposed to a joint, has much stronger effects but it doesn’t mean that the best way is to make some cake, for example, and eat it all. Some important moments that have to be known before using weed in cooking. But it is true that making weed edibles is one of the best ways of what you can do with cannabis. Let’s see which advantages it has.
What are the benefits of edible cannabis?
Is it stronger?
One should note here that edibles are normally made with highly concentrated cannabis that’s why 1 small cake, for example, contains much more THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, it is the principal psychoactive constituent of cannabis, and to be more precise, it calls 11-hydroxy-THC, but we will use just THC) than 1 joint.
The second reason why it is stronger is the metabolizing process: herb cannabis edibles are broken down by the digestive system and it makes the release of cannabinoids going slower into the body and they take longer to kick in.
Does it contain antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and fiber?
It sounds fantastic but it is true: even it could get you stoned, it is still green plants which leaves are a rich source of vitamins, fiber, and minerals. Like, for example, vitamins C and K, iron, folate, calcium. Also, they are full of antioxidants, whether raw or cooked, which protect the cells of our bodies from stress. They’re also protecting us from “free radicals,” that can wreak havoc on our bodies over time.
It’s a good alternative to smoking because it does not affect the lungs
It is undeniable that inhaling hot smoke could irritate the respiratory system because people who smoke marijuana inhale more deeply into their lungs (and hold the smoke longer). And, interestingly, that cooked marijuana has a different reaction in your body than smoking. It is first metabolized by your liver, which turns it into another kind of THC and leads to a more intense and longer-lasting effect.
Does it have a longer effect?
It is true that when you can eat weed instead of smoking, the effect will stay longer with you, because of the way of using it. The body has chemical processes that allow THC to stay more time with you. That’s why the most important thing is how much cannabis you need per edible to control your condition.
What are the ways to eat cannabis?
First of all, let’s try to understand how is going this process of cooking. There is the process which calls decarboxylation, which is necessary for us to enjoy the psychoactive effects of the cannabinoids which are the main things in the weed. By the way, marijuana consists of the female Cannabis plant, so even in a food maleplant is not used. So, for example, if you eat a lot of raw cannabis the effect will be very low because you need first to decarboxylate it because it takes out the THC.
So, to make this process work you need two things, heat and time. That’s why it happens fast when you smoke or vaporizing: our lungs easily absorbed it because of the high temperature of burning. So with cooking, you need to heat cannabinoids at a lower temperature over time to decarboxylate the THC and after you can use this marijuana for the next step – making oil, butter or flour. With all these products you have a lot of options on how to cook different kinds of cannabis edibles.
So, let’s go step-by-step:
- firstly you need to know how to decarboxylate cannabis at home,
- secondly, you can do oil or butter and in the end, it is possible to have some recipes of some weed edibles you could cook in Spain.
If you are thinking to buy these products somewhere, we have to tell you that it is possible to do in the cannabis clubs, but they are so rare there that it’s much easier to cook them at home.
What is the cannabis edibles dosage?
That thing is very important especially if you are a beginner at cooking with weed is the dosage of food and how to consume cannabis edibles. As we said it is stronger and it has a longer effect and also it slowly metabolized in your body. So, it doesn’t matter what you are eating, banana bread or brownie, toast with cannabis butter or tea with weed, you have to be very careful with the cooking with weed dosage and not to eat all the dish by yourself if you didn’t feel the effects fast from the first bite. Also carefully check the amount of weed for edibles for not adding too much, just to have a balance between taste and effect.
If you use the recipe on the website, we counted all the ingredients so you just need to carefully test with small pieces, but if you want to cook something by yourself you can use this formula:
0,5 g of cannabis with 10 portions of edibles contains 50 mg of THC and each portion will have 5.00 mg. But it is real with conditions that we use medium quality marijuana and this is average effect according to the average index.
So, try a little number of any cannabis edibles and check the effect after an hour. If after this time you feel nothing, it means that for you it is necessary to use a bigger dose, just try carefully to eat one more piece of your cannabis things. Anyway if you had too many edibles, you can eat some sweet things but be careful with the fat because it will bind to the THC in your digestive tract and increase the bioavailability of the THC. So Coca-Cola, a glass of water and a lot of sleep are the ways for you to come back to your normal mood. In some hours you will feel better. As for the relationship between your body and marijuana just want to remind you that THC stays remain detectable in the body for about a month and as for medical test they could find for 3 months.
The first step: Decarboxylation
The best and easiest way how to make it at home is by using the oven.
- First and foremost it is important to understand that you have to pay your attention to the temperature of the oven, it has not to be hotter than 250 degrees but the best would be 220.
- To begin with, you have to preheat the oven to the right temperature and prepare weed by grinding it and spreading it across a sheet of parchment paper that has been placed over a baking tray.
If the temperature rises you begin to risk cooking off valuable cannabinoids. This has to be baked for about 30-45 minutes to achieve the process of decarboxylation. When it is done, you can go to step two and make products for your future experiments with food.
The second step: oil and butter
Cannabis-infused butter
What do you need:
- 1 cup of butter
- 1 cup (7-10 grams) of ground cannabis, decarboxylated.
How to do it:
- take 1 cup of water
- 1 cup of butter into a saucepan
- we add water to regulate the temperature and prevent the butter from scorching
- after butter will melt, you can add cannabis
- then we put the temperature around 160ºF and let the mix simmer for 2 or 3 hours, without full boil
- after you have to strain the cannabutter through the cheesecloth and put it to the fridge
- 1 hour you can check if there is some water in a jar. If yes, just remove the butter with a knife and drain the water out.
First, you need to test your butter to understand the dosing weed for edibles which is okay for you. Try spreading ¼ or ½ teaspoon on food and see how that dose affects you after an hour. Decrease or increase the dose as you want.
Cannabis cooking oil
What do you need:
- 1 cup of ground cannabis (or less for milder potency)
- 1 cup of cooking oil of your choice. If you ask which oil it is better to use, the answer will depend on the flavor preferences and which dishes you plan to cook
The best option for desserts and, for example, vegetables, will be coconut oil. Other options are olive oil, avocado oil, canola oil, etc.
How to do it:
- take double-boiler or saucepan, put there cannabis and oil and heat it with some hours
- time depends on the way: 3 hours for saucepan, 6-8 hours for double-boiler
- then strain the cannabutter through the cheesecloth and put it to the fridge.
Don’t forget firstly to test your cannabis edibles resistance with a small dose.
Cannabis flour
One of the ways is also to make flour from cannabis.What do you need:
- to get ¼ cup of the cannabis flour you need to take 7 gr cannabis, also you need a food processor or a coffee grinder.
How to do it:
- just put your cannabis (after decarboxylation) to the food processor
- make the powder
To use it in the baking you need to replace 25% of normal flour to the canna-flour.
Using seeds
One of the questions which are interesting for all the people who are using weed, how to make food with marijuana seeds? And will it make you high or not? So if you are searching recipes using hemp seeds you have to know that they don’t contain any THC so it’s using in the recipe will just add some taste but not any other effects. Nevertheless, one should accept that seeds are an abundant source of natural protein; it contains a lot of arginines – an amino acid which is responsible for boosting nitric oxide in the blood and also rich in omega fatty acids. So if you want to make cannabis seeds edible it will just add some health benefits in your food but nothing more.
Weed: a lot of potential instead of just smoking a joint
To draw the conclusion, one can say that the main meaning of cooking with weed is that it is an interesting process with new effects that stay longer in the body with some healthy benefits.
You can not only do basics like cooking with weed or smoking it in the clubs of Barcelona, but marijuana has a wide range of uses: for example, it is used for cosmetics, in medicine, it can be used to make clothes, in construction, it is possible to make paper, and much more other things. This is a unique plant that has a lot of benefits.
