Easy Cannabutter Recipe: Make Your Own Weed Edibles

What is cannabutter?

Cannabutter is simply ordinary butter infused with cannabis, and makes for one of the simplest methods of making edibles. Butter makes for the perfect edibles base as THC, the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis, needs to bind to a fat to be effectively consumed in an edible form. We can bind our THC to some butter using a simple cooking procedure, known as an "infusion."

The resulting cannabutter from this recipe can be consumed however you like, we recommend adding it to your favourite butter based recipes (ours is brownies) and within 1.5-3 hours you are guaranteed to be in for a good time.

Why use cannabutter?

Consuming cannabis in an edible format provides a whole host of benefits, largely for health and lifestyle. As the butter can simply be eaten, it provides a much more discrete and convenient method of consumption, allowing users to get high on the go, in public, or in shared houses. Consuming cannabis also negates the need to inhale clouds of hot smoke, which can be an unpleasant experience and can have negative health consequences.

The effects of edible cannabis last longer compared to smoking, which is particularly useful for medical users or simply for those who desire a longer experience.

By preparing the edibles ourselves, we can make very good estimates as to the THC concentration in our butter which makes for effective dosing. This means we can use choose exactly how much to take to ensure we achieve the right effects and be efficient with our dosing.

Cannabutter Recipe

Making cannabutter is cheap, easy, and most people have the equipment at home to do it themselves.

Materials

Baking tray
Baking paper
Oven
Saucepan, stock pot, double-boiler, or slow cooker
Mesh strainer or cheesecloth
Container for cannabutter
Cannabis grinder

Ingredients

7-10 grams of cannabis flower
250 grams unsalted butter
250ml water

Basic cannabutter recipe

Decarb the cannabis. Preheat the oven to 122ºC. Cover the baking tray with your paper and place the grinded/broken up cannabis on it. Keep in mind we will later strain this weed out and so if you grind your weed too fine it may get through our strainer and into the butter. Heat it in the oven for 27 minutes. Gently mix the buds every 10-15 minutes to expose all sides of the buds. (Older, drier cannabis may require less time.) Gently heating your flower will help preserve the cannabinoids and terpenes in the bud.
Melt the butter. On low heat, melt the butter in a saucepan. Add 240ml of water, which will help regulate temperature and prevent the butter from scorching.
Add the cannabis. After the butter is fully melted, add in the decarbed cannabis.
Simmer. Simmer on low heat, between 160-200ºF; don’t exceed 200ºF or you may burn out the cannabinoids. Simmer for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally. The mixture should never come to a full boil.
Strain the mixture. Place a mesh strainer or cheesecloth over a jar and pour the butter/cannabis mixture through it. Discard the plant material.
Refrigerate. Place the jar of butter in a fridge, and let it solidify before using, ideally overnight, or a few hours at least. If excess water forms at the bottom of the jar, remove the solid butter with a knife and drain out the water.

Why is decarboxylation necessary for making edibles?

The cannabis plant contains THCA, which will not get you high, and that THCA needs to be converted into THC in order for you to get high. This is most commonly done with heat. As we want to eat the cannabis, heating buds in an oven before infusion is necessary to activate the THC, so it can be carried into the butter infusion, and then into our edible.

How to consume the cannabutter

Now that you have your weed butter, there's no end of tasty foods you can bless with THC. Once you have figured out your desired dose, you can use this as a baseline for any butter containing recipe. If making a large batch of edibles, simply multiply your personalized dose by the number of treats you’ll be making, so each one equals one dose.

You can also simply consume the butter directly, use it to butter a snack or even just throw it in the pan with any regular meal.

How to calculate your edibles dosage

Many variables are at play when infusing butter with weed, and there’s no exact science or formula to it. Cannabutter can be difficult to dose because its potency depends on a few factors:

Potency of cannabis used
How long you heat it when infusing
Temperature while infusing

These variables are hard to measure and don’t necessarily have easy to measure correlations.

The only real way to understand the potency of your cannabutter is to try it. We recommend taking a small test dose to get a gauge for potency. Try 1/2 a teaspoon of the butter if you are relatively inexperienced, 1 tsp for the more adventurous of you and see how you feel after 1.5 hours. You will only have to do this once and then you'll have a relatively accurate measure of dosage for future consumption.

Cannabis to butter ratio: How to make cannabutter milder or stronger

If your fresh herb butter turns out to be too potent for you, you can always use regular butter in addition to cannabutter to dilute the effects. For example, if a recipe calls for 1/2 cup butter, you can use 1/4 cup cannabutter and 1/4 cup regular butter to thin out your edible.

Additionally, when making the weed butter, if the ratio of weed to butter doesn't seem right for you, feel free to adjust this and experiment to find what works for you. Simply increase/reduce the amount of cannabis used during infusion to alter the potency.

Edibles recipes: What to make with cannabutter

While you can consume the butter in any way you like, here are some of the classic ways to ingest the weed butter.

Easy Cannabutter Recipe: Make Your Own Weed Edibles

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