Mistakes to Avoid With Cannabis Cooking

There are specific cannabis cooking methods that you should avoid when making your edibles, marijuana butter, cannabis oils and other products. In this article, we will mostly stick to cannabis edibles, more so because they are getting very popular and hot items on the cannabis market.  Let us look at these one at a time.

Too Much Grinding

One of the mistakes that you should avoid with cannabis cooking is to grind the plant material too much, especially when you are making canna-butter or extracting cannabis oil. Some online websites that carry cannabis recipes will often say the opposite is true. But, this is the furthest thing from the truth. You should never grind marijuana so that it is too fine, especially, if you want good tasting cannabis edibles. When you over grind the marijuana, all you are doing is allowing more of the plant material to show up in the end product. This makes the product look greener in color and gives it a useless herbal flavor.

Cannabis Infusions

While this might not be a mistake, it is to be noted that you should not infuse marijuana without adding water. If you are doing cannabis cooking on your stovetop, you must use water to help to infuse the product. Make sure that you do this on lower temperature, avoiding any scorching or burning because this will only give the product a bad taste. In addition, if you do cannabis cooking on high temperature, it reduces the level of THC. Water also is good for maintaining the flavor and appearance of the end product. Be sure to add the same amount of water as you do the oil or butter. Do this whether you are using a slow cooker or stove top.

Cannabis Cooking Temperature

In a general sense, and what does make sense is using a lower temperature with cannabis cooking. The THC will completely degrade, if you cook on temperatures that exceed 392 degrees Fahrenheit.  When you boil water, it does not go beyond 212 degrees Fahrenheit. So, it is always recommended that you use water as a way to properly infuse your end product while also paying very close attention to the temperature, especially when infusing oils or butter or when cannabis cooking with concentrates. If you are going to make anything with batter, be sure that the medicated part goes inside that batter. Use 375 degrees Fahrenheit in this case, which is oven temperature that is quite normal for most types of cannabis cooking.

The Decarboxylation Process

It is a given that when the temperature is too high, it kills the THC. Whether you realize it or not, the raw marijuana plant does not have THC. It only has THC-A, which is an acid. Decarboxylation or the addition of heat is necessary to bring out the THC, converting the acid form to THC.  When you use the decarboxylation process first during cannabis cooking, it will increase the leave of THC. You will have to use the decarboxylation process especially when you cook with kief and hash in order to maximize the potency of THC.

Over Medication

In cannabis cooking, you should never add too much plant material. You might over medicate yourself. For example, there are instance where people put too much cannabis and when the end product is eaten, the person consuming it, might go through paranoia and other symptoms of over consumption. This is true also for hash oil. It can give you an intense high, which is not necessary a good experience for everyone. You should not under medicate either or it won't fulfill its purpose.

To learn more about how to cook with cannabis, visit the Cannabis Training University today.

Karen Getchell

Karen gained expertise in developing training programs and technical documentation as a Senior Editor at Cisco Systems. She began her journey in cannabis as a patient, searching for a way to heal herself. When she perfected a method for making cannabis oil, other patients began to seek her out. An early adopter of CBD medicine, she started her CBD-infused-products business in 2014. Over the last two decades, Karen has taught hundreds of patients and caregivers how to select strains, infuse oils, and extract cannabinoids.

When she isn’t teaching cannabis cooking classes, Karen works as a cannabis business consultant, writes for online cannabis publications like Cannabis Training University, Leafly, and Weedmaps, and runs a CBD-infused-product business.