Attempting to use Coconut Oil for the first time...

This is my first time trying to cook with coconut oil, and I'm a bit weary. I am more used to cooking with butter, and even that experience is somewhat limited. I plan on using a crock pot set on low to melt my oil and extract the THC from about 20g of ABV with about 8g of fresh herbs. Any suggestions or pointer you may have so that I can produce some potent oil for edibles would be greatly appreciated.

I would like to use this oil for making cookis, muffins, cakes, etc., so hopefully I'm working with the right product

Hey there! I've made some coconut oil treats with success. Here's my process:

I make sure the herb is thoroughly dry and grind it VERY fine. A coffee grinder works nicely for this. The next thing I do is called decarboxylation. It will help your treats to be even more potent. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Then place the ground up herb thinly and evenly on a cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil. Place the cookie sheet on the middle rack and leave it in for 20-25 minutes. It will smell A LOT at this stage, so take precautions. The next step is a variation of your crockpot method that will guarantee that the coconut oil won't burn and your end product will not taste like herb.

Into your Crock pot put WATER and bring it to a boil. Then add about twice the coconut oil that your recipe calls for. Some of it will evaporate during the cooking process. Next add the herb, stir, and bring down the temperature to a simmer (barely seeing small bubbles rising) Leave it on simmer for 2-4 hours, stirring regularly. When it's done, pour the whole mixture through a fine strainer, cheesecloth, etc. to strain out the plant material. The plant material is now useless and may be thrown away. Careful, its hot...strain the mixture into a pyrex bowl, or let it cool down first. What's left in the pyrex bowl is a mixture of the now THC infused oil and water. Put this mixture in your refrigerator, NOT YOUR FREEZER, overnight.

In the morning, you will see that the oil has separated from the water and solidified. Simply take the now solid coconut oil out of the water. The water contains a lot of the nasty tastes and makes your oil cleaner. If you wish, you can repeat the process by melting the coconut oil in boiling water for a few minutes and then straining it again into a bowl and refrigerating it again. This won't increase potency, but if you do it three times, you'll notice no herb taste in your treats.

Final step: Melt your coconut oil in a pyrex measuring cup and make sure it's enough for the recipe you're using. If it's less because of evaporation, just add more regular coconut oil to make up the difference. Then simply mix the melted (BUT NOT HOT!) oil, into your recipe and cook as usual except, and this is important: 300 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT MAX! NO MATTER WHAT THE RECIPE SAYS! Your treats make take longer to finish at that temp, but go over it for long enough, and you treats will lose potency. Good luck!

Is it okay to put the herb in boiling water? What does putting the herb in the oven achieve? Since the herb has been vaped, wouldn't the oven have no effect? And if one is using unvaped herb, wouldnt the oven vape off some of the good stuff? I guess that is just the price of edibles, you lose some actives through cooking.

A lot of questions, I know. I'm just trying to educate myself.

You put in the oven to decarb..... http://fuckcombustion.com/threads/decarboxylization-whats-going-on.8853/

i think if your using vaped herb that already hit temps of up to 400 or whatever decarbing is probably pointless.i have made canna-butter for years and recently switched to coconut oil and i make capsules.with both i have tried decarbing but ive never noticed a difference in potency between decarb and not decarb.i dont bother with spent herb from the vape i only use fresh.i have taken the temp of butter/oil while simmering and its like 190-200 anyways so i have always considered decarbing to be a waste.im not a scientist or anything its just my opinion.

Thats correct but the poster I replied to was asking why you would put fresh, unvaped herb in the oven. If you then may be vaping things off. A proper decarb of good fresh herb is most definitely going to improve potency for most cooking extraction methods IMO. Particularly for cold/lower temp infusions of glycerin or alcohol.

I just made some canna caps today with a recipe similar to this, but without the water, and accidently made them too diluted. I think I am going to try again tomorrow following your procedure.