Bhang and Bhang with AVB

[dapperdopamine]

I recently stumbled upon bhang (ghee mixed with finely ground cannabis and indian spices, atleast thats what wikipedia says)

Has anyone made bhang and used a traditional recipe, wikipedia could certainly be wrong about the use of ghee but since indian cooking uses lots of ghee I would doubt it. Anyhow, I havent actually seen a recipe that uses ghee, so If anyone has one, let me know, although it would be simple enough to just wing it, I'm a bit of a historian and a chef so I'd like to get a traditional experience but without having to travel to india.

Also, I see no reason Bhang couldnt be a perfectly good, and fun way to use avb. I also love ghee and will use any excuse to make something with clarified butter and mangos.

 

[CurryLeafTreehugger]

Doing some serious necroposting here, but here goes anyway:

Ghee with marijuana is called something else, not bhang. I can't remember the right name in either Telugu or Hindi for that. Bhang is tea made from cannamilk or cannacream. The "traditional" recipe goes something like

Take 2 pounds of fresh marijuana flowers and leaves.

Add to 1 gallon of milk (that would be WATER BUFFALO milk which is 8% to 13% fat)

Simmer on low until just the point of khoa (khoa is milk/cream cooked down to the consistency of fudge, you want to stop just before that point)

pour through a flour sack cloth (very fine weave lint free cloth used for real cheese making NOT CHEESECLOTH) retaining the milk/cream

SQUEEZE super duper extra squeezyhard.

You can use the plant material for something else, I forget what the aunties said to do with it. But now you make tea with the cannamilk, and that is bhang.

 

[Farid]

It seems there are a lot of very different recipes out there. Bhang lassi is the one with milk, but I've also seen bhang that is just water and pulverized weed (not sure how intoxicating this drink is, or if it's just for medical/ceremonial purposes).

Most of the recipes I've seen involve soaking the weed in water, then straining it and discarding the water. Usually it's done a couple of times, first with cold water, then hot water. My understanding is this serves two purposes. One is to clean the weed (I imagine from cholophyl as well as dirt, similar to what you'd get from a water cure. The other purpose is to make the weed easy to grind into a very fine paste.

Once the weed has been washed, the water is strained and the weed is put on a flat stone, and ground down into a paste. Then this paste is mixed with water, put through some more strains, and the resulting mixture looks like a murky green water. To make lassi this is heated with high fat milk.

Usually ground almonds and spices are also added with the weed paste. The spices I've usually seen are cardamom, black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, caraway seeds, anise seeds, poppy seeds, and sometimes cucumber seeds?

I've also seen recipes where some of the initial cold water washes are saved and added back, I imagine for the terps. But I think that would only be if those washes are low in chlorophyll, and if the starting material was free of dust/dirt.

Keep in mind this is all from just having watched it being made, I've never actually made it myself.

EDIT: I just realized this thread was about using ABV. I think abv should definitely be water cured before using. But even in that case, I think ABV is not ideal for bhang, since usually bhang includes extremely finely ground flower. ABV is better to strain out IMO since it tastes much worse than fresh flower, so it would probably be better to just simmer in milk and strain.

 

[CurryLeafTreehugger]

Bhang lassi is made with yogurt. Not milk. Straight up Bhang is the tea made with milk and spices. The butter stuff is something else yet again. The tea was used as a ritual drink - and if you made it the way the aunties said to make it, I guarantee you, you will see god. There are also sweets made with bhang, I can't remember what they were called either.

Given the oldest auntie was born in 1903, I'll go with her recipe, if its all the same to you, LOL!

Perhaps I should mention. The aunties were all born in India prior to 1920. And lived there all their lives. Pretty sure its safe to go with their instruction in the matter.

And yes, I did skip the water wash. The entire process is memorialized somewhere in an old post on a forum for Indian expats. If you really want the entire process I could go find that, I guess, but its basically just water wash your flower, make the milk, and dump it in your tea spiced however you want or not at all.

As for the taste of ABV - I always water wash my ABV. After that, it is reduced to about 1/3rd in volume, it is a light straw color, and you can grind it up into a very fine flour (flower flour, as it were, LOL!) and it has no flavor at all. Well I've never just popped it into my mouth plain, but I can't tell its in stuff I cook it into.

Grinding the plant material up with almonds sounds familiar. I still don't really remember what I was supposed to do with the plant material but grinding it up with other stuff sounds about right. But way too much work.

 

[Shit Snacks]

Another really easy way to make quick edibles that I like, is Bhang, just get some whole milk (chocolate milk ideal) and set it to boil then quickly simmer, throw in the weed and it is a quick infusion!

I'm going to try pre-wrapping bundles of avb and cheesecloth, kind of like tea bags, so I can make Bhang soon without having to filter out plant material... Will post how it went once I finally try, in a new thread?

I've never water cured before, I just add vanilla extract into the oil lol But I am curious, what would be a very simple way to do it, super low maintenance minimal steps and time? Can it as simple as packing the herb up in my cheesecloth, soaking it in water and straining, before then boiling them in the milk for the extraction infusion???

Figured I would quote my posts from the firecracker thread here, this is much more on topic for them!

I replied to you in that thread @CurryLeafTreehugger and I see here you did try without water washing the first time? And now you always water wash...

I don't care as much about the flavor, like I am just boiling it in the chocolate milk to drink and get the effects, but I do like the idea of washing all the dirt and bad shit from the AVB before I extract it...

However I am so lazy, I mean I have years of AVB in jars, so this is mostly just to be a quick simple way to make use of it for me lol

 

[CurryLeafTreehugger]

Figured I would quote my posts from the firecracker thread here, this is much more on topic for them!

I replied to you in that thread @CurryLeafTreehugger and I see here you did try without water washing the first time? And now you always water wash...

I don't care as much about the flavor, like I am just boiling it in the chocolate milk to drink and get the effects, but I do like the idea of washing all the dirt and bad shit from the AVB before I extract it...

However I am so lazy, I mean I have years of AVB in jars, so this is mostly just to be a quick simple way to make use of it for me lol

Errr, no, I think I was just describing how the aunties instructed me in the proper ways of bhang-making. I just didn't talk about water washing but water washing WAS the first step in the process.

I wrote it all down a couple years ago, because my memory is the suckage majore, in a post on another forum, so if I really HAVE to I can go find that again. Every once in awhile something like that will pop up out of my memory and I try to pass that on before I lose it again LOL! The water wash was different than what I do with ABV nowadays, it involved what seems to have been a combined decarb and water wash, then on to making the cannacream after that. And lots of grindage of the plant material with other stuff.

Nope. I've always water washed whatever I was using before trying to turn it in to edibles. I don't do a lot of edibles - mostly I just make cannacream, especially when I have reclaim from the inside of my stems. And since I 100% vape dry flower, I really only make the edibles with the ABV. Which I have lots of since I fell down on the job keeping up with it LOL!

With huge quantities (and I thought *I* had a pile of it backing up LOL!) try this:

Get a 2 gallon bucket from Home Depot. Actually the 5 gal Homer buckets (orange) are probably cheaper, but whatever, get a great big bucket with lid. Then get a paint sock sized appropriately for the bucket and the amount of ABV you have. A 5 gallon paint sock is huge, a 2 gallon paint sock ought to be plenty big enough.

Pour your ABV into the paint sock, tie the loose end. MAKE SURE YOU CAN UNTIE IT LATER or expect to cut it off when you are done, they are disposable anyway so either way you'll be all good.

Now put it in the bucket and cover it with water and let it soak. When the water turns brown, dump it. Squish the paint sock to wring it out a bit, this is really not THAT important, just don't tear the paint sock. Should be fine but you may want to file your nails first LOL! Well assuming you aren't going to file POINTS on there.

Just dump the water when it looks icky and replace.

I don't know what to say about your tap water, that sounds awful. In that case I guess I would go with the distilled water. If you really do have a whole lot of ABV to clean, you might get it cheaper in one of those big 5 gallon bottles, but maybe not. I think its like 68c per gallon at the local discount grocery.

 

[Shit Snacks]

Errr, no, I think I was just describing how the aunties instructed me in the proper ways of bhang-making. I just didn't talk about water washing but water washing WAS the first step in the process.

I wrote it all down a couple years ago, because my memory is the suckage majore, in a post on another forum, so if I really HAVE to I can go find that again. Every once in awhile something like that will pop up out of my memory and I try to pass that on before I lose it again LOL! The water wash was different than what I do with ABV nowadays, it involved what seems to have been a combined decarb and water wash, then on to making the cannacream after that. And lots of grindage of the plant material with other stuff.

Nope. I've always water washed whatever I was using before trying to turn it in to edibles. I don't do a lot of edibles - mostly I just make cannacream, especially when I have reclaim from the inside of my stems. And since I 100% vape dry flower, I really only make the edibles with the ABV. Which I have lots of since I fell down on the job keeping up with it LOL!

With huge quantities (and I thought *I* had a pile of it backing up LOL!) try this:

Get a 2 gallon bucket from Home Depot. Actually the 5 gal Homer buckets (orange) are probably cheaper, but whatever, get a great big bucket with lid. Then get a paint sock sized appropriately for the bucket and the amount of ABV you have. A 5 gallon paint sock is huge, a 2 gallon paint sock ought to be plenty big enough.

Pour your ABV into the paint sock, tie the loose end. MAKE SURE YOU CAN UNTIE IT LATER or expect to cut it off when you are done, they are disposable anyway so either way you'll be all good.

Now put it in the bucket and cover it with water and let it soak. When the water turns brown, dump it. Squish the paint sock to wring it out a bit, this is really not THAT important, just don't tear the paint sock. Should be fine but you may want to file your nails first LOL! Well assuming you aren't going to file POINTS on there.

Just dump the water when it looks icky and replace.

I don't know what to say about your tap water, that sounds awful. In that case I guess I would go with the distilled water. If you really do have a whole lot of ABV to clean, you might get it cheaper in one of those big 5 gallon bottles, but maybe not. I think its like 68c per gallon at the local discount grocery.

Thank you so much again, even bits and pieces, this has all been extremely helpful and interesting!!

All right you made it simple enough, I will have to try, don't worry I'm only going to use a little bit of the AVB for my first bhang milking, there will be plenty of the stock pile left to do what you described at a later date

Yeah I get so lazy with it, I suppose I could be tossing it, but like when you're at home vaping, why not save it? but I just don't have a lot of opportunity where I feel like I want to do edibles, particularly these type of edibles, without taking any trips or anything...

 

[Okla68]

This sounds extremely gross to me. Even after 50 years of enjoying cannabis, I find its Edible taste to be quite Foul. Especially if it involves ABV, even after water curing.
Consuming 0.10 gram of Fresh Rosin produces a Strong High for hours, but, the aftertaste and accompanying Cannabis Belches make it quite Nauseating to me. To the point of Avoiding it. Love the Intense visuals it produces, but, that Taste keeps me from truly enjoying it.
Everyone is different !

 

[west-elec]

Yeah AVB has already been stripped of most of the good stuff if you've got a half decent vape, so i'm not putting up with gross taste for a sleepy high especially if there is work involved water curing and infusing...
I've been really getting into edibles lately since I got the Ardent NovaFX. Easy decarbing with very little smell, then the material can be used in anything as is, or infused in butter or oil. So easy.
If OP wants to go non traditional and do cooking with ghee the modern way would be as simple as;
Decarbing your weed (most important step, Google specifics don't need NovaFX just oven or slow cooker). Grind and mix with ghee, cook as usual. Easy as that but be careful with dosage, especially first time.
Extra step, don't grind decarbed weed, cover with melted ghee and simmer for some hours to infuse (Google specifics). Filter out weed with a strainer and the ghee has taken on the THC.
Better to go the extra step for better taste, plus less chance of stomach irritation from tiny hairs and sharp crystals that are on the leaves.
I love the strong background buzz from edible consumption that lasts so long...

 

[CurryLeafTreehugger]

Thanks anyway, I'll go with water washing my ABV and making sleepy-time tea. There are no belches. There is no bad taste. In fact when I make the tea, it tastes of tuaca and khoa. Well, and actual tea flavor as well. No chlorophyll burps. If you still are getting chlorophyll burps after water washing, whether fresh or ABV, you did it wrong. Heck, if you're talking ABV, there are no "hairs" or "crystals" left on it to "upset your stomach", they've been vaped!

Unwashed ABV really does upset my stomach, and I can taste it and it tastes awful. That is what I don't get - the people who say they can't taste the ABV even when it is NOT water washed. I just can't imagine putting that yuck in my mouth, and I'm not throwing all the remaining THC out. Even burnt stuff has reclaim (though frankly I don't combust so there is little or no ash in my ABV to start with). I imagine it might be REALLY hard to reclaim burnt stuff without ending up with bad flavor, so there's the other possibility - you actually did burn up most of the THC during vaping. I don't do black ABV but to each their own.

*shrug* At any rate - works for me. And it is very little actual work to water wash. It just sits there and soaks and you dump it out once or twice a day until the water runs clear. Or clear enough.

But then maybe that's the difference between medicating - because I WANT my sleepy time tea to make me sleepy - and recreational.

 

[Okla68]

Thanks anyway, I'll go with water washing my ABV and making sleepy-time tea. There are no belches. There is no bad taste. In fact when I make the tea, it tastes of tuaca and khoa. Well, and actual tea flavor as well. No chlorophyll burps. If you still are getting chlorophyll burps after water washing, whether fresh or ABV, you did it wrong. Heck, if you're talking ABV, there are no "hairs" or "crystals" left on it to "upset your stomach", they've been vaped!

Unwashed ABV really does upset my stomach, and I can taste it and it tastes awful. That is what I don't get - the people who say they can't taste the ABV even when it is NOT water washed. I just can't imagine putting that yuck in my mouth, and I'm not throwing all the remaining THC out. Even burnt stuff has reclaim (though frankly I don't combust so there is little or no ash in my ABV to start with). I imagine it might be REALLY hard to reclaim burnt stuff without ending up with bad flavor, so there's the other possibility - you actually did burn up most of the THC during vaping. I don't do black ABV but to each their own.

*shrug* At any rate - works for me. And it is very little actual work to water wash. It just sits there and soaks and you dump it out once or twice a day until the water runs clear. Or clear enough.

But then maybe that's the difference between medicating - because I WANT my sleepy time tea to make me sleepy - and recreational.

I get that awful taste(to me, Love the smell) from Fresh Squeezed Rosin, regardless of strain. Doing an Ethanol extraction I get the same Awful Initial and Aftertaste...as stated, Love the Smell, Hate the Initial & Aftertaste !!!
Again, everyone's reaction to Flavors and Smells can be quite different.
After consuming Unwashed ABV in the past(with Peanut Butter), I would rather chew on a dog turd than try and consume that again, let alone Belch it back up !
And being an old lifelong Oklahoma Redneck, I have No Clue as to what "Ghee" is, nor the other main substance that was referred to. Will have to Google it, lol !

 

[CurryLeafTreehugger]

@Okla68

Ghee is clarified butter that is cooked over low heat until golden brown and all the solids have turned to little brown crisps. My ex used to eat those crisps as a kid growing up when his mom made ghee, they were a treat to him. I tried that once.

Once.

Love the ghee. I'll leave the little brown bits though. You strain those out and just use the ghee, since its had the water and solids cooked out the burning point is WAY higher. It will also last virtually forever, an absolute boon throughout the history of a largely tropical country.

I'm not sure what other stuff? Tuaca is a flavored liqueur. When I get a nice layer of rosin in my stems, I swish some Tuaca around in them to dissolve the resin out, then I dump that into a pan with cream in it. I then slowly cook the cream down until it is very thick. If you continue cooking it until it has a soft fudge-like consistency, that is Khoa. For this purpose, I stop before that. I don't need to strain it because its resin. So then I can put a dollop of the near-khoa in my tea, sometimes with a splash of Tuaca. And then its sleepy time for me.

Off to change the rinse water!

 

[Texus]

Bhang, huh? Takes me back to Varnasi about 20 years ago.

I will also note that I've also seen sous vide recipes for making bhang as well, which gives you greater temp control and no need to be concerned with scorched milk on the bottom from not sufficiently stirring/having burner too high.

 

[bhasma]

Bhang: The cleaned herb (leaves and tips) is ground with some water into a very fine paste that can be used in various ways. Simply eating balls of the paste, or mixing it with milk or yoghurt and straining the mixture through a cloth, or adding the paste to any food. Adding almonds to the grind is common (especially for drinks) and black pepper is often added (said to increase the speed of absorption). My favourite recipe is Bhang Pakora, where the bhang is added to the batter. It is very tasty and can be quite strong, since frying the pakoras decarbs the herb.

The milky mixture is not heated, except when making tea. And the herb is usually ground on a flat stone, with excess water draining away.

 

[bhasma]

Bhang is very common in India, especially in the north. It is sacred to Lord Shiva, and at Shivaratri every year and on Mondays (his sacred day) devotees take bhang.

Apart from bhang made by sadhus, the best I have tried was in Ujjain, where Mahakaleshwar is regularly anointed with bhang (search Mahakaleshwar Bhang Shringar for more).

Medical and recreational use of Cannabis is well known, but religious use should not be ignored.

 

[bhasma]

There are many delicious Indian sweets that can include bhang, and CurryLeafTreehugger mentioned khoa, which is the basis of various treats. Bhang khoa and bhang barfi are delicious, and can be surprisingly strong. And ayurvedic pharmacies often have bhang munakka (raisins).

And AVB Bhang? I don't revisit my AVB, but I presume that it could easily be substituted for bhang in any recipe. A light roast would probably be stronger than traditional bhang.

 

[bhasma]

Bang has a long history and many uses

Medicinal Properties of Cannabis in Medieval Manuscripts of Azerbaijan

and Soma in the ancient Vedas was likely a mixture of Ephedra and Cannabis, but Ephedra isn't readily available in India, so on Somavar (or Moonday) simply Bhang is the preferred sacrament.

The Cannabis Soma Theory: A Synopsis

 

[tgvp]

I've read that bhang can be really serious stuff, compared to other edibles. Obviously, there are as many recipes and variations than cooks and probably base ingredients (well, cannabis or cannabis based products) variation also bring variation in potency.
But could part of that aura of efficency be partly based on the fact it is a drink, thus faster absorbed? I remember reading that drinks have a faster take-off time, thus giving an impression of increase potency, while solid food needing more time to be absorbed, has a lower but longer lasting effect?
Definitely has to try a bhang based recipe next time, for science purposes obviously

 

[tgvp]

I didn't prepare a bhang per se, but curiosity from reading this thread pushed me me on the liquid side of the cannaoil.
I was invited to a Halloweed party and decided to innovate from my usual space pastry by preparing a drink inspired from what I read here, but as I process my avb by batch and then store the resulting oil in the freezer to use the right amount when needed. So I put all I had left in a chai Latte inspired drink (basically, milk, butter, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, pepper, sugar and... probably a few more ingredients to cook for like 10 mins, the filter, add oil, mix it vigorously then voila). Its not the traditional recipe, but hopefully, I have no Indian ancestry to be shocked by my misappropriation
Anyway, result was nice tasting, but I had some troubles to keep the cannaoil to stay well mixed, so there was a greenish hue on top of the cups anyway, everyone enjoyed and effect kicked quite fast, like starting to feel some tickling after 10 mins only and was super nice all evening (was not the only cannabis item tbh).
But most impressive was the next day, I woke up at 12 and was still kinda stoned. Probably the meal, a 'raclette' (mostly melted cheese) overloaded the digestive track, slowing absorption enough to be partly responsible for the very long effect.
But anyway, I will retry the recipe one of those days, at least to fix the issue of mixing milk and oil

 

[StellarLarve]

Raclette + Bhang… what’s next? Weed fondue?

 

[ClearBlueLou]

This sounds extremely gross to me. Even after 50 years of enjoying cannabis, I find its Edible taste to be quite Foul. Especially if it involves ABV, even after water curing.
Consuming 0.10 gram of Fresh Rosin produces a Strong High for hours, but, the aftertaste and accompanying Cannabis Belches make it quite Nauseating to me. To the point of Avoiding it. Love the Intense visuals it produces, but, that Taste keeps me from truly enjoying it.
Everyone is different !

“Different” seems like a weak word in this context: “FOUL”?
ASAFOEDITA is *foul*. I can’t help wondering what’s going on here

I’ve been in the kitchen since I was 7, & I’ve been handed every job there is in a kitchen…& I’ve NEVER reacted to an herb like this. I don’t react to THIS herb like this. You are absolutely correct, everyone is different… yet some differences are BIZARRE.

Do you react to all herbed products/recipies so strongly?