Decarboxylation of THC and Cannabis Honey

[herbgirl]

Weedemon, what Hal said

and varietal honeys are quite a treat - normally the stuff in the stores is clover or wildflower or orange blossom honey, the most common 'oddball' flavor that i've seen is blueberry. we are not talking about honey that has been flavored, we are talking about honey that derives it's subtle undertones from the nectar of specific flowers. i assume that a monoculture of cannabis plants pollinated by bees (not even sure if cannabis is bee pollinated? anybody know?) would produce a honey with a distinct floral cannabis taste. sounds delicious

my sister sent me three jars of Hawaiian honey for Christmas. leiki blossom, macadamia blossom and one other and there really are differences. truly wonderful stuff.

 

[Nuphile]

the most common 'oddball' flavor that i've seen is blueberry

I have not yet had blueberry honey, but would highly recommend buckwheat honey for anyone who has not tried it. It has a very strong, awesome flavor! Macadamia honey is also awesome! +1. When I was in Maui, this local winery fermented the macadamia honey into wine. Delicious!

 

[Nuphile]

Nuphile, honey is itself a very mild solvent just because it's 70 or 80 percent sugar in a aqueous solution.

Thanks for always giving elaborate answers!

 

[Tuck]

Herbgirl, I need your opinion. I'm just not happy with how this tincture turned out. Do you think I can salvage the good stuff by simmering my tincture with some butter and making cannabutter? Maybe I'd end up with honey cannabutter but I'll be happy with cannabutter.

 

[herbgirl]

just not happy with the strength, i'd say you could combine the butter and honey and possibly get more out of it, but i really don't know. i do know that honey butter rocks, so you could be in a worse position.
i say mix them up with a lil heat, refrigerate till just firm and then stir to combine what has separated. honey butter is great on cornbread.

 

[YourPalHal]

Oh wow, now I'm REALLY craving some cornbread with infused honey butter!

I should NOT come to the edibles section when I'm vaked. . . Too many temptations!

 

[Lo]

lol! +1 Hal... Man...I haven't had honey butter in eons. This area is evil!

 

[stickstones]

ok...we need to get down to a real recipe here! I've got about an oz of good weed I want to cook up. Can I just use this whole with the honey or is it best to grind it to dust? How long should I let it sit? If using dust, do I strain it? Ratio recommendations? And then the butter!

Help me out and let's do this!

 

[Shamen]

New here. I was looking into the honey tincture thing recently. I've read "cooking with cannabis" as well as "cooking with cannabis" years ago. Needless to say I made my own version of a honey tincture suspension despite seeing numerous reports online of people using honey and putting some material in a coffee filter. They heat it for so long and say it works. I'm dubious as to the efficiency. I think it's plausible for the sole reason that honey is the only insect derived food product that we consume as humans. There is likely digestive enzymes in the honey. I am still researching the issue.

Here's the recipe I made. Quantities can be adjusted. If you're bad at math I can help if no one else will:

3.5oz of ground material (i used all beautiful budd though ive done this with strictly stems in the past and it was fire)

1.75L of Everclear 75% (150 proof)

Mix these two. Shake vigorously at least twice a day. (I don't do QWET because I want a full spectrum medical product.) Do this for anywhere from 3 days to two weeks. One week is what Cannabis Alchemy said. (I did 2 weeks with stems.) Keep it in the freezer. I don't even though it's recommended. It's not a big deal.

Next you strain the material. Keep it and do a QWET to recover what's left for the next batch. Or throw it away. That's what I do. It's not worth the hassle to me. I use a permanent coffee filter and squeeze the material by hand. It will absorb through the skin so lightweights beware! I then filter again with two coffee filters in the permanent filter. Squeeze them and toss them each time.

Next I took:

One pound (16oz) of organic honey and mixed it with two cups (16oz) of the Everclear solution and mixed it in a rice cooker. But there's got to be a better way. It was time consuming. Like 5 days. Ugh. Regardless what you're left with is a serious and tasty product. It's great in tea or chocolate milk or alone. Very potent.

Great thread here. This popped up in my research and had to sign on to put in my 2 cents. Thank you.

 

[Nesta]

New here. I was looking into the honey tincture thing recently. I've read "cooking with cannabis" as well as "cooking with cannabis" years ago. Needless to say I made my own version of a honey tincture suspension despite seeing numerous reports online of people using honey and putting some material in a coffee filter. They heat it for so long and say it works. I'm dubious as to the efficiency. I think it's plausible for the sole reason that honey is the only insect derived food product that we consume as humans. There is likely digestive enzymes in the honey. I am still researching the issue.

Here's the recipe I made. Quantities can be adjusted. If you're bad at math I can help if no one else will:

3.5oz of ground material (i used all beautiful budd though ive done this with strictly stems in the past and it was fire)

1.75L of Everclear 75% (150 proof)

Mix these two. Shake vigorously at least twice a day. (I don't do QWET because I want a full spectrum medical product.) Do this for anywhere from 3 days to two weeks. One week is what Cannabis Alchemy said. (I did 2 weeks with stems.) Keep it in the freezer. I don't even though it's recommended. It's not a big deal.

Next you strain the material. Keep it and do a QWET to recover what's left for the next batch. Or throw it away. That's what I do. It's not worth the hassle to me. I use a permanent coffee filter and squeeze the material by hand. It will absorb through the skin so lightweights beware! I then filter again with two coffee filters in the permanent filter. Squeeze them and toss them each time.

Next I took:

One pound (16oz) of organic honey and mixed it with two cups (16oz) of the Everclear solution and mixed it in a rice cooker. But there's got to be a better way. It was time consuming. Like 5 days. Ugh. Regardless what you're left with is a serious and tasty product. It's great in tea or chocolate milk or alone. Very potent.

Great thread here. This popped up in my research and had to sign on to put in my 2 cents. Thank you.

@Shamen - do you decarb the bud before mixing it with the Everclear?

Calling @herbgirl - where are you? Please come back! We miss you!

 

[Shamen]

Definitely DO NOT decarb the bud at all. The alcohol will dissolve all the goods. The alcohol will also deliver the goods same as any fats, only as quick as alcohol delivers itself. Therefore you can rightly assume (infer) that you can drink the Everclear solution. This is true. Half a shot will floor you. Quickly.

The oil decarbs, for whatever that's worth, in the rice cooker. I'm not sure if the decarb is needed do to residual alcohol in the tincture but it's part of the process regardless. If you take the Everclear solution and put it in a baking dish or whatever and let it all evaporate then decarbing for edibles is recommended, otherwise you're left with a FULL SPECTRUM dabish product known as hash oil. Yet It contains all the CBD and TERPENES that dabs don't. What do you think I did with the rest of my solution? I evaporated 2 cups and have a half cup left. The 2 cups was equivalent to 2oz of buds. It looks like a 50% return at least. I will confirm that in the next couple days.

 

[brainiac]

I had a go at this...



The results were mixed. Unless you're clued-up and careful the process can get messy and wasteful.
My amateur efforts were neither of the first two and both of the latter two
Resulting potency was a ltttle low. Two teaspoons provide a pleasant, mild effect for a few hours.

However, on the plus side the taste of the strain (Northern Lights) came throught wonderfully. It was strongly reniniscent of both the smell of the growing plant and the flavour of the vaped bud.
Canna honey is also great for gifts and so so easy to take.

 

[Shamen]

Awesome. Did you strictly steep it in honey? Or did you do and alcohol extraction first? I think I messed up by combining the alcohol solution with the honey when I should have cooked of the alcohol and then put the hash oil in the honey under heat for a bit till decarbed and mixed thoroughly. I'm not sure what to do with all the oil I do have. I should probably make honey with most of it. I gave 2 bottles to some friends already. U think the alcohol extraction is key to maximize the potency. Looks like some good stuff. It can definitely get messy real quick. Lol

 

[brainiac]

I can't advise you on the alcohol extraction method as I've never tried it. The alcohol's not easy to get over here and the Polish vodka option is very expensive. But you'll find plenty of good info hereabouts.

I decarb'ed the bud in the oven, put it in a muslin bag and steeped it in the honey which was in a bain marie (crock pot). Simmered for eight hours adding a little water when necessary.
Things got rather messy when I tried to wring out the muslin bag and scrape the honey out of the bain marie pot. I might do it again tho because the flavour retention is so good.

 

[Shamen]

To avoid extra steps and potentially destroying some potency I would suggest you let the bud decarb while it steeps in the honey. This should increase the potency. There's a new machine that will recapture all your alcohol for future use:

https://skunkpharmresearch.com/extract-craft-source-turbo-ethanol-vacuum-recovery-unit/

There's a thread here but I couldn't figure out how to link it. You can reuse the alcohol indefinitely and there by save tons of money. The unit will pay for itself very quickly.

 

[Shamen]

So I got well over an ounce of sticky, pull and snap like hash oil from 3.5 ounces of ground bud soaked in 1.75L of 75% Everclear. That is a substantial return. I've made rice crispy treats. Maple almond fudge. Infused honey. I have 1.1 pounds of Manuka honey that I am putting the rest of my goods in. This is what it is:

2 cups of the final 1.75L of Everclear solution (approximately 1.25 ounces of dankness)

8 grams of previously evaporated Everclear (so yes 8 grams of pure THC/ CBD/ and Terpenes)

1.1 pounds of Manuka honey

Method:

Save about a 1/4 cup or less of Everclear. Then I'm reducing the remaining 2 cups of Everclear in a rice cooker to it's maximum potency, smallest quantity. You will not longer taste or smell alcohol once done. 6- 8 hours.

I save the tiny bit of alcohol to dissolve the 8 grams with what's in the rice cooker. Once that's mixed evenly with no chunks I'll add the honey any mix completely understand hear in the rice cooker. Call it a suspension or a tincture or stinction or a sustuncture. It'll have about a gram of hash oil per ounce. That'd be 33mg of goods in a 1ml dropper. Another way to look at it is an ounce of honey has 5- 10 grams of bud depending on your quality....

I made 3/4 of a cup of coconut oil that I put 6 grams of hash oil and a few glugs of lecithin (increases absorption of THC and therefore creates an increase in potency by 50%, yes it works). I used a half cup for the crispy treats and the rest for the fudge. I had a small crispy treat for breakfast and was good all day. Amazing stuff. Edibles are the best and most efficient way to get your medicine.