Sous Vide ABV?
- Thread starter virtualpurple
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fft
Well-Known Member
Coconut oil actually lasts longer than most other oils... a new jar can last 1-4 years on the shelf. Rancidity is basically the breakdown of the fatty chains over time into smaller molecules that smell and taste bad. Heating the oil for a prolonged period can accelerate this breakdown, as can contamination from other materials. Making ABV oil brings both of these issues into play. From what I can gather a rancid ABV oil capsule wont hurt you much...rancid oil has more free radicals which isn't great but it shouldn't kill you. For me its as much about storing it in a place where it wont smell or leak. My edibles can easily go a year in storage before they are used so I just keep it all in the freezer to be on the safe side.
Been Vapin
Fringe Class
Just found this video by VICE Munchies on How to Sous Vide Cannabutter. He scratches the shit out of a Teflon pan with a metal spoon.
fft
Well-Known Member
Good video...I never knew there was a whole Vice Munchies channel.
The biggest revelation here for me was how he used a stick blender to grind the weed. The big downside of coffee grinders is that you leave so much behind and they are hard to clean. With a stick blender you could probably just blend directly into warm coconut oil or clarified butter if you didn't want to use water. If you added lecithin at this stage I think it would benefit from the homogenization from the stick blender. I also thought using a jar was interesting but i will probably stick with SV bags.
He also didn't decarb separately, and I am guessing that hurt the potency. He ran his for 6 hours at 185f. From what we know of the decarb reaction rate, decarbing at that temp takes about 6x longer than it does at 230f. Raising the temp to 200f would double the reaction rate. But I can't imagine how zonked I'd be if I tried using my abv butter in those same proportions and tried to eat that meal.
But it says something about how a lot of chefs have been making cannabis infused meals. Most of the time the butter is weak and its slathered n everything. Someday, when weed is cheaper this may be how we all do it...sort of how we don't think twice about evaporating off alcohol when we cook with wine or beer.
Also,that meal doesn't seem very fun because the meal is going to be over by the time the weed kicks in. If I were preparing a high end weed dinner for friends, I would put most of the potency in an appetizer that my guests would get as soon as they walked in. Maybe an Infused cocktail even where each person could manage their dosage throughout the night. Then I'd keep the potency low for the rest of the meal, but the effects would peak at the dinner table. Maybe cook with a completely non-decarbed butter here and there for flavor...like a SV butter made at 150f just to get the flavor in...but again that would be an indulgent use of good weed.
MinnBobber
Well-Known Member
Sous vide chicken thighs/legs??
So researching recipes I find a dichotomy at the end.
Seems like temp of 148 ish and 2 to 2.5 hours comes up a lot.
Do you sear immediately OR some places said to chill in ice water and then refrig, then sear?
Last batch I seared immediately on the grill, 2 minutes each side @ very hot.
Last time I did 150 F for 3 hours. Doing 148 F this time for 3 hours.
Also, I cleaned up 10 lbs of chicken qtrs today ----bought a frozen shrink pack from a real butcher shop.
First time in years!! It will be interesting to see if meat is noticeably better than supermkt qtrs.
Any interesting things to do with chicken fat?? I could see more so if it were duck fat or something special.
So researching recipes I find a dichotomy at the end.
Seems like temp of 148 ish and 2 to 2.5 hours comes up a lot.
Do you sear immediately OR some places said to chill in ice water and then refrig, then sear?
Last batch I seared immediately on the grill, 2 minutes each side @ very hot.
Last time I did 150 F for 3 hours. Doing 148 F this time for 3 hours.
Also, I cleaned up 10 lbs of chicken qtrs today ----bought a frozen shrink pack from a real butcher shop.
First time in years!! It will be interesting to see if meat is noticeably better than supermkt qtrs.
Any interesting things to do with chicken fat?? I could see more so if it were duck fat or something special.
MinnBobber
Well-Known Member
Gotta double post here...sorry.
Can sous vide chicken thighs be thoroughly cooked BUT still be very very pink next to the bone?
Do I need to go longer than 3 hours at 148 F but that seems odd?
Big thighs had a spot next to bone that was very deep pink, almost red so I played it safe and microwaved for just long enough to wipe out the pink.
Can sous vide chicken thighs be thoroughly cooked BUT still be very very pink next to the bone?
Do I need to go longer than 3 hours at 148 F but that seems odd?
Big thighs had a spot next to bone that was very deep pink, almost red so I played it safe and microwaved for just long enough to wipe out the pink.
fft
Well-Known Member
I think theoretically they could cooked lower like you would a breast, but thighs are tougher and better suited for braising so you typically go with a higher temp for longer. If you cook it like a breast (say at 140F for 1-1.5 hrs), Im guessing it wont be that tender.
I defer again to Kenji over at Serious Eats who has tried different combinations with the thigh: http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/07/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-chicken-thigh.html
Sasquatch_Jr
Well-Known Member
Found this thread the other day and the sous vide decarboxylation sounded fascinating. In the past I've decarbed in an oven and it works great but it burns off a most of the terpenes in the process. I figured that in the same way that sous vide cooking keeps juices in the bag rather than boiling them off, this technique likely would keep the terps in the bag.
I vac sealed 0.3g of Congolese, a landrace sativa that's one of the terpiest strains I've seen, and cooked it at 200ºF for 95 minutes.
When I first pulled the bag out I had trouble getting it open because there was so much oil the bag was pretty well glued shut. After eventually getting it open it all came out in a small puck. There was no weight loss during cooking and it smelled pretty nice which I took as a good sign. I was half expecting it to taste as nasty as ABV but it was actually quite nice. Not much flavor (of any kind let alone terps) but when I swallowed there was a small burst of sweet cherry, honey and citrus, similar to the taste of its vapor. For the second half of it I held it my mouth for a bit and the flavors really came out.
Not sure what the culinary uses for this would be. 0.3g of a best case terps scenario wasn't enough to add flavor to anything but is apparently a pretty significant dose.
The buzz is very similar to smoking or vaping this strain. Very racy and energizing and not as much couch lock as a typical edibles experience. I wonder if this is due to the terpenes still being present? I will certainly try this again with other strains. I'll also try to separate small doses (0.15g maybe 0.2g) and seal around them so I can have vac sealed single serving packets.
I'd highly recommend giving this a go if you've got the equipment.
I vac sealed 0.3g of Congolese, a landrace sativa that's one of the terpiest strains I've seen, and cooked it at 200ºF for 95 minutes.
When I first pulled the bag out I had trouble getting it open because there was so much oil the bag was pretty well glued shut. After eventually getting it open it all came out in a small puck. There was no weight loss during cooking and it smelled pretty nice which I took as a good sign. I was half expecting it to taste as nasty as ABV but it was actually quite nice. Not much flavor (of any kind let alone terps) but when I swallowed there was a small burst of sweet cherry, honey and citrus, similar to the taste of its vapor. For the second half of it I held it my mouth for a bit and the flavors really came out.
Not sure what the culinary uses for this would be. 0.3g of a best case terps scenario wasn't enough to add flavor to anything but is apparently a pretty significant dose.
The buzz is very similar to smoking or vaping this strain. Very racy and energizing and not as much couch lock as a typical edibles experience. I wonder if this is due to the terpenes still being present? I will certainly try this again with other strains. I'll also try to separate small doses (0.15g maybe 0.2g) and seal around them so I can have vac sealed single serving packets.
I'd highly recommend giving this a go if you've got the equipment.
I had a hard time: when it decarboxylizes, it sloughs of carbon dioxide and floats to the top. I had a heck of a time keeping it under water for either concentrate or a quantity of flower.
Sasquatch_Jr
Well-Known Member
I used the trick in the video. Vac seal a couple butter knives, metal spoons or anything else small and heavy at the bottom of the bag, then vac seal the herbs in a separate section of the same bag. The wight of the silverware is enough to keep it suspended under water.
Fucking Brilliant!
Thanks for documenting your experiences with decarbing using a Sous-Vide. This technology never ceases to amaze me with it's potential. I've already decided I'm buying my brother a Sous-Vide for Christmas this year
Sasquatch_Jr
Well-Known Member
I built my own sous vide machine maybe 8 or 9 years ago and it keeps amazing me. Learned about sous vide cannabutter about a year ago and can't imagine making abv edibles any other way. Faster, cleaner, and easier than the old simmer on the stove method and zero smell too. Now I can use it to make orally active cannabis with terps in tact too.
How long before head shops start carrying Anovas?
How long before head shops start carrying Anovas?
DisgruntledSmoker
Member
I have seen on another website a method for fermenting fresh marijuana which involves vacuum sealing the fresh harvested colas however there is no water bath just room temperature conditions. Perhaps using a water bath could control the rate of fermentation and you could simply inject the bag with an oil of some sort then simply crank the temperature to optimum temperature for absorption? Would make some super sweet and potent edible oil. Perhaps.
Been Vapin
Fringe Class
Too bad more people don't know about sous vide. They are missing out.
HellsWindStaff
Dharma Initiate
I have roughly 100+ grams of AVB I have been meaning to cook it down into some Coconut Oil, but I have such a great amount and don't want to do a bunch of little batches.....this seems promising as a way to do it all at once. I usually throw it in jars, and then in water in a pot on the stove for a few hours. That's a lot of jars though lol and I'd want to do it all at once.
Do have a question. I don't have really any of the equipment necessary, other than standard cookware. If I got a Turkey bag (a smaller bag would be better, but I'm not sure of one?) and just tied it off real good with the AVB/Oil, and threw it in hot water for a few hours, should theoretically be relatively the same? I don't have a thermometer either, but I could gauge it to be pretty close to boiling.
Do have a question. I don't have really any of the equipment necessary, other than standard cookware. If I got a Turkey bag (a smaller bag would be better, but I'm not sure of one?) and just tied it off real good with the AVB/Oil, and threw it in hot water for a few hours, should theoretically be relatively the same? I don't have a thermometer either, but I could gauge it to be pretty close to boiling.
Been Vapin
Fringe Class
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/...er-cooler-the-worlds-best-sous-vide-hack.html
In those two jars in the picture above there are at least 60g+ in each
HellsWindStaff
Dharma Initiate
What an awesome hack! You just have your jars in a beer cooler than?
Still, I guess maybe I'm not trying to do a proper and perfect sous vide? Will a Turkey bag disintegrate in hot water? What about a ziploc? The beer cooler seems awesome, and I may try that as a way to legitimately cook up some food in a sous vide style, but for AVB Oil seems like a lot of work.....
Actually maybe I'm just too high residually from last night. I reckon my faucet on hot gets to like 127-150 F. Hot enough to scald my skin. So if I filled a beer cooler with that and then just dropped the bag in with the AVB/Coconut Oil, should theoretically be done in a few hours no?
MinnBobber
Well-Known Member
...............................................
Prior to getting a real sous vide machine (Anova), I tried the cooler hack. The problem is that the heated water cools off over time and I had to keep refreshing by heating water on stove and adding some, after taking out some of the cooled water.
A better hack for me was a big kettle on the stove and a digital thermometer. If I wanted to sous vide a steak at 134 F, I could dial it in by micro-adjustments of the flame and checking every 10 minutes until it was thoroughly stabilized.
Stove method for food or cannabis decarb would work. You could easily dial in just under boiling (212) to decarb buds. At 200, I'd probably go at least 2 1/2 hours for decarb.
Been Vapin
Fringe Class
I have my jars in a a Cambro type container with an Anova sous vide immersion circulator. Not sure about turkey bags. Your beer color method won't work as you described.
fft
Well-Known Member
Just about ready to try a new batch. This time I'm going to try cocoa butter as the oil with the goal of making chocolate bars. I just weighed and bagged the ingredients. This batch is 110g ABV, 488g cocoa butter discs (1 lb bag), 28g liquid soy lecithin. Cocoa butter, while some say that its a little less "efficient" than coconut oil or butter at absorbing THC, has the advantage of being more solid at room temp and has a long shelf life before it goes rancid (both of which mean I shouldn't have to worry about storing the final products in the freezer as I do with other treats).
Here's a photo of the starting point all sealed up in the bag. I'm going to try to run it in the sous vide later this week... likely 3-4 hours at 190F-200F. No additional decarb other than the sous vide time.
Here's a photo of the starting point all sealed up in the bag. I'm going to try to run it in the sous vide later this week... likely 3-4 hours at 190F-200F. No additional decarb other than the sous vide time.
zor
Well-Known Member
@fft I don't think you're getting much decarbing at that temp range. FWIW, I include a 20-30 min decarb step at 240F for just the ABV before I do anything else with it.
If the above chart and data are to be believed, that is. The multi-hour duration may be sufficient but I'd play it more conservatively
If the above chart and data are to be believed, that is. The multi-hour duration may be sufficient but I'd play it more conservatively
Been Vapin
Fringe Class
@fft I don't think you're getting much decarbing at that temp range. FWIW, I include a 20-30 min decarb step at 240F for just the ABV before I do anything else with it.
If the above chart and data are to be believed, that is. The multi-hour duration may be sufficient but I'd play it more conservatively
Watch this video
zor
Well-Known Member
Thanks for that vid, that was interesting to watch!
What I don't understand is how his three different samples all have different total THC content; aren't these from the same source as he showed at that start? Why does his total THC fluctuate between 9 and 14%? My understanding of the conversion from THC-A to THC is just the loss of the carboxyl group, there aren't other intermediaries. That just seems odd and not a controlled experiment. Still, the lack of any THC-A in his third sample is neat to see.
Earlier in this thread I posted on how I hacked my sous vide setup together with a crock pot and a thermoregulator?. If you have a crockpot lying around it's a really simple thing to cobble together!
What I don't understand is how his three different samples all have different total THC content; aren't these from the same source as he showed at that start? Why does his total THC fluctuate between 9 and 14%? My understanding of the conversion from THC-A to THC is just the loss of the carboxyl group, there aren't other intermediaries. That just seems odd and not a controlled experiment. Still, the lack of any THC-A in his third sample is neat to see.
Earlier in this thread I posted on how I hacked my sous vide setup together with a crock pot and a thermoregulator?. If you have a crockpot lying around it's a really simple thing to cobble together!
fft
Well-Known Member
Completed my batch of SV cocoa butter yesterday. Ended up going 4-5 hours at 198F. Once the cocoa butter melted in the bag, the ABV absorbed most of it which made extraction tough. So I ended up using a garlic press among other things to squeeze out all of the extract that I could... ended up getting 320g of cocoa butter compared to 488g I put into the bag, which is pretty good actually. The higher melting point of CB made it a little tricky as it started to cool down. Little spills on the counter all solidified into hardened blobs pretty quickly. Next week I am going to try using some of the cocoa butter to make chocolate bars. From a quick sample I think the potency will be pretty good, maybe too much so, but I'll know for sure after I've had the finished product.
@zor ... @Been Vapin already answered part of your question about decarb temps but let me add to it. I've been taking down my cooking temps for ABV from about 250F (which is easier to reach in a pressure cooker setup) down to about 200F. Primary reason is I'm more concerned about THC --> CBN degradation with ABV since a lot of the THC has already been decarbed during vaping (THC-->CBN is why on that old school chart you referenced THC-A concentrations start to trend down after some time). If I'm doing an extraction into oil/butter it will take minimum an hour or two to get good results, so if I am at a higher temp for that time I risk degrading more THC than I decarb. There was a paper more recently where they figured out the reaction rate constant for THC decarb (link). Basically decarb still occurs at lower temps but at 195F the reaction rate is ~8x slower than at 250F. In a SV setup, 200F is about as hot as you can go, the slower reaction rate is a better match for the longer extraction time. In practice, none of this is precise and we are all just winging times/temps with the best information available, but that said, I've been getting pretty good results with my last few sous vide batches so its probably in the ballpark at least.
@zor ... @Been Vapin already answered part of your question about decarb temps but let me add to it. I've been taking down my cooking temps for ABV from about 250F (which is easier to reach in a pressure cooker setup) down to about 200F. Primary reason is I'm more concerned about THC --> CBN degradation with ABV since a lot of the THC has already been decarbed during vaping (THC-->CBN is why on that old school chart you referenced THC-A concentrations start to trend down after some time). If I'm doing an extraction into oil/butter it will take minimum an hour or two to get good results, so if I am at a higher temp for that time I risk degrading more THC than I decarb. There was a paper more recently where they figured out the reaction rate constant for THC decarb (link). Basically decarb still occurs at lower temps but at 195F the reaction rate is ~8x slower than at 250F. In a SV setup, 200F is about as hot as you can go, the slower reaction rate is a better match for the longer extraction time. In practice, none of this is precise and we are all just winging times/temps with the best information available, but that said, I've been getting pretty good results with my last few sous vide batches so its probably in the ballpark at least.
fft
Well-Known Member
Update on the cocoa butter chocolate making. Took just under half of the ABV cocoa butter form the above post and started making chocolates. I did some research to figure out the chocolate-making part of the recipe. If you google "making chocolate with cocoa butter and cocoa powder" you'll get some ideas, but few people ever seem to make these because there's usually little point in separating the powder from the butter then putting it all back together again. There are a lot of "raw chocolate" recipes out there that use coconut oil, cocoa powder, and honey, but while healthy they dont make a very practical chocolate (lower coconut oil melting point, plus honey contains water which can gunk things up). Ultimately I read that a 50/50 butter-to-powder ratio was typical, then people add sugar to that. Then I wanted to make milk chocolate because I have a buddy who prefers that to dark chocolate. So for every 50g of cocoa butter, I added 50g of cocoa powder, 30g of powdered sugar, and 20g of dried milk powder. I also wanted to add a little vanilla plus some salt to cut the bitterness, but I forgot to add it this batch... so I will try it next time.
So here were the steps:
1) First I made a mixture of 3 parts powdered sugar and 2 parts milk powder, then put it my VitaMix to make the particles finer. I read somewhere that these ingredients dont actually dissolve in chocolate (they are water soluble) so to avoid a grainy texture it helps to do this extra step. I made extra that I put aside for a second batch in the next few weeks.
2) Then I started melting the cocoa butter in a double boiler setup (metal bowl on top of a saucepan with an inch of simmering water). Then I whisked in the sugar/milk powder mixture, then the cocoa powder. I was pleasantly surprised that it all came together into a smooth mixture very easily.
3) With cocoa butter chocolate, you need to "temper" the chocolate for best results - otherwise it wont look smooth and it will have a lower melting point. Tempering is generally a big pain in the ass, but I recently saw a Serious Eats article where Kenji came up with a sous vide technique to temper it thats relatively foolproof. So after mixing it all the double boiler, I poured the chocolate into a vacuum bag and sealed it up (notice in the pic I had some trouble with it coming out of the bag before sealing):
4) After following Kenji's tempering steps in the SV, I snipped off a corner of the back and squeezed the chocolate into molds:
5) Then I stuck these in the freezer for a few hours, popped them from the molds, and bagged the bars individually. I also was able to collect the scraps and stick them in a bag for recycling during the next batch.
With a very minimum of finger linking and scrap eating, I can tell already that these are pretty potent. My guess is that 2 little squares from the thin bar will be a very healthy regular dose. With the bigger bar sizes, a single "square" will probably be too much and will probably need to get cut in half at least. In terms of flavor, its good but it still tastes like ABV dark chocolate. You can barely tell that the milk powder is in there, and it could use more sugar plus the salt/vanilla to mask the ABV taste a little more. So for Batch #2 which I'll try in the next few weeks, I might double the sugar/milk powder proportion, which should also bring the potency down a little. Might also add some nuts for the bigger molds. Stay tuned.
So here were the steps:
1) First I made a mixture of 3 parts powdered sugar and 2 parts milk powder, then put it my VitaMix to make the particles finer. I read somewhere that these ingredients dont actually dissolve in chocolate (they are water soluble) so to avoid a grainy texture it helps to do this extra step. I made extra that I put aside for a second batch in the next few weeks.
2) Then I started melting the cocoa butter in a double boiler setup (metal bowl on top of a saucepan with an inch of simmering water). Then I whisked in the sugar/milk powder mixture, then the cocoa powder. I was pleasantly surprised that it all came together into a smooth mixture very easily.
3) With cocoa butter chocolate, you need to "temper" the chocolate for best results - otherwise it wont look smooth and it will have a lower melting point. Tempering is generally a big pain in the ass, but I recently saw a Serious Eats article where Kenji came up with a sous vide technique to temper it thats relatively foolproof. So after mixing it all the double boiler, I poured the chocolate into a vacuum bag and sealed it up (notice in the pic I had some trouble with it coming out of the bag before sealing):
4) After following Kenji's tempering steps in the SV, I snipped off a corner of the back and squeezed the chocolate into molds:
5) Then I stuck these in the freezer for a few hours, popped them from the molds, and bagged the bars individually. I also was able to collect the scraps and stick them in a bag for recycling during the next batch.
With a very minimum of finger linking and scrap eating, I can tell already that these are pretty potent. My guess is that 2 little squares from the thin bar will be a very healthy regular dose. With the bigger bar sizes, a single "square" will probably be too much and will probably need to get cut in half at least. In terms of flavor, its good but it still tastes like ABV dark chocolate. You can barely tell that the milk powder is in there, and it could use more sugar plus the salt/vanilla to mask the ABV taste a little more. So for Batch #2 which I'll try in the next few weeks, I might double the sugar/milk powder proportion, which should also bring the potency down a little. Might also add some nuts for the bigger molds. Stay tuned.