herbgirl
cannabis aromatherapist
So a few weeks ago a friend challenged me to make saltwater taffy with ABV. It was extremely labor intensive and in the end i ended up with hard candies because my ass (ok, my ass plus a glass of wine) moves too slowly and they got too hot. oh well, they didn't burn and they taste as good as abv candy could so I can't bitch. So if you are looking for a successful taffy recipe it ain't here. sorry.
I'll share because we can learn from my mistakes. Thanks to my wonderful husband mr. herbgirl for the pictures
hey, he got free candy out of the deal!
I wanted to try and get the magic in the candy from it's oil (i guess it's oil, please correct me if i'm wrong) form. This is a natural extension of what i did for the last candies, except i took it a step further, evaporating the tincture to a tar to be mixed with the butter from the recipe I planned on using.
We pooled resources and ended up with 56 g of vaped material from my MFLB & Ion and their crappy box vape and a few stems.
Four sticky icky Zephyr Ion bags have been sitting on top of my cabinet waiting for me to decide what to do with them so I decide to run PGA (Pure Grain Alcohol or everclear) through them and harvest the residue and use that as well.
This will be a quick extraction since I am working with ABV so I had to get my shit together first. mis en place motherfuckers.
I used two pint sized mason jars and lids
I used a straining rig that consisted of a metal mesh strainer with a coffee filter in it nestled in a large glass batter bowl, inside which there was a disposable coffee filter nestled in one of those permanent filters. ghetto, but functional.
I used three pie plates and a square pyrex to receive the alcohol for evaporation.
I used my ever handy Excalibur Food Dehydrator to evaporate the alcohol off safely.
I Ground 56 g of ABV in coffee grinder to not quite powder. stems and all then dumped it in the mason jar.
I took the other mason jar and poured in enough PGA so that it would come an inch or so above the ground material, using the other jar with the ABV as a guide and then zapped it for a few seconds to warm it slightly - i understand this can make extraction more efficient so what the hell (Yes, the one jar on the left used to hold my homemade hot pepper honey - too lazy to remove the label)
Poured the warmed PGA into the jar with the ground material, capped it with a dome lid and band and shook it for a slow 20 count.
Then i dumped this into the strainer rig and used a spoon to push it around a bit to get it to drain thoroughly.
The saturated alcohol is then poured into the three pie plates and placed into the trusty dehydrator at 100 F until it is fully evaporated - maybe an hour.
~on a side note,as if it's even possible that i am more in love with my dehydrator than i was before, i found the evaporation sweet spot with the best airflow. superawesome
then i scraped the residue up with a razor blade to harvest and set aside.
repeated one more time. yuck, i know but i didn't feel that i had enough oil from the first run. it got my total to about three g of residue.
the everclear harvest of the ion bags, while productive, was a pain in the ass. got almost a gram of honey like goo out of that after it evaporated down. if i had run it again i probably could have gotten more, but as i said it is a pain in the ass, especially with little cuts on your fingers. so fuck it. it was a nice golden color.
so now i have three different types of goo of varying strengths on my pie plate, totaling 4 g. forgot to take a picture before i slapped the butter in there.
the blobs of goo on the far left are from the ion bags, the stuff in the center is 1st run black and tarry, the far right is the second run, even more black and tarry. and of course the other ingredients.
Realizing this was too little for the full recipe, I decided to cut the recipe in half (famous last words - kinda like "Hey guys, watch this!") I am reasonably sure this is why i managed to fuck up a perfectly straightforward recipe - that and the glass of wine i had in my hand at the time.
Usually, if i'm making something from scratch, i want to make it from scratch dammit, no boxed ingredients for me. so the jello was kind of a turn off, but i figured the airheady-ness was due to the gelatin or stabilizers in the jello, so i just said fuck it and used it anyway. i was probably wrong
The original recipe that i modified is as follows, ripped straight from a tokecity thread
1/4 c cannabutter
3/4 c sugar
1/2 c light corn syrup
1 3 oz box of jello any flavor
20 lollipop sticks
butter cookie sheets, arrange sticks
stir butter, sugar and corn syrup together over low heat till dissolved - then bring slowly to a boil, cook to 275 stir in jello, remove from heat and drop onto cookie sheet forming around sticks.
then, later in the thread it discusses such modifications as lessening the butter, stirring in the jello earlier and cooking to a lower temperature to yield an airhead like candy.
not being one to leave well enough alone, i couldn't help myself
so herbgirl's modified recipe reads thusly
ABV airheads *fail*
1.5 T Butter
4 g residue
heaping 1/3 c sugar
1/4 c light corn syrup
1/2 box strawberry jello
1 dram lorann strawberry flavoring
and of course silver dust for magical effect
thoroughly mix the softened butter with the residues and set aside.
cook sugar and corn syrup together till dissolved
whip out that candy thermometer
add jello, stir to dissolve,
add butter, silver dust and flavoring, stir well, cook to 240 F
remove from heat pour into buttered pan & cool.
break into pieces and shake in powdered sugar, put in pretty candy dish
now for the candyporn...
ooohhhh *pretty*
so I assume if i had gotten the "cook to 240" part right it would have yielded a soft, taffy-like candy. since i fucked it up i ended up with a grainy hard candy tasting very strawberry-y on the front end and a very strong ABV flavor on the back end. The graininess i assume comes from the gelatin in the jello that i thought was dissolved.
Can't comment as to effect yet, but the chipped off bits of candy and liquid i used to dissolve the stuff off the spoon gave a pleasant tired feeling. or maybe that was the wine.
the next day all the dishes that were used for the butter and the evaps were buttered and then wiped with tortillas and english muffins so as not to waste anything. see - frugality can be fun! and potent. it had more of a kick than i would have expected. going to have to wait to see just how strong they are.
comments, critiques and tips are welcomed!
I'll share because we can learn from my mistakes. Thanks to my wonderful husband mr. herbgirl for the pictures
hey, he got free candy out of the deal!I wanted to try and get the magic in the candy from it's oil (i guess it's oil, please correct me if i'm wrong) form. This is a natural extension of what i did for the last candies, except i took it a step further, evaporating the tincture to a tar to be mixed with the butter from the recipe I planned on using.
We pooled resources and ended up with 56 g of vaped material from my MFLB & Ion and their crappy box vape and a few stems.
Four sticky icky Zephyr Ion bags have been sitting on top of my cabinet waiting for me to decide what to do with them so I decide to run PGA (Pure Grain Alcohol or everclear) through them and harvest the residue and use that as well.
This will be a quick extraction since I am working with ABV so I had to get my shit together first. mis en place motherfuckers.
I used two pint sized mason jars and lids
I used a straining rig that consisted of a metal mesh strainer with a coffee filter in it nestled in a large glass batter bowl, inside which there was a disposable coffee filter nestled in one of those permanent filters. ghetto, but functional.
I used three pie plates and a square pyrex to receive the alcohol for evaporation.
I used my ever handy Excalibur Food Dehydrator to evaporate the alcohol off safely.
I Ground 56 g of ABV in coffee grinder to not quite powder. stems and all then dumped it in the mason jar.
I took the other mason jar and poured in enough PGA so that it would come an inch or so above the ground material, using the other jar with the ABV as a guide and then zapped it for a few seconds to warm it slightly - i understand this can make extraction more efficient so what the hell (Yes, the one jar on the left used to hold my homemade hot pepper honey - too lazy to remove the label)
Poured the warmed PGA into the jar with the ground material, capped it with a dome lid and band and shook it for a slow 20 count.
Then i dumped this into the strainer rig and used a spoon to push it around a bit to get it to drain thoroughly.
The saturated alcohol is then poured into the three pie plates and placed into the trusty dehydrator at 100 F until it is fully evaporated - maybe an hour.
~on a side note,as if it's even possible that i am more in love with my dehydrator than i was before, i found the evaporation sweet spot with the best airflow. superawesome
then i scraped the residue up with a razor blade to harvest and set aside.
repeated one more time. yuck, i know but i didn't feel that i had enough oil from the first run. it got my total to about three g of residue.
the everclear harvest of the ion bags, while productive, was a pain in the ass. got almost a gram of honey like goo out of that after it evaporated down. if i had run it again i probably could have gotten more, but as i said it is a pain in the ass, especially with little cuts on your fingers. so fuck it. it was a nice golden color.
so now i have three different types of goo of varying strengths on my pie plate, totaling 4 g. forgot to take a picture before i slapped the butter in there.
the blobs of goo on the far left are from the ion bags, the stuff in the center is 1st run black and tarry, the far right is the second run, even more black and tarry. and of course the other ingredients.
Realizing this was too little for the full recipe, I decided to cut the recipe in half (famous last words - kinda like "Hey guys, watch this!") I am reasonably sure this is why i managed to fuck up a perfectly straightforward recipe - that and the glass of wine i had in my hand at the time.
Usually, if i'm making something from scratch, i want to make it from scratch dammit, no boxed ingredients for me. so the jello was kind of a turn off, but i figured the airheady-ness was due to the gelatin or stabilizers in the jello, so i just said fuck it and used it anyway. i was probably wrong
The original recipe that i modified is as follows, ripped straight from a tokecity thread
1/4 c cannabutter
3/4 c sugar
1/2 c light corn syrup
1 3 oz box of jello any flavor
20 lollipop sticks
butter cookie sheets, arrange sticks
stir butter, sugar and corn syrup together over low heat till dissolved - then bring slowly to a boil, cook to 275 stir in jello, remove from heat and drop onto cookie sheet forming around sticks.
then, later in the thread it discusses such modifications as lessening the butter, stirring in the jello earlier and cooking to a lower temperature to yield an airhead like candy.
not being one to leave well enough alone, i couldn't help myself
so herbgirl's modified recipe reads thusly
ABV airheads *fail*
1.5 T Butter
4 g residue
heaping 1/3 c sugar
1/4 c light corn syrup
1/2 box strawberry jello
1 dram lorann strawberry flavoring
and of course silver dust for magical effect
thoroughly mix the softened butter with the residues and set aside.
cook sugar and corn syrup together till dissolved
whip out that candy thermometer
add jello, stir to dissolve,
add butter, silver dust and flavoring, stir well, cook to 240 F
remove from heat pour into buttered pan & cool.
break into pieces and shake in powdered sugar, put in pretty candy dish
now for the candyporn...
ooohhhh *pretty*
so I assume if i had gotten the "cook to 240" part right it would have yielded a soft, taffy-like candy. since i fucked it up i ended up with a grainy hard candy tasting very strawberry-y on the front end and a very strong ABV flavor on the back end. The graininess i assume comes from the gelatin in the jello that i thought was dissolved.
Can't comment as to effect yet, but the chipped off bits of candy and liquid i used to dissolve the stuff off the spoon gave a pleasant tired feeling. or maybe that was the wine.
the next day all the dishes that were used for the butter and the evaps were buttered and then wiped with tortillas and english muffins so as not to waste anything. see - frugality can be fun! and potent. it had more of a kick than i would have expected. going to have to wait to see just how strong they are.
comments, critiques and tips are welcomed!
I'm not sure why the grainy texture happened though. I think you are right that it didn't dissolve properly. In retrospect, would you have just used gelatin and flavoring instead?
but alas...I'm not much of a drinker lol.
