How To Activate Your Cannabis For Cooking With Your Oven

Author: KC Scannell

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 3

Servings:

Course Brunch / Lunch / Dinner

Cuisine British

Keyword Cannabis For Cooking, Cannabis Recipe

Ingredients

Cannabis Infused Butter Ingediesnt

2-3 grams of Cannabis
2-3 sticks Butter

Equipment

Baking sheet
Oven
Parchment paper
Large saucepan
Cheesecloth
Container for storage

Nowadays, there’s so many more options for cannabis enthusiasts to choose from whenever they visit their local dispensary. Back in the early days of legalization, when it was medicinal only, the amount of options were pretty slim, to be quite honest. You were able to select from a handful of flowers and edibles, but that was basically it.

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Nowadays, however, with marijuana being the booming business and popular industry that it is, the amount of product options are increasing with every passing day. It truly feels like every single time I hit up my neighborhood cannabis club, I’m being introduced to a whole new realm of THC-infused goodies.

While the concentrate and vaping realm of the industry has taken off in its own right, the plethora of edibles available seem to be taking on a whole new form of popularity. In the infancy stages of digestable marijuana, the common culinary achievements that were fueled by cannabis were the typical brownie or cookie. And, while delicious, they grew pretty boring as time went on.

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However, in today’s weed-friendly society, the amount of intricate edibles that are hitting the market are truly impressive. Basically, if it can be found in a cookbook, it can be fully infused with cannabis. What an exciting time to be a marijuana enthusiast!

But, why rely on dispensaries and companies to come up with new forms of edible ganja? Why can’t you roll up your sleeves, toss on an apron, and whip up some dank edibles of your very own?

Great news – you totally can!

That’s why I’m here to breakdown the super simple process needed to activate the THC within your flowers, in order for them to be used in any recipe of your choosing. It’s easy, quick, and necessary if you want your culinary creations to pack any sort of THC-related punch.

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For starters, this process is known as decarboxylation.

In cannabis, there’s a plethora of different cannabinoids present. One of the more abundant ones, is an acid known as, THCA. This is the initial, non-psychoactive form of THC. Through a low and slow heating method, the THCA will transform itself into THC.

Not only that, but this process will allow those high-inducing elements to latch onto any substance that is joined with – hence, infusing itself into one thing or another. But it can only do that if properly decarboxylated.

Now, to be fair, there are a lot of different ways to go about this process. You could use dry ice or sous vide, if you’d like – there are a lot of options out there. But I find a lot of reliability and consistency when I use a standard oven. An oven is more readily available to most cannabis enthusiasts, and it’s one of the easier ways to go about activating your cannabis for cooking purposes.

Instructions

In order to decarb your cannabis using your oven, you’ll want to preheat that bad boy to 220°. You can go as high as 240° if you like, but anything higher than that will render your entire batch of bud useless, and that’s (obviously) the last thing we want to happen. So, be sure to keep a watchful eye on that temperature level.
As your oven warms up, you’ll want to grab your desired amount of preferred cannabis flower. The quantity of bud fully depends on what recipe you are planning to make. Or, if you’re just looking to equip yourself with a hearty supply of decarbed bud for future baking endeavors, by all means, grab as much cannabis as you’d like.
Regardless of the quantity, the decarboxylation process will remain the same.
However much bud you decide to use, you'll want to grind up those nugs – but not too much. Anything too fine will increase the chances of your batch getting burned. So, aim to make the broken down pieces roughly the size of a grain of rice. Then, you’ll want to place them atop a baking sheet lined with a piece of parchment paper.
You’ll definitely need that parchment paper as a barrier between your bud and the surface of the sheet, as the metal material will likely reach a temperature too hot for the decarboxylation to successfully complete its THC transformation duties.
Also, when your oven reaches that desired temperature level, be sure to place that baking sheet sprinkled with broken-down buds on the middle rack. As the top and bottom of the oven offer up different degrees of heat, so wanting to ensure a balanced bake, make sure to aim for the middle.
Once you’ve got that sheet of cannabis in the oven, leave it in there for 35-40 minutes. This should be the perfect amount of time for the THCA, through the low and slow heating approach, to transform into everybody’s favorite cannabinoid, THC. When that time period has elapsed, simply remove the baking sheet from the oven, and that’s it.
You’ve now got a stash of decarboxylated marijuana that can be used to infuse THC into any sort of recipe you can think of.

Cannabis-Infused Butter Instructions

Let’s say you were interested in making a cannabis-infused butter. Well, now you totally can!
In order to accomplish that impromptu goal, place a large saucepan over a trusted heat source set on “Medium.” In that saucepan, place two sticks of butter, along with one cup of room temperature water. Allow that butter to fully melt before proceeding onward.
When that butter has reached its desired melted consistency, pick up your decarboxylated bud, and toss it in the saucepan. For a proper butter recipe, I’d say you’d want somewhere between 8-10 grams of decarbed, newly-activated cannabis in order for the potency to reach an enjoyable level of strength.
Stir those two ingredients together a bit, but then leave them alone to simmer for around 3 hours. Every now and then, go back to check on the contents of the saucepan. Make sure they’re not burning, and stir them periodically. The stirring will help ensure that the THC in the bud is being evenly dispersed throughout every drop of that melted butter.
When those 3+ hours have come and gone, you can finally remove the saucepan from the heat source.
At this point, you’ll need a container to store it in, right? Feel free to use whatever container you think would work best. There are really no wrong answers here.
Over the top of that container, secure a piece of cheesecloth with a couple of rubber bands. This cheesecloth is the perfect straining material for this recipe. It will prevent any floral components in the saucepan from making their way into the butter. Then, when that’s all set and ready to go, pick up your saucepan, and gingerly pour the contents into the container, through the cheesecloth.
After you’ve adequately strained out the unwanted properties of the bud, discard the cheesecloth full of used cannabis, and place that butter-filled container into the fridge to toughen up to a more “butter-like” consistency. When you’re happy with how everything looks, you can then feel free to use that butter on, well, anything that you’d normally use butter for.
But that’s pretty much it. Not only did you just learn how to decarboxylate your weed with your oven, but you learned how to properly whip up a batch of infused butter, too! Nicely done.
Now, armed with this new knowledge, your cannabis culinary possibilities are truly endless!