Beginner's Guide: Cooking With Cannabis from Home

How do I get started cooking with cannabis? What’s decarboxylation? What’s the best way to ensure I don’t get too high? We answer these newbie questions and give you some handy tips about how to get the most out of your home kitchen cannabis creations.

As cannabis consumers are stuck inside due to sheltering in place because of coronavirus, more people are becoming interested in how to cook with cannabis and make their own edibles. Smoking cannabis flower can irritate the throat and lungs. Vaping flower might not produce the satisfying medicated effects that consumers are looking for. Enter the best of both worlds - edibles. Two of the main issues with making your own edibles include the fact that it’s tough to know how much to add to and the effects are much different from smoking or vaping. Edibles can hit even the most experienced consumers, especially those who aren’t ready for it. And a cannabis experience that’s too intense could be a turn-off.

Cannabis-infused products in dispensaries are a convenient way to medicate on the go. Unfortunately, many of these store-bought edibles can be processed, packed with sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, as well as other less than desirable ingredients. This piece won’t contain any recipes, it’s cooking with cannabis 101. In this article, we give you everything you need to know in order to start making your own cannabis-infused food from home right now.

Decarboxylation - A Cannabis Chef’s Best Friend

In order to get the most out of your cannabis edibles, you will need to understand the science behind decarboxylation. Decarbing will help you get the highest medicinal value from your cannabis. Cannabis flowers contain an acidic cannabinoid known as THCA. This cannabinoid is non-intoxicating, and when heated up to proper temperature, THCA converts into THC - the delightfully euphoric cannabinoid everyone knows and loves. This same holds true if you are cooking with cultivars that are CBD-dominant, like Charlotte’s Web, for instance.

Perhaps the biggest risk newbie cannabis chefs face is that decarbing can cause a loss of some signature terpenes. These terpenes give each cannabis cultivar its distinct flavor, smell, and medicated effect. The best way to ensure you will maintain your terps is to add equal parts decarbed material and fresh flower to your cannabis kitchen creations.

The Easiest Way to Decarb at Home

There are different ways to perform the decarboxylation process, but for newbies, we recommend using your oven at 225 degrees Fahrenheit. The ingredients are simple - all you need is your cannabis, a baking tray, and aluminum foil. Each oven is different, so be sure to keep a close eye on your cannabis as it’s in the oven and adjust the temperature if necessary.

• Preheat your oven to 225 degrees Fahrenheit and put the rack in the middle position. This will help ensure your cannabis decarbs evenly.
• Put a piece of aluminum foil on your baking sheet, then spread your cannabis evenly on the foil. Don’t break it up too finely, or you run the risk of burning your material. Place another sheet of aluminum foil on top.
• Bake for about 45 minutes, but be sure to keep a close eye on the material. When you take it out, it should be golden brown and lightly toasted.
• Let cool for about 30 minutes before handling. When it’s cool, put your cannabis in a glass jar for future cooking.

If you smell your cannabis burning, or it browns too quickly, remove your material from the oven immediately. It’s also a good idea to invest in a thermometer if you plan to do a lot of cooking with cannabis at home - or any cooking for that matter.

Cannabutter and Oil

You can certainly add your half raw/ half decarbed plant material to any dish, but measuring and dosage can be tricky. Perhaps the easiest way to dive right into making your own homemade cannabis concoctions is to make a nice batch of cannabis-infused butter or oil.

Cannabis butter can be used in any baking dish you can think of. You can also use olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, or any other fatty oil for your cannabis dishes. As any BBQ enthusiast will tell you - low and slow is the way to go. And the key is to be attentive. Making cannabutter or oil isn’t a process you can set and forget. Even in a slow cooker, you should check it early and often. Here are some other tips for starting your own batch of cannabutter or oil:

• There are some cannabis enthusiasts who will tell you they decarb directly in their butter. We recommend against this because the taste is better if your flower soaks for less time.
• Simmer one cup of water and one cup of butter in a saucepan, then let the butter melt and add your raw/ decarbed cannabis.
• Butter burns very fast. While this isn’t a big deal if you burn a $1 stick of butter from Walmart, it’s a pretty big deal for most of us if we burn cannabutter.
• Remember, low and slow is the way to go. But don’t ever exceed three hours or letting your material exceed 200F while making cannabutter.
• Be sure to always strain with a cheesecloth. Once you’ve finished infusing your cannabis with your fatty oil or butter, strain the excess. The cannabis is basically useless afterward - unless you enjoy picking pieces of plant material out of your teeth.

We will dive further into all things cannabis oils in the future, but at least this gives you a good idea of how you can get started right now.

Cooking with Cannabis 101 - Quick Tips

• A little goes a long way. As a rule of thumb, don’t add more than about a quarter ounce to a cup of your cooking oil. This breaks down to an 8th of decarbed material and an 8th of raw. Don’t spend too much on flower - it’s expensive and you usually won’t need that much.
• Always opt for making butter and oil rather than adding your material into food. More on how to make cannabutter and oil in future articles.
• Cook your raw material and your decarbed material with a slow cooker on low for about 3 hours. Temperatures are different for decarbing and cooking. Use a thermometer and don’t let the temperature get hotter than 200 degrees or you run the risk of damaging delicate cannabinoids.
• Use a hand grinder for a coarse grind after you decarb. Don’t grind it into a fine powder. This is a rookie mistake that will make your dishes taste like chlorophyll.
• If you’re making oil, use a cheesecloth to strain out the plant matter.
• A good cook always tastes their dish during the cooking process, especially if they plan to serve it to others. Try a little bit of your butter or oil before making a full batch. This will help you with the potency.
• Always stir very well. Another rookie mistake is not stirring enough, which leads to unevenly distributed cannabis in butter or oil.

Just like any kind of cooking, becoming a good cannabis chef has a lot to do with trial and error. However, cooking with cannabis is much more expensive than regular cooking - so beware of that. As with anything else that’s worth doing, practice makes perfect! You won’t be the Gordon Ramsay of cannabis cooking overnight, so don’t get discouraged if you make a mistake. Just always remember to try a little bit before ingesting a full meal. This will help save you money and prevent you from getting too high.

Edibles Are A Multi-Billion-Dollar Market

Now is a great time to become interested in cannabis-infused good eats and pick it up as a hobby. The gourmet cannabis edibles market has been exploding, even cannabis beverages could be a billion-dollar market on their own. In a few short years, we think we are going to see “Green Apron” startup companies, offering delicious healthy cannabis-infused meal kits you can make at home.

THC-infused alcohol-free wine is already a thing, as is craft beer that features grower specific terpenes. Cooked with cannabis is a popular show on Netflix that launched on 4/20, and it’s also a popular Google search trend for a good reason. Hulu won’t be left out of the edibles shows, either. They have their own cannabis cooking show called Bong Appetite.

HashDash - The Future of Cannabis Consumption

We are just scratching the surface when it comes to cooking with cannabis at home. There is a plethora of information we can cover when it comes to ingesting cannabis with food. We think cannabis-infused delights are the future of cannabis, and we aren’t alone. Gone are the days of antiquated pot brownies. There exists a plethora of things you can do with cannabis cooking.

We will cover things like how to make your own cannabutter, how to make infused cooking oil, and so much more. You can also learn how to make your own homemade tinctures and topicals. We might do some recipe articles in the future if our readers would like to see them, so just let us know. We hope you found value in this article. Thanks for reading. Happy canna-cooking!