The ratio for making canna-butter is simple. If you have a kitchen scale, you can make it happen. The formula calls for one pound of unsalted butter to every seven grams of decarboxylated, coarsely ground cannabis.
Decarboxylation, or “decarbing,” is the process of heating cannabis to activate the cannabinoids within its buds, trim, or leaves. Obviously, that part is taken care of if you’re smoking the weed. But when it comes to edibles, you must manage decarboxylation by heating raw, dried cannabis in a warm oven until it’s lightly browned—between 20 and 40 minutes, depending on the size of the flowers in play. Afterward, cool the decarboxylated cannabis completely, coarsely grind it in your food processor, put it in an airtight container, and store it in the freezer for months, if you wish.
To make canna-butter, submerge both the pound of butter and the seven ounces of decarbed weed in a quart of boiling water. When the butter is melted, reduce the heat so the mixture simmers. Cook it for three hours, stirring occasionally, until the top of the mixture is dark, glossy, and thick. Next, strain the mixture through a double layer of cheesecloth, cool it to room temperature, and put it in the fridge. There, the butter will solidify and separate from the water. Your canna-butter is ready to roll at this point.
Your yield will be two cups, but what is the potency? Without that number, you can’t add this canna-butter to your favorite cookie recipe and be confident about how much cannabis each cookie offers an eater.
The answer lies in the bud. You need to know the THC percentage of the cannabis you’re working with. I’ve been experimenting with a strain called Black Lightning. Dispensary staff informed me (and internet checks confirmed) that it has a 22.73% THC percentage.
The math behind getting from a THC percentage in a bud to the THC dosage in a cookie goes like this:
Take the number of grams of cannabis flower used to make your canna-butter and multiply it by 1,000 to convert the measurement to milligrams (mg). Multiply the weight of your flower in milligrams by its percentage of THC. The answer is the total milligrams in the whole batch of butter. In my two cups of Black Lightning canna-butter, then, I have roughly 1,600 mg of THC.
My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe calls for one cup of butter. Replacing plain butter with canna-butter in a one-to-one ratio means I would have 800 mg of THC in the mix. Since a batch makes 48 cookies, there are 16.66 mg of THC in each cookie.
Now all I need is a glass of milk.
