Weed butter — also known as cannabutter — is one of the essential ingredients in cooking with marijuana.
Making weed butter is all about extracting the cannabinoids and terpenes from the cured buds and infusing them into the butter fats. This is an extremely versatile product, as you can substitute any amount of regular butter with the THC-infused one in order to spice up your next meal.
THC is fat-soluble, so it works best with fats. If any of the food you consume daily has some fat in ingredients, you can actually infuse it with weed.
You can make weed butter out of any high-THC strain provided that you had decarboxylated it first. While dried flowers are the most common choice for this job, people also use solventless hash or trim to achieve their magical cooking ingredient.
Whether you’re a food aficionado or medical cannabis patient, this guide will help you understand how to make weed butter at home. We’ll also cover different THC dosages as well as common uses for cannabutter in the kitchen.
Let’s take one important cooking class!
Once you’ve prepared your weed butter, you can use it in virtually any recipe that calls for traditional butter. From savory meals to mouthwatering desserts — sky’s the limit.
Weed butter pairs exceptionally with other herbs and spices. If you often use garlic, rosemary, thyme, or cumin in your dishes, cannabis will draw the best out of them and provide you with a stunning aroma that will make your mouth water in no time.
Last but not least, weed butter offers you a smoke-free way to deliver THC and other beneficial cannabinoids to your system. If you don’t want to inhale weed and the taste of tinctures makes you cringe, edibles made with weed butter saves the day.
Remember to gently mix the buds every 10 minutes to expose their surface area equally.
Now that you’ve decarbed your weed, it’s time to bring all the essential tools to the table.
Why Make Your Own Weed Butter?
As mentioned, THC is fat-soluble, so if you want effective ingestion, you need to infuse it into some kind of fat. People make lots of different THC infusions, from olive oil to coconut oil, but weed butter is hands down the most iconic cooking fat among cannabis consumers. For one, butter mostly consists of animal-derived saturated fats, so it packs more flavor into your dishes. If you’ve ever made scrambled eggs using canola oil and then switched to butter, you should remember the difference in taste quite well. Butter is simply finger-licking delicious.
Once you’ve prepared your weed butter, you can use it in virtually any recipe that calls for traditional butter. From savory meals to mouthwatering desserts — sky’s the limit.
Weed butter pairs exceptionally with other herbs and spices. If you often use garlic, rosemary, thyme, or cumin in your dishes, cannabis will draw the best out of them and provide you with a stunning aroma that will make your mouth water in no time.
Last but not least, weed butter offers you a smoke-free way to deliver THC and other beneficial cannabinoids to your system. If you don’t want to inhale weed and the taste of tinctures makes you cringe, edibles made with weed butter saves the day.
How to Prepare for Making Weed Butter
There are two things you should remember when making weed butter at home: low temperatures and long cooking time. If you don’t want to end up wasting your precious weed, you need to infuse the butter for a few hours over low heat. This allows the THC to get fully activated. THC and other cannabinoids are soaked up by the butter along with other phytochemicals from cannabis, while all the impurities are left in the water. To maximize the psychoactive effects that come with your weed, it’s important to pay particular attention to the prep stage. Make sure you have the following items:- ½ ounce of weed
- Grinder
- Baking paper
- Oven
Grind Up Your Cannabis Buds
Let’s make something clear from the beginning — you don’t throw whole weed nuggets into the pot with butter. You need to grind them up first. Break some buds into smaller bits and place them inside the chamber of your grinder. The weed should be ground into a fine consistency, but not into a fine powder. This is important for the next step because you want to ensure an even surface for activating THC without burning your cannabis. Speaking of which, let’s take a closer look at decarboxylation.Decarboxylate the Weed
Before making your weed butter, you’ll need to decarboxylate the cannabis flower you’re using. Omitting this step will result in a low-potency product that will only give you some minor psychoactive effects. That’s because THC needs to become active in order to get you high. Raw cannabis flowers contain THCA, which is an acidic and inactive form of THC. THCA has anti-inflammatory, antiemetic, and anti-proliferative properties, which offers many great health benefits, but it lacks intoxicating effect. Some of the THC becomes active upon drying weed. However, if you want a finished, potent product, you’ll need to apply more heat — preferably in the oven. As the name suggests, decarboxylation removes the extra carbon link from THCA so it can turn into THC and work its magic. The optimal temperature for decarbing weed is around 245 Fahrenheit degrees. Lay your ground cannabis over a non-stick oven-safe tray covered with parchment paper. Transfer the tray into the oven and set the timer for 30-40 minutes. Older cannabis, or the one that has been dried to a higher degree, may need less time — you can set your oven to 300 F and bake the weed for up to 18 minutes.
Remember to gently mix the buds every 10 minutes to expose their surface area equally.
Now that you’ve decarbed your weed, it’s time to bring all the essential tools to the table.
Gather the Equipment
You don’t need to be a professional cook to make your own weed butter. This process is not only simple but it also requires only basic appliances that everybody has in their kitchen. You’ll need:- ½ ounce decarbed weed
- 1 pound unsalted butter
- 4 cups water
- 2 pieces of cheesecloth or coffee filter
- Metal strainer
- Medium saucepan
- Bowl
- Food handling gloves
- Chef’s knife
- Airtight container
Making Weed Butter On a Stovetop
When preparing weed butter for the first time, we suggest that you start with a stovetop. It requires you to pay more attention to the whole process, but your patience and precision will pay off with a potent product that will make your every next dish a highlight of the day.
Step 1: Melt the Butter and Mix It With Weed
Cut your butter into several pieces and place it in the saucepan. Then combine the butter with water and weed. Bring the whole mixture to a very gentle simmer over low heat — but don’t boil it! It will kill the terpenes and some of the cannabinoids, negatively impacting the potency and flavor of your butter. Stir the mixture every 15 minutes until it thickens. The weed butter shouldn’t be too thick, though, and if it touches the bottom of the pan, it means you should reduce the heat and add some more water to thin it down a little bit.Step 2: Let the Butter Rest
After 3–4 hours, most of the water should evaporate and the mixture should be glossy and more dense. Now is the time to turn off the heat. Allow the weed and butter mixture to cool for a bit. Once done, take a strainer and top it with two layers of cheesecloth over the saucepan. It should overhang a few inches.Step 3: Strain Your Mixture
When your weed butter reaches room temperature, pour it into the strainer and allow it to drip into the bowl, gently pressing it down with the back of your spatula. Put on your gloves and squeeze out the corners of the cheesecloth to push through all the weed butter. Scrape any leftovers from the saucepan into the bowl and transfer it to the refrigerator until the butter has become solid. You’ll need to wait for approximately 2 hours before you can separate the final product from the water.
Step 4: Remove the Butter and Store It in the Fridge
Okay, so the butter has solidified — what now? Run a knife along the edges of the bowl to separate the weed butter from the dish. Once you’ve taken it out of the water, cut a small piece of butter from the edge and lift the whole block using a spatula. Prepare a cutting board and place the butter on it — wet side up. Take a dry clean cloth and remove the excess water until you see a beautifully green stick of THC-infused butter. Place the end product in an airtight container and keep in your refrigerator for the next few weeks. Or, you can use it immediately if temptation takes hold.Making Weed Butter in a Slow Cooker
If you own a slow cooker, we have some good news for you — you can use it for making weed butter, too. Start by grinding your decarbed cannabis finely. After that, set your slow cooker to low (but keep it under 200 F to prevent burning or wasting cannabinoids) and add a little water to prevent scorching. Add the butter and ground weed. Stir occasionally every 30 minutes and after about 3 hours, turn off the slow cooker and wait for the butter to cool. The following steps are the same as for the stovetop method.
How to Dose Weed Butter
Dosing weed butter can be tricky. You need to take many variables into account, such as the potency of your strain, cooking time, decarboxylation temperatures, your THC tolerance, desired effects, and more. The weed butter recipe in this guide yields a pound of weed butter, so if you want a smaller batch, you can reduce the amount of weed and butter accordingly. But let’s say you’ve decided to go all in but have no idea where to start. We always suggest our readers to approach weed butter with baby steps. Starting low and gradually increasing the dosage until you get the desired effects takes some practice, so if you want to spice up your next dessert, start by adding one teaspoon of weed butter to the original recipe. Weed edibles have a delayed onset, so you won’t feel the effects as fast as with vaping or smoking your herbs. Edibles typically kick in after around 30–90 minutes, so if you don’t feel anything after half an hour, don’t rush it and wait a few more minutes because if you eat another piece, you may get too high and experience anxiety, confusion, and lethargy.Tips on How to Use and Store Weed Butter
The best thing about using weed butter in the kitchen is the versatility it offers. First, you can use it in any recipe that uses traditional butter or any other cooking fat. Want some scrambled eggs cooked on cannabutter? No problem. Craving for some THC-infused queso for your nacho party? Easy. Your sweet tooth just got awakened? You can bake a whole world of cannabis sweets. Better yet, if you want a nice boost to your morning coffee, you can go with a sativa strain for that extra uplifting and invigorating buzz that will help you stay productive for the next few hours. On the other hand, an indica bud may do wonders for your sleep when consumed in the evening. Weed butter is a super fun way to medicate.