Decarboxylation - How you can activate your Cannabis

Edible cannabis products are becoming more and more popular. In the US, the "edibles" are considered a healthy alternative to smoking. Especially for medical use, the long duration of action is very interesting. Numerous recipes circulate on the Internet, mostly for hash butter, brownies or cocoa. Nevertheless, there is much uncertainty about how to reliably cook with cannabis.

Often the preparations do not work as desired. Either it does not work, or in extreme cases, the party ends up with symptoms of intoxication in the hospital, as one unfortunately has to read from time to time in the daily press. Others are reliable, but they can not explain why.
But if you understand the properties of the active ingredients, cooking and baking with cannabis is easily manageable.

If THC is supposed to be exhilarating, it must always be decarboxylated.

The THC in the plant is not effective at all, it has an acidic carboxyl group and is therefore called THC-A (A for "Acid"). No matter how potent and high percentage a plant is, its THC does not work, it must first lose the carboxyl group, that is to be de-carboxylated. This sounds terribly scientific and contradicts all experience of raging, because the plants work usually wonderful. Decarboxylation, however, is a natural process of decay, which is accelerated by heating quite massively. Anyone who smokes a joint decarboxylates their cannabis at the same time, because smoking causes temperatures of 400 to 800 ° Celsius. Instead of decarboxylation you can therefore speak of activation. The higher the temperature, the faster the THC activates.

For food activation should be done at lower temperatures, because from about 160 ° C, the active ingredient evaporates and would then be lost. At cooking and baking temperatures of 100 to 140 ° C, however, full activation takes a good 40 to 60 minutes.
This explains the unpredictability of hashish cookies if the cannabis was not fully activated before baking in a separate step.
Smaller pastries, such as biscuits or muffins, would then not be long enough in the oven, while a long-baked cake with the same amount of active substance can act much more powerful. A well-known recipe for hash butter, in which the butter is cooked with plant parts and water for at least one hour, on the other hand, always produces an effective product because of the long heating. Therefore, the assumption is widespread, cannabis for food must always be dissolved in fat. This way is not correct. THC to food does not have to be dissolved in fat.

Can you also eat cannabis pure?

Yes, you can also eat pure, if the THC has been sufficiently activated. Although the active substance is actually fat-soluble, this has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the preparation. It is only a practical matter to dissolve THC in fat if the active ingredient is to distribute evenly in the carrier medium, for example a cake dough. Also, any edible fat is ideal for storing. The famous hash butter, for example, is frozen almost forever.

But you can just as well heat the herb alone and then eat it pure or season a meal with it. This is sometimes even recommended: for starters, using pure, activated cannabis is far easier to find the right dose. The portion can be weighed directly and adjusted after a few trials for personal needs. Where an occasional consumer with 0.1 to 0.2 grams in a good mood and yet sane enough to enjoy a festival, there are pain patients who need several grams a day.

In addition, the classic form of preparation in brownies and other tasty sweets holds risks. This seduces to overdose or accidents, when the ignorant, at worst children, nibble on the delicious cake. It is much less common for an ignorant person to incorporate the spice mill with the oregano. ;)
You should learn to eat cannabis. The tide of the effect is very subtle, there is no overwhelming tingling, but a pure high rises from the inside. Beginners should always eat cannabis sober and then wait for the effect. If you additionally smoked cannabis, you can not distinguish the effect, the psychedelic clarity is covered by the smoked cannabis, the high is no longer perceived as special, but rather as unpleasantly long.

How do you activate the herb?

No matter how you want to eat it, you should always activate your cannabis before processing. Pure herb can be easily crumbled, put in a covered bowl at 120 ° C in the oven. After one hour, the active ingredients should be fully activated. However, the whole house smells very spicy and the cannabis tastes very bland afterwards.

Another option is to heat the material in a screwed mason jar for at least one hour in a boiling water bath. The aromatic terpenes remain in the flowers. Then the activation takes place when cooking hash butter, to which the plant material is cooked with butter and water for at least one hour and then sifted out the plants. From the cooled liquid the effective butter can be skimmed off.
However, if you scavenged offcuts with unknown levels of active ingredient, you would need to determine the dose by self-testing. It would be nice to know if a person needs more than a teaspoon or several tablespoons full of butter.
When heating butter for a long time you should always work with additional dilution, or with a water bath, because butter can burn quickly, which would spoil the whole valuable preparation.

By the way: The "vaporized" remains from a vaporizer are usually still amazingly potent and always fully activated. The browned material can be eaten directly. 0.2 to 0.3 grams can be very surprising.