How to Make Cannabutter – Green Wellness Life

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How to Make Cannabutter

When thinking about how to make cannabutter, it can be really overwhelming. There are so many different places to look for cannabutter recipes and guides on how to get the most out of your flower. I have been making cannabutter for 6 years and I am more than happy to share some of my tips and tricks that I have learned from many cannabutter instant pot failures. Cannabutter can be used to make your own CBD edibles, topicals, and all sorts of other goodies. This butter is the building block for seemingly endless recipes and is really easy to execute. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make some really good cannabutter and I want to help!

Ingredients

• Cannabis/hemp flower (grams up to your discretion, but we recommend at least 7 grams)
• 1 cup of butter
• 1 cup of water

To Decarboxylate or Not To Decarboxylate

The very first step when making cannabutter is most often baking your hemp flower or cannabis flower to decarboxylate it. If you have read our other blogs, you know that 0 THC and some wholeplant products are decarboxylated, but any raw CBDa products are not. Decarboxylating is removing a carboxylic acid group from the compounds in hemp, which may enhance some therapeutic benefits. However, you technically do not have to decarboxylate your flower to make cannabutter, especially if you are looking to create a butter with more CBDa. Why would you want more CBDa? There has been a lot more research on this compound lately and though some research is preliminarily saying that CBDa may impact susceptibility to COVID, we love CBDa for pain and inflammation. The acidic tail on the end of that compound falls off and CBDa turns into CBD when heated, which is what decarboxylating is. If you are looking to make a butter for more of a relaxation and mood stabilizing benefit, we would recommend decarboxylating you flower. If you are making cannabutter and looking for pain relief, I may recommend not decarboxylating and rather heating your butter longer to make more CBDa infused cannabutter.

Cannabis Infused Butter Recipe & Instructions

Step 1: Decarboxylation (optional)

Preheat your oven to 240ºF. Place your flower on a non stick, oven safe baking tray. If you don’t have a nonstick baking tray, you can like it with tin foil (which also makes cleanup easier). Evenly place your buds on the tray and then insert into the oven when heated. Cook, or decarboxylate, for 30-40 minutes, shaking the tray every 10 minutes to ensure all sides of the flower get decarboxylated. Once done, pull out and allow to cool.

Step 2: Grind 

Next, take your cooked flower and grind it up. You can use a hand grinder or an herb grinder. If you don’t have either of those, break the dried cbd hemp flower or cannabis flower apart with you hands to as fine of a flower shake as you can.

Step 3: Melt Butter

Add 1 cup of water and 1 cup of butter into either a pot or a saucepan. If in either a pot or saucepan, first heat the pan on the lowest heat setting and then add the butter and water. You want the butter to melt but not brown, which the added water will help regulate the temperature.

There is a method, my personal favorite, where instead of cooking on the stovetop you infuse the butter in a crockpot. For this method, you add the butter and water to the crockpot on the lowest heat setting.

Step 4: Add the Flower 

As the butter melts, once more liquid than solid, you can begin to slowly fold in the grounded flower to being infusing the cannabutter. Once the butter fully melts you can add the rest of the ground flower to either the pot, saucepan, or crockpot.

Step 5: Let Simmer 

You want to let your butter and flower concoction simmer on the stovetop for about 3 hours. Watch the heat because you never want your cannabutter to get to 200ºF, otherwise you will loose efficacy. Stir the mixture periodically and watch the butter turn green. If cooking in a crockpot, you’ll want to leave your butter for a lot longer. I would recommend anywhere from 6-12 hours, depending on if you decarboxylated or not prior to grinding the flower. When I haven’t decarboxylated in the past, I let it cook for 12 hours, otherwise the 6-8 hour range is appropriate.

Step 5: Strain and Jar

Once your cannabutter is done cooking, you just have to strain out the plant matter and pour your cannabutter into whatever storage container works best for you. Personally, I have used a traditional flat strainer and poured my cannabutter straight into a mason jar, but some people prefer a cheese cloth. Either work just fine, you just want to remove what is left of that flower to make your butter as smooth as possible.

Step 5: Refrigerate and Remove Water 

Now that your cannabutter is in a jar or whatever container you prefer, you just stick that into the fridge to cool off. Once your cannabutter has solidified, you may notice some green water at the bottom of your jar. You can drain that water by using a knife to poke a hole in your butter and just pour the liquid into the sink. You will be left with a cannabutter that is sure to please.

Making Infused Recipes with Your Cannabutter

Now that you have this building block for essentially any recipe, you can make cannabis/hemp infused goodies. Any recipe that calls for oil, you can substitute with you cannabutter. The secret that I have learned from my many years making cannabutter and hemp edibles, is to not heat the butter too much. Even while baking, you don’t want your butter to get to that 200ºF, so I will cook with low heat recipes or cook for 80% of the recommended bake time. You can make brownies, cookies, corn bread, just about anything you can imagine. Some people even prefer to use their cannabutter topically, adding the fatty butter to carrier oils, like hemp seed oil, to make a cannabutter infused body oil.

Serving Size Guide

Figuring out the serving for your cannabutter is easily, in my opinion, the hardest part about the entire process. There are so many different factors that impact how strong the cannabutter can be, like the strength of the flower, the strain and type of cannabis/hemp flower used, the decarboxylation process, or lack thereof, and how long your cannabutter cooked for. With so many variables impacting the serving size, we recommend starting on the smaller side of things and testing the potency before baking with your cannabutter. Try 1/4 of a teaspoon or 1/2 a teaspoon to see how potent the cannabutter is and then bake accordingly. I would recommending trying your cannabutter and waiting 2 hours before determining potency. Many people recommend waiting an hour but if you have a slower metabolism, like myself, you can be surprised how once you say “this isn’t strong,” that your cannabutter may sneak up on you.