Sick of buying edibles at the dispensary? Feeling crafty? Want to be unreasonably high like, all the time? Look no further, because today we’re learning how to make weed butter — also known as “cannabutter” — a versatile ingredient that can make virtually anything into a high-powered edible.
The Easy Method
Just get yourself a weed butter maker, silly. You can have cannabutter at the push of a button with the MagicalButter Machine, for example. Just load it with butter, weed and voilà: You’re ready to get high. It can be an investment of nearly $225, but if you want to make edibles often and don’t know the difference between a stove and a toaster, it may be worth the cost.
The Home Cook Method
If you’d rather work with what you already have in your kitchen, no problem. Erin Swing, a food scientist at PLUS edibles, has a basic recipe for the everystoner (feel free to double or triple the recipe if you want more):
- Grind up an eighth (or three and a half grams) of your favorite weed flower.
- Place parchment paper on a cooking sheet, then spread your ground weed in a thin layer onto it.
- Bake it in your oven or toaster oven at 250 degrees for an hour — the heat activates the THC. Then, let it cool.
- Melt one stick of butter on low in a crockpot or a DIY double boiler — a bowl on top of a pot of simmering water — mix in your weed, and heat for 30 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Use a metal strainer layered with cheesecloth to strain out the weed bits, and make sure there’s a bowl underneath to collect your butter. (Swing also mentions an old-timey recipe that suggests simmering the leftover plant material in milk and a squeeze of honey for an indulgent dope drink. You could add hot cocoa mix, too.)
- Put your cannabutter in the fridge for whenever you’re ready to get blasted.
The Gourmand Method
If you’re feeling extra fancy, Jessica Catalano, cannabis cooking pioneer and author of The Ganja Kitchen Revolution, says you can follow the same method explained above — though she suggests 25 minutes in the oven at 220 degrees and a whole hour in the double boiler — but she recommends thinking long and hard about the flavor profiles of the strain you use, too. “Take, for example, Strawberry Cough, which has the flavor profile of strawberries and cream,” she says. “When I pair this strain with strawberry shortcake, the flavors of the strawberries and cream are doubled.”
Sounds extravagant.
What to Do with Your Weed Butter
First of all, moderation is crucial. When consumed in edible form, THC is converted by your liver into 11-Hydroxy-THC, which is five times more potent than smoked weed, says Garyn Angel, creator of the MagicalButter Machine. In other words, a little cannabutter goes a long way — try a quarter teaspoon, and see where it takes you. Remember, you can always have more next time. (If you’re making a specific recipe with cannabutter, MagicalButter has a handy dosage calculator on their website.)
As for what you can do with weed butter, there’s really no limit. Angel says he likes adding cannabutter to soups, sauces and salad dressings, because “infused salad dressing encourages [him] to eat healthy.” Swing suggests keeping it simple with cannabutter toast sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, or adding herbs like chives and parsley to your cannabutter, then tossing it on steak, chicken or shrimp. And of course, you can add it to any baked goods you’re cooking up.
Well, I’ll leave you to it. If you run into trouble, there’s always your trusty bong.
Ian Lecklitner
Ian Lecklitner is a staff writer at MEL Magazine. He mostly writes about everyone's favorite things: Sex, drugs and food.
