Cooking With Cannabis: 5 Essential Things You Need to Know to Get Started
Cooking with infused cannabis is growing in popularity as more states move to legalize recreational marijuana and products. Pot lovers, always pushing the boundaries in search of an amazing experience, are experimenting with interesting ways to enjoy a good high or find hours of calm. Cooking cannabis is a terrific, healthier alternative for people who don’t want to light up and inhale. You have complete control throughout the process over quality and potency, and you can make edibles that fit your dietary needs.
Preparing cannabis for digestive consumption involves a few steps that require a couple of items like the right cookware, a grinder, something to strain the medium with, and a bit of patience. Although in some respects cooking with cannabis is developing into an art form, even beginners can enjoy the process and bask in the results. It really all comes down to getting hold of some great pot, heating it to release all of its wonderful properties, and infusing it into a medium where it can be added to practically any meal or treat for an experience like none other.
Here’s how to get started:
1. Pick the Perfect Strain
As in the case of any meal or snack, the quality of the ingredients matter. That applies to the strain of cannabis that you select to cook with or add to your cannabis-enhanced meal. You want a nice high without sacrificing the taste.
Marijuana has the added element of introducing potency as well as flavor into your recipe. In addition to the usual qualities like freshness and taste, determine whether you want a sativa strain with a high THC content for a more intense high or an indica strain for CBD content to relieve stress and lessen pain. Take a look at contents of the flower on the product’s label to make sure you’re selecting the plant profile you want.
The next step is to pair your strain’s flavor with your food to balance and complement the other ingredients in your dishes. You can find cannabis with distinctive tastes and fragrances and use it as you would any herb like oregano, mint or basil to introduce citrusy, peppery, herbal, or floral tones into your sauces, dressings, pesto, or guacamole. Infusing the oils and butters with cannabis, and using them in the meals you cook, adds surprising twists to familiar meals or even popcorn toppings. Your Planet 13 budtender can be a terrific resource to suggest the ideal strain for the experience that you’re after, and perhaps even offer a few recipes that you might want to try.
2. Calculating Dosage
There’s a familiar saying around kitchens when handling particularly spicy ingredients – ‘it’s easier to add more heat later than it is to try and take it out’. Same holds true when it comes to calculating the dosage and determining the potency of the cannabis flower that you’ve selected. Too high a dose of THC can get you too high and overdosing on CBD may result in unpleasant side effects and ruin the entire experience. Start slow and keep dosages low, especially if you’re new to the world of edibles. You can always eat a larger portion of the meal or snack if, after time, you determine you want to increase the effect.
Unfortunately, for many of us, calculating correct dosages of cannabis for your meals involves math. However, because pot is sold in grams, the math isn’t particularly difficult. To determine the THC per gram of dried flower, start by multiplying the total weight of the flower in grams by 1,000 to convert weight to milligrams. Multiply the converted weight by the percentage of THC in the flower (can be found on product packaging or label) to arrive at the total amount of THC in the total weight of the flower in milligrams. Converting back will give you the amount of THC per gram. Fortunately, there are edible calculators to do the math and with minimal data entry, provide accurate dosage amounts and convert milligrams to tablespoon or teaspoon measurements.
3. Time for Decarboxylation
The next, and also vitally necessary step, for preparing you cannabis for culinary creations involves a process called decarboxylation. If you’re picturing beakers, Bunson burners, and safety googles, don’t worry. Decarboxylation is just a technical term for heating the flower in your oven until various cannabis compounds are converted into bioavailable cannabinoids. CBDA becomes CBD and the non-psychoactive compound THCA converts into the psychoactive compound THC.
To begin, heat the cannabis in your oven at 240 degrees Fahrenheit (or 115 degrees Celsius) for 30-40 minutes. Your weed has to be dried and cured, but that happens before you purchase your pot at the dispensary. All you need to do is break up your flower into small pieces by hand, line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and place the cannabis in the tray in a single layer. When done, remove pot from oven and allow to cool. A heads up. Be prepared for your kitchen to smell like a rock concert after this process, so consider decarboxylating in a well-ventilated space.
An option that controls odors involves decarboxylation in a crockpot. Fill a mason jar up to halfway with weed and seal tightly. Place jar in crockpot and fill crockpot with water to cover half the jar. Cook on high for four hours, checking on water levels every 90 minutes to prevent the jar from shattering if overheated.
In both cases, when finished, store the finished cannabis in an airtight container, optimally a UV-protected glass jar, and keep in a cool, dark place.
4. Choosing the Best Infusion Methods
The next step involves taking your decarboxylated weed and infusing it into a fat-abundant medium like butter, olive oil, coconut oil, coconut milk or non-fat sweeteners like honey, maple syrup, and agave syrup. You can also infuse weed to create tinctures to use in recipes or infuse alcohol for a nice drink with dinner. When infused into a medium and eaten in a food, the cannabis is processed by the liver to more easily enter our bloodstream and nervous system, creating a more intense experience than many other methods of consumption. It also helps provide a deep and longer lasting buzz or relief through the day or night.
There are several methods for infusing cannabis into the medium of your choice. The material you should have on hand include a grinder, a double boiler, slow cooker, crockpot or saucepan, cheesecloth or fine-meshed strainer, and storage vessel. Use your grinder to get the flower as finely ground as possible so that the powder is distributed more consistently throughout the medium. Simmer the butter or oil over low heat (below 190 degrees Fahrenheit) for several hours depending on the cooking method, making sure to stir frequently to prevent overheating or burning. Allow the medium to cool, before pouring it through the cheesecloth or strainer into an airtight container to store in a cool, dark place.
If you’re the more patient type, cold infusion involves covering the weed by an inch with a liquid oil (olive, avocado, etc.) or alcohol in a sterile glass jar and putting the jar in a dark, warm area for 4 to 6 weeks. Shake the jar every few days to saturate the weed more fully. As with the heated infusion method, when ready, strain to keep pot particles out of your infusion.
Of course, you can skip the entire infusion process by purchasing cannabis-infused oil at your local dispensary, but where’s the fun in that?
5. Adhering to Legal Considerations
If you are fortunate to live in one of states in the U.S. that has legalized recreational marijuana and you want to cook a meal, bake treats, or have a cocktail infused with cannabis for personal consumption, you shouldn’t have to worry about legal ramifications. In fact, as pot legalization continues to reach more states and, with the recent proposal from the U.S. Justice System regarding the loosening of the illegal status of cannabis, things are fluid. Check your own state laws regarding preparation and consumption of edibles.
That said, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still holds that the use of THC and CBD in food and drink for public consumption and sale is illegal. Some states allow for the sale of cannabis edible products, but laws vary. Two states, Oregon and Washington, place weight and volume limits on edibles, and four others – Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Nevada – place limits on total grams of THC sold in edibles. In California, making edibles for retail requires licensing, and many cities and counties have banned cannabis kitchens. What to do? Enjoy cooking and munching in the privacy of your home because it still may be a while before your favorite restaurant begins adding gourmet cannabis meals to its menu.
One growing trend is Culinary Pot Parties, with certified cannabis chefs visiting and preparing a delicious meal in your home for you and adult friends, and cannabis sommeliers matching every course with the perfect weed.
So what are you waiting for? Let’s get cooking.
Planet 13 strives to offer only the best and premium cannabis products such as CBD, cannabis concentrates, cannabis vapes, premium flower, and cannabis edibles. Stop by one of our dispensaries today!
