How To Make Weed Brownies?
Do you want to make Weed Brownies for the first time and have no idea how to pull it off?
Don’t worry it’s easy as pie. – Pun intended
Enough with the Dad jokes. Let me walk you through the process of making your first edibles.
How To Make Weed Brownies
Recipe For Weed Brownies
Ingredients:
¾ cup cannabutter
½ cup unsweetened chocolate
1 ¾ cups coconut sugar
½ tsp kosher salt (thats fancy for kitchen salt)
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
⅔ cup chopped walnuts (optional)
3 mint leaves, minced (optional)
1. Preheat The Oven
Preheat the oven to 350F / 177C. While that’s heating up, grease a 9×13″ / 22cm x 33 baking pan.
2. Temper Chocolate
Place chocolates in a large mixing bowl and melt in the microwave. Of course, you can melt the chocolate any other way that you prefer
3. Mix It Up
Add the wet ingredients like cannabutter, coconut sugar, salt, and vanilla into the melted chocolate. Afterward, add in the flour. Mix well until it has a loose consistency.
4. Pour Batter
Get the baking pan and pour in the batter and smoothen out the surface.
5. Bake
Bake the prepared batter for 25-30 minutes at 230F / 110C. Don’t turn your oven any hotter or you will break down the THC. Make sure to check if the batter is cooked all the way through by sticking in a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out clean, then the brownie is cooked all the way. If there is batter sticking on the toothpick, continue to cook the batter in the oven. Turn off the heat but leave it in for a few more minutes.
6. Cool It Off
Take the baking pan out of the oven. Cool it on a cooling rack before slicing it into 16 pieces. Make sure that it is completely cooled off before storing. If you’re using someone else’s kitchen, label the brownies as edibles to make sure everyone knows it isn’t regular brownies.
What Are Marijuana Edibles?
These are food and drinks infused with weed. Edibles have come a long way through history. From India and their “bhang” made out of weed, ghee (clarified butter), and spices up to the first published cookbook for edibles in Europe during the 15th century, marijuana edibles trickled down to modern-day living.
Edibles now take form in pastries like cookies and brownies. It also took form in gummies, candy bars, and even mints. Regardless of how it looks and how it tastes, edibles still give the same psychoactive effect in humans as smoking and vaping do.
Why Should You Make Marijuana Edibles?
Cannabis edibles opened new opportunities for people who want to try cannabis but don’t like smoking or vaping due to existing illnesses or health reasons. People consuming edibles will get the same stoned feeling that THC gives off without having to smoke or vaporize weed.
Aside from the fact that it tastes good, edibles are discreet and easy to take anywhere. Yes, marijuana may be legal in some areas. But there’s still taboo in smoking or vaping weed in public. But edibles provide you the freedom to consume THC and CBD anytime, anywhere without being judged.
The best thing about edibles is that the effects last longer compared to smoking or vaporizing weed. Since edibles pass through the digestive system before the bloodstream absorbs its chemicals, the effect time takes time to kick in. As our body absorbs it slower, the effects also last longer to end. It could save you money as edibles don’t cost much, its effect wears off slowly.
What Is Decarboxylation?
Even if you straight up consume raw cannabis, the stoned feeling will not kick in as how you imagined it. Before cannabinoids cause psychoactive changes in our body, it needs to undergo a process called decarboxylation.
Decarboxylation refers to the activation of chemicals in cannabis plants that cause the high feeling in humans. For a bit of Science review, an extra carboxyl ring (COOH) attached to the chemical structure of cannabinoids prevents them from becoming intoxicating. But decarboxylation eliminates this barrier and allows cannabinoids to activate for humans to feel its effects.
What Causes Decarboxylation?
Time and heat are catalysts for decarboxylation. Decarboxylation through heat could be instantaneous by lighting a joint or blunt before smoking. Heat through fire activates the cannabinoid content in these rolls that cause stoned effects. Vaporizing is also another way of decarboxylation through heat as it heats the material for inhalation.
Meanwhile, decarboxylation through time happens when we dry newly-harvested weed. Activating THCA by drying is not as instant as converting THCA by setting them on fire. Drying takes an approximate time of 7-10 days. Aside from drying, the process of curing also activates cannabinoid content through time.
Do You Need To Decarboxylate Weed Before Infusing It To Food?
If you’re thinking of incorporating weed in food, it is crucial to decarboxylate weed first. Our body cannot change THCA, its inactive form, into THC, its active form. Added to that, decarboxylating weed before adding it to food recipes would also make it more potent.
There are a lot of ways to decarboxylate weed. Sous-vide, boiling, and slow cooking are only a few examples. However, the most common and easiest way to do it is through an oven. First, you need to break down weed buds and flowers into smaller chunks. Make sure that they’re not too small so that they will not decarboxylate too fast. Next, line a baking tray with parchment paper and place the weed chunks on top. Heat it in the oven preheated at 240F or 116C. After 30-40 minutes, the weed chunks should have changed in color. You should expect a brownish color instead of a fresh green color. By then, it should be ready for food infusion.
How To Infuse Weed In Food?
Infusing Oil With Weed
First, you would need to choose your oil base. There are a lot of oils to choose from. But consider which kind of food you’d cook with your oil base. For example, coconut oil is best for baking. Meanwhile, Canola oil is more for general use. Either way, any oil would work.
After grinding the weed, it is time to mix ground parts with oil. Using a double boiler, saucepan, or slow cooker, heat the oil base with weed until it gets incorporated. Remember not to rush the process by turning the heat up for faster results. Extreme heat can lessen the potency of cannabis then it might become less effective. A good ratio of oil to ground cannabis would be 2:1.
The duration needed for infusing cannabis into oil depends on which cookware you’re using. For a saucepan, it should take 3 hours on low heat. Continuously stir the mixture to avoid burning the oil and weed. On a double boiler, the cooking time can last for 6-8 hours. Make sure that the water does not dry up during the process. Meanwhile, a slow cooker will finish infusion in 6 hours. But it could extend up to 3 days.
Strain the oil to separate the solid pieces. Utilize a mesh strainer to take out the larger chunks. You can use a coffee filter after the mesh strainer. It would filter out the smaller pieces still left in the oil. You can also use cheesecloth for filtering aside from coffee filters.
The cannabis-infused oil is now ready to use! Storing it in airtight containers would prolong its shelf life for two months. Refrigerating it after it cools down would extend its shelf life even more.
Infusing Butter With Weed
Cannabis-infused butter, often called CannaButter, is another way to infuse cannabis into food. It’s as easy as infusing oils. After grinding the decarboxylated weed, melt the butter in a saucepan. You can also use slow cookers in this process. Slow cookers allow the infusion to last a bit longer as it’s not as hot as saucepans.
After the butter melts, mix the ground weed. Then wait for a few hours for it to infuse with the butter. For slow cookers, the process could last for 24 hours. Continue to simmer the butter and weed mixture at a low temperature. Remember that patience is a virtue. Keep on stirring the mixture until it finishes cooking.
Afterward, strain the CannaButter mixture with a wire mesh strainer. If you want a cleaner mixture compound, use coffee filters or cheesecloth. Store it in an airtight container and refrigerate to solidify. CannaButter is now ready to use.
How Much Weed Do You Need For Edibles?
In cooking edibles, same with regular cooking, there are measurements to follow. Recipes would often mention a specific amount of each ingredient needed. However, what if you’re experimenting with making your recipes?
According to Highsnobiety, assuming that each gram of weed has 1000mg of dry weight, computing for the THC content would be as easy as multiplying the mass of weed to the THC percentage of the strain you’re using. For example, edibles-favorite strain Purple Kush has a THC content of 7%. The 7% of 1000mg is 70mg. Therefore, a milligram of Purple Kush contains a THC of 70mg.
Knowing how much weed to put in edibles is crucial as it is a way of knowing the safe dosage of THC in food. Areas where marijuana is legal created laws that dictate the limits of THC content in edibles sold commercially. In Colorado, the maximum serving size for THC in edibles is 10mg.
What If You Ate Too Much Marijuana Edibles?
Let’s say you attended a college party. Everyone is having a good time until they start serving newly-baked cookies. Without saying a word, you start munching on a few bars. After a while, you start feeling woozy then the world suddenly starts spinning. The scenario above is one example of accidental ingestion of food infused with weed.
According to a news report from CNBC, children and adults accidentally ingest THC through edibles. Since edibles look the same as regular food, it’s hard to know which one’s bound to make you full or make you high.
Other times, people eat a lot of edibles even if they know they are cannabis-infused. As humans digest THC in edibles, it takes a longer time to experience its effects. People think that it is right to eat many edibles since they do not immediately feel its effects.
But it is easy to curb down the ingested THC through edibles by using other terpenes to fight the terpenes found in weed. Eating pine nuts or pistachios could neutralize THC levels as they contain the chemical pinene. The chemical pinene helps with mental clarity. Meanwhile, eating acidic fruits like lemons, oranges, and grapefruit can also alleviate the effects of consuming too much THC.