Lazy Sunday Cannabutter

[Thomas Davie]

Been collecting vaped bid since ~ October 5th. Have 40+ grams. Threw in an 1/8 of fresh CBD flower (had not been vaped). A Hamilton Beach 33861 flex slow cooker with locking lid was used.

1. 64 oz warm/hot water poured into slow cooker (about 1.9 litres)
2. Program set to high/8 hours
3. 1/2 lb salted butter added. Stirred once when all butter was melted
4. At 8 hours I’ll remove the stoneware insert and let it cool on the counter
5. Filter through a mesh metal filter into glass bowl.
6. Cool in fridge until solid then cut a small hole in corner and drain water out
7 a). Remove butter puck pieces and dry/clean up pieces/blot dry. Store in freezer until used.
7 b). If I’m not lazy I’ll repeat with the slow cooker again (cleaning up the butter by removing some more of the water soluble yuckies). It will also cut the amount of sodium in the butter each time I do a wash. Next time I’m just going to use ghee.

However it ends up, I’ll post a picture in here. I’ve used the slow cooker about 6 times before and the temperature is just slightly below boiling when set to high. I don’t expect a lot of evaporation b/c of the good seal.

Tom

update #1 - It worked, a couple of photo’s later tonight. I forgot about the butter/crap water mixture in the fridge overnight; which was a good thing b/c a nice solid slab of butter on top of the water. Using a cooking nail, I punctured the butter layer and drained out all the water. The slab of butter cracked and broke into 7-10 pieces. I put them on paper towels to blot them dry and then stuck them in the freezer. I’ll weigh them tonight and find out how much butter I’ve lost by not squeezing the cooked weed to express all the butter.

Going to try again this weekend but will use unsalted butter (I’ll figure out the amount later and make sure to write it down....figuring 1/4 lb) a weighed 1/4 oz of fresh flower, 2L of water and set it for 12 hours as soon as I wake up. Will have legal oil for comparison.

 

[Thomas Davie]

I’m pleased with the solidity and the colour of the butter considering that it was heavily vaped weed. The water looked like diarrhea. Slow cooker is big enough that I could probably make 2 lbs cannabutter at once. I’m going to change the type of metal strainer next time, figure I’ll use a French press filter. Not pleased with the yield - could easily increase it. will also use a separators funnel next.

57.

Tom

The 57.5% yield is based on weight, with the 42.5% loss being butter that I was too lazy/high to press out of the spent weed and spillage

 

[tired of crap]

Sorry if this is daft and I’m missing something glaringly obvious but:.. How are you determining yield of 57.5%? (Just butter that’s lost in the weed by not squeezing it?)

Also, in step 7b above, you write of doing a second pass to clean up some of the water soluble junk. By this, do you mean just adding the infused butter to water and letting it simmer? Did you try this? If so, how did it turn out?

I’ve got tones (ok maybe not that much but atleast 2x1L mason jars full) of abv that I’m not sure what to do with. I’ve seen tutorials about letting it soak in water for days(changing the water periodically) to clean it up. Others have suggested qwet/qwiso and even an acetone extraction.

Curious about how effective this method is and the resulting budder ( and how much effort I should put into my abv lol)

 

[Thomas Davie]

oops, sorry for the omissions.errors.

You’re correct about the weight of the butter. I used about 1/2 lb and lost at least 50% by not pressing the soggy/buttery weed. also I had a couple of spills when transferring the bowl of hot liquid from one counter to another..

By second pass cleaning I mean melting the butter and putting it back in the slow cooker and letting it go for another 8 hours, filtering into a bowl and then let cool, resolidify and drain the water again. There’s no reason why this cou;don’t be repeated multiple times to really clean it up. - you hit the nail on the head.....is it worth it for multiple extractions and ultimate yield. Nah, I don’t think so. But for one pass or for uvaped flower definitely (IMO). I’m toying with the idea of preparing some butter with 1/4 oz and then sending the samples in for cannabinoid analysis > I know for sure and can maybe test longer/shorter slow cooker times.

I’ll try the 1/4 oz of fresh flower this weekend and filter it better.

Tom