Making weed infusions?

[Bleaney]

It's very early days for me, for learning about decarbing weed and making infusions, and rather than go through endless trials and errors, I wonder what experiences other members have had.

I mean, AVB was pretty straightforward, just have a tbsp or 2 of AVB mixed into kratom yogurt, and that worked OK, (tasted surprisingly good too) apart from a very long onset time.. But as I no longer vape for health reasons, I cant do that anymore.

I have a new decarbing mini oven, but I haven't quite figured out the best heating times, temperatures, or the best fats, oils, additives etc to use, as well as the strength and onset times of the results. I just did a decarb first time as the 'oven' arrived late in the day and I didn't have time to do anything else that day. The effects didn't kick in until after I'd gone to sleep . But I did wake up briefly feeling great!

I tried an olive oil infusion the other day. I've read that infusions are better for speed, reliability, and predictability of absorption, but I had no idea how much infused oil to consume. I ended up going with several tsps. I didn't feel much of anything. Except falling asleep on the sofa, (which happened several hours later) and I just felt far too god damn comfortable and good to have to move to go to bed. So I wallowed in that for a time. This never feels as good as this w/o weed. But that was it. Apart from waking the next day feeling absolutely fucked for the whole morning!

I'm gonna get some liquid Lecithin, which apparently increases the absorption rates of all the cannabinoids in the fats or oils, and also the speed, reliability, and predictability of the absorption. So they say, anyway. And the infusions are meant to be better than merely decarbed weed at all of the stated factors, even without Lecithin. Not sure if I'll need to do a 2nd infusion of my oil, or if I can just add the Lecithin. This is the one to get apparently: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Lecithin+liquid&iar=images&t=newext&atb=v390-1&iai=https://cloudinary.images-iherb.com/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto:eco/images/now/now02372/l/34.jpg

I'm just gonna have another 2 tsps of oil that I pressed and squeezed through the flower 'tea bag' following infusion, I think it must be quite strong after that. I'll also eat the bud, it seems a waste not to. Even if all these fancy infusing experts on Reddit don't seem to do that. There must be some actives left in it surely.

It's also interesting to learn that THC can be turned into CBN, which is a far more sedating compound. It seems highly contentious as to the best methods of achieving the conversion, with some saying sunlight, air, and time (months) will do the trick, while others say infusions of 4 hours plus will achieve the same result. I think I'll start looking into all of that a bit more, once I've got the fundamentals a bit more sussed.

I also found out last night, that my infused oil works extremely effectively and quickly when taken sublingually. Far better than swallowing it.

I'm keeping it in the fridge, and it has now set into a sort of thick paste, and I had about 2/3 of a tsp under the tongue, and the next thing I knew it was 3am and I'd been asleep for 4 hours! I'm obviously going to try a much smaller dose next time! It tasted strongly of weed too, it must be very potent. I've still been slightly buzzed all morning, which has been 12+ after consumption, but my head is clearing now.

Does anyone have any comments, experiences, or suggestions about anything I've written, or anything to say about any aspect of anything I've written?

 

[Shinji Ikari]

It's also interesting to learn that THC can be turned into CBN, which is a far more sedating compound. It seems highly contentious as to the best methods of achieving the conversion

On this I leave it running in a slow cooker/Crockpot over night which seems to do the trick.

I also tend to prefer coconut oil over olive oil and I recall reading that better at binding to THC than most oils.

Takes ages to kick in for me too. Better part of two hours.

 

[Bleaney]

On this I leave it running in a slow cooker/Crockpot over night which seems to do the trick.

I also tend to prefer coconut oil over olive oil and I recall reading that better at binding to THC than most oils.

Takes ages to kick in for me too. Better part of two hours.

Unfortunately, coconut is one of the few foodstuffs that I don't really like the taste of very much at all. But it's not so bad that I can't eat it at all. I may have to end up going down that route if I cant get olive oil and Lecithin to work reliably. Although as I commented above, sublingual dosing of the olive oil infusion worked extremely well last night.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Unfortunately, coconut is one of the few foodstuffs that I don't really like the taste of very much at all

I'm not wild about it myself, but you can get deflavoured/descented coconut oil. I'm sure olive oil still works though and it's surprisingly good for baking I've made some pretty tasty olive oil sponges in the past.

Hadn't considered sublingual dosing before. Food for thought. I did try plugging infused coconut oil once but can't say I got much out of it.

 

[nepalnt21]

if coconut is a nogo (and they do make more refined coconut oil, it's out there and it often doesn't taste like much of anything imo)... you could try butter, if you avoid animal products then there's like this type of product:

either way, i like my infusions to be with an oil that's solid at room (or fridge) temp... you can get rid of the green- weed taste and green plant color that way, the nasty tasting stuff is water soluble so you can dump the water and keep the solid puck of infused oil

 

[Jibult]

if coconut is a nogo (and they do make more refined coconut oil, it's out there and it often doesn't taste like much of anything imo)... you could try butter, if you avoid animal products then there's like this type of product:

either way, i like my infusions to be with an oil that's solid at room (or fridge) temp... you can get rid of the green- weed taste and green plant color that way, the nasty tasting stuff is water soluble so you can dump the water and keep the solid puck of infused oil

Seconding this! Just kind of adding on

Coconut works wonderfully for edibles, especially chocolates.

I'm not so sure about tinctures, and i'm going to search for what exactly "infusions" are and how they differ from edibles and drinks after posting this.

All that said, I actually hate the taste of coconut. I don't mind using it if I can overpower that flavor with anything else, typically something sweet...

but if we're going the butter route. We're going to want to use clarified butter or ghee. Ghee sounds weird to Americans. Like some African dish or something.

I swear on everything, clarified butter or ghee. You can clarify butter yourself, but i don't know how the fuck they turn butter into ghee. It's amazing though, and worth the price.

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[nepalnt21]

^^^ never tried ghee, i'm down... as long as it's a solid at room temp, you can do my recipe with it

 

[Jibult]

^^^ never tried ghee, i'm down... as long as it's a solid at room temp, you can do my recipe with it

I've never seen it any other way! It's like a jar of butter, but when you start working with it you notice it's a whole lot softer than you would expect. It's like it sort of melts at room temperature....

idk, i love it and it's delicious and is integral to my space cookie snickerdoodles

 

[Ismene2]

Im just experimenting with terpenes under the tongue thanks to bleaney's suggestion - seems to hit pretty hard so I might cut the vape down to 3 puffs a day and do the rest subluingal

 

[Bleaney]

Ghee only seems to come in relatively huge containers in the UK. Although maybe I just bought one of them because it was good value, I cant recall.

It's pretty much like butter, only miles cheaper, IIRC, and is strongly associated with Indian food over here in the UK, and just the aroma immediately makes me think of Indian food. Although I think it can be used for Chinese food too.

IIRC I was going to attempt to start making my own Indian meals during the Covid Lockdown but didn't get much further than buying some Ghee and a few spices and watching a few youtube vids

After taking up space in my fridge for about 3 years I ended up chucking about 95% of it unused.

I've ordered some Lecithin, to improve absorption of the olive oil weed infusions, but I'm not sure if it has to be used with MCT coconut oil for the effects, or if it can help in any oil or fat.

I watched this one particular vid and read all the comments as it used the exact same herboven that I've just bought, but there are dozens of other videos along similar lines.

 

[BadBoy377]

What about making a tincture?

Get some high strength spirit. Put your decarbed bud in and the alcohol will extract the goodness. Can leave it a while to mature n see how the cbn thing works out.

Should even work without decarb. In my experience anyway.

 

[Bleaney]

So many different approaches and methods.

I'm now thinking that the sublingual dosing I tried previously worked so well because it may have taken effect at the same time as the several tsps of the infusion I'd swallowed hours before, and also the solid bud fragments from the infusion tea bag that I'd consumed in a kratom yogurt hours before. I think that was probably why I was still stoned like 18 hours later. Eating it definitely works, and the duration is extremely long, but so is waiting time for the onset.

Last night I had just a quarter tsp or less of my infusion sublingually, and I was hoping to feel some effects before my nightly Mirtazapine and benzo kicked in, but it was a no go. I think all 3 probably hit at the same time, and I just fell asleep. I didnt wake up feeling stoned today, although I slepped in longer than normal and it was harder to get out of bed. Even though I reduced my benzo dose to try to counter-balance things a bit.

Today I'll try sublingual well before my nightime Mirtazapine and benzo. Or I'll try swallowing a tsp or 2 much earlier in the day to allow plenty of time for the onset.

I need to decide which one, as I'm making very bad basic scientific experimental methods at this rate, as I'm failing to isolate separate variables, and I need to be trying one thing at a time, so that I can more clearly establish what is causing what effects, rather than trying multiple different things on the same day, and ending up having no real idea what exactly is causing what effects .

 

[Bleaney]

Coconut works wonderfully for edibles, especially chocolates.

I'm not so sure about tinctures, and i'm going to search for what exactly "infusions" are and how they differ from edibles and drinks after posting this.

All that said, I actually hate the taste of coconut. I don't mind using it if I can overpower that flavor with anything else, typically something sweet...

but if we're going the butter route. We're going to want to use clarified butter or ghee. Ghee sounds weird to Americans. Like some African dish or something.

I swear on everything, clarified butter or ghee. You can clarify butter yourself, but i don't know how the fuck they turn butter into ghee. It's amazing though, and worth the price.

Presumably you are dissolving your weed into your various choice of fats, and then adding this to your chocolates, if you're making them yourself?

The infusion step, is basically just another term for naming the step of dissolving the weed into fats, but doing this at a lower temperature for about 90 minutes.. The only other difference being, that I'm not using the 3rd step that most people seem to, as I'm not going on to create chocolates or brownies etc with my infusion. The infusion is the end product as far as I'm concerned. The whole process is shown in the video I posted above.

I found yesterday with dosing the olive oil infusion directly by swallowing teaspoons at a time did work, but onset was wildly unpredictable. My first dose hit me relatively quickly, but then I could not feel any further top ups throughout the rest of the day hitting me at all. But I do still feel and look slightly stoned this morning.

I used all of my first batch of olive oil infusion. Which was the set liquid volume of about a 1/3 of one of those Sainsburys own brand spice rack size bottles. It's one of these - one of the small squat bottles, which are great containers for different strains of weed, in all stages of any home processing. So it was quite a substantial dose.

I used about enough weed in the infusion that would have got me totally blasted with a vape for about 5 sessions. So at least 5 capfuls of the size of 'The B' by Dynavap.

So my conclusion is that olive oil infusions are too unpredictable via the oral route. Sublingual dosing later on didn't seem to cause any noticeable increase in effects either. I'd say that the infusion and eating it, has had far less effect than vaping all of that weed would have done.

I'd also add that the infusion was less effective than weed that has only been through the initial decarb process, of just browning it up a bit at a moderate temperature for about 45 minutes. And then consuming that decarbed weed directly, just stirred into full fat greek yogurt. Maybe I should just stick to this, just one initial decarb, seeing as I'm not going to be making any cookies etc with my infusions, I wonder if it's a step I could just leave out completely. Although I have read that when done properly, the infusions are more effective and predictable than eating solid decarbed weed fragments.

Maybe I'm going to have to try coconut oil and Lecithin as per the video I posted above.

Has anyone tried the MCT oil used in the video? Or does anyone know which other coconut oils are good, or more refined, and which don't taste too much of anything?

 

[Innerpeace]

Ghee only seems to come in relatively huge containers in the UK. Although maybe I just bought one of them because it was good value, I cant recall.

It's pretty much like butter, only miles cheaper, IIRC, and is strongly associated with Indian food over here in the UK, and just the aroma immediately makes me think of Indian food. Although I think it can be used for Chinese food too.

IIRC I was going to attempt to start making my own Indian meals during the Covid Lockdown but didn't get much further than buying some Ghee and a few spices and watching a few youtube vids

After taking up space in my fridge for about 3 years I ended up chucking about 95% of it unused.

I've ordered some Lecithin, to improve absorption of the olive oil weed infusions, but I'm not sure if it has to be used with MCT coconut oil for the effects, or if it can help in any oil or fat.

I watched this one particular vid and read all the comments as it used the exact same herboven that I've just bought, but there are dozens of other videos along similar lines.

Very nice

Can the CBD cannabis flower be smoked , after all the oil is squeezed out of bag?

 

[Bleaney]

Very nice

Can the CBD cannabis flower be smoked , after all the oil is squeezed out of bag?

yeah it could be, obviously provided you let it dry, sandwiched in kitchen roll etc.

I did that, but then ate it in yogurt - "waste not want not", as they say.

Smoking stuff that's been soaked in oils may be hazardous for your lungs though, and although I believe the cannabis flower should be used somehow post infusion, I don't know which option of eating, smoking, or vaping, would allow the body to absorb as much as possible of any remaining cannabinoids, still left in the flower, post infusion.