How to Make Cannabutter, According to an

146
Expert on Edibles

BUTTER

How to Make Cannabutter,

According to an Expert on Edibles
A beginner-friendly guide to making weed butter at home.

by: VANESSA LAVORATO

April 7, 2023 146 Comments

PHOTO BY ROCKY LUTEN

SAVE 146 COMMENTS

O
ver the past decade, I’ve become an
expert on cannabis-infused food
products, aka edibles. Years ago, I
taught myself how to infuse my own confections
and since then, I’ve cooked with top chefs on
VICE’s stony cooking show Bong Appétit.

I’ve picked up many techniques and tips along the

way, but one of the first things I discovered on my
magical, edible journey: The effect feels entirely
different from smoking a joint. I realized this
pretty quickly after baking my first infused apple
pie, emptying an entire jar of cannabutter into my
homemade crust. Roughly one hour post-
devouring a massive slice—and scrounging for the
best caramelized, gooey bits stuck to the pan—it
hit me all at once (and not in a good way).

Doctors Stunned - Do
This Every Evening &
Lose Your Weight
Report this ad

From Our Shop

our line! exclusive

Five Two Wooden Nordic Ware Food52 X Dansk

Spoons Natural Aluminum Købenstyle Butter
more styles Baking Sheets Warmer $48
$24–$34 more colors
SHOP NOW more options
SHOP NOW
SHOP NOW

Naturally, this is something you want to avoid

when making and enjoying edibles at home. The
key to this starts with cannabutter, which is
butter that’s been melted and steeped with
activated weed. Just about any fat (olive oil,
coconut oil, etc.) can be infused with weed, but
cannabutter is the most iconic. You can bake and
cook with cannabutter (also called weed butter)
to infuse all sorts of recipes—from fudgy
brownies (a classic choice) to the best spaghetti
sauce ever.

While the concept is simple, the process is—by

necessity—a methodical one, meaning you’ll want
to pay close attention to the steps and quantities
at every turn, as well as the dosing. You’ll also
want to make sure you have access to quality
weed from a trusted source (living in a state
where it's legally distributed helps).

I had the opportunity to get my cannabutter

recipe down to an exact science via CW
Analytical*, a California-based quality assurance
testing lab for cannabis products. I worked with
their team to run a series of cannabutter
experiments (we collected data on four different
variables, including butter infusion) and found
the most efficient method.

CONTINUE AFTER ADVERTISEMENT

So whether you’re an edible newbie or a seasoned

canna-sseur, here’s a step-by-step guide to
making weed butter at home, with tips along
the way on improving its flavor, using it once it’s
ready, and making sure you’re dosing carefully.

Step 1: Gather A Few Tools &

Ingredients
In order to make cannabutter at home, you’ll
need a few tools and ingredients—some are
probably already lying around your kitchen,
others you may need to specially stock up on.

For the decarboxylation (more on what that

means in a minute):

Report this ad

1 gram of quality cannabis flower

Parchment-lined baking sheet
Scissors (optional)
Wooden spoon
Grinder

For making the cannabutter:

Unsalted butter (use the amount of butter

your infused recipe calls for)
1/4 cup water
Small saucepan
Candy thermometer
Fine mesh strainer
Food-safe storage container

Step 2: Use High-Quality Weed

As any chef will tell you, ingredients matter.
Whether you’re using a stash rediscovered during
your 10-year high school reunion (which will
impart a soporific effect) or high-quality weed
straight from a dispensary, it will have an impact
on the potency and flavor of the final cannabutter.

Most edibles traditionally use cannabutter made

with trim or shake, which are the leaves trimmed
from the cannabis flowers after harvesting.
However, trim and shake have more plant matter,
which means they have more chlorophyll; more
chlorophyll equals more bitterness in the final
product.

Report this ad

Personally, I prefer to cook with hash (also called

hashish) or grinder kief, a concentration of the
crystal-laden resin in weed. But for simplicity’s
sake, start with one gram of quality cannabis
flower—this refers to the part of the cannabis
plant that has been cultivated, harvested, dried,
and cured for smoking.

While a lot of pre-packaged edibles, like the kinds

you can buy premade at a dispensary, use the
terms “indica” (which refers to a body high) or
“sativa” (an active high), that’s more or less a
marketing ploy. Why? The terpenes (essential
oils of plants) that steer the effects that different
strains of weed have on you (body high versus
active high) don’t have the same chemical
interaction in edible form.

Report this ad

So, when purchasing at the dispensary, focus on

the THC and CBD ratios. Below is more
information about what both of these do
chemically, but here's a general rule of thumb:
For a balanced high, I recommend looking for
a 1:1 ratio of THC and CBD—this means that
for every one milligram of THC there is one
milligram of CBD.

If you have a few options to choose from, follow

your nose for citrus (limonene), herbal
(myrcene), and peppery (caryophyllene)
terpenes, then consider whether those flavors
pair with the recipe you’re planning to make with
the cannabutter.

From Our Shop

exclusive

De Buyer Stainless Food52 X Handmade

Steel Strainer (Set GreenPan Ceramic Ceramic Butter
Of 3) $49 Nonstick Wooden- Dish $82
Handled Saucepan more colors
SHOP NOW $50–$60
SHOP NOW
more sizes

SHOP NOW

Step 3: Preheat Your Weed

In its raw form, weed is non-psychoactive. Raw or
live cannabis contains the cannabinoids THCA
and CBDA. Sound familiar? Remove the A and
you have THC (the chemical that gets you high)
and CBD (which isn’t psychoactive).

To convert the THCA to THC (and CBDA to

CBD), just add heat and time. This process is
called decarboxylation. When you light a joint
or burn a bowl, you’re decarboxylating the weed,
which kickstarts its effects. The higher the heat,
the faster the reaction. But when making
cannabutter for edibles, using too much heat can
produce a taste like burnt popcorn.

There is more than one way to decarboxylate

weed, but an oven is the most efficient. Here’s
how to do it:

abc Heat the oven to 245°F.

ibc Break up the flower into smaller pieces using
your hands to expose more surface area to
the heat; the pieces should break off like
florets of broccoli.
jbc Bundle the broken-up flowers in parchment.
Wrap this parchment pouch in foil or place it
in an airtight, oven-safe silicone bag (I use
Stasher). Place in a small baking dish. Bake
for 25 to 30 minutes. (After 20 minutes,
roughly 70 percent of the THCA will be
converted to THC; after 30 minutes, 80
percent. If this is your first time making
cannabutter, I’d recommend a cook time
that’s on the lower end of the range.)
nbc Remove the sheet pan from the oven and let
the flowers cool at room temperature.
obc Grind the decarboxylated, cooled flowers
using a grinder before moving on to making
the cannabutter. They should be ground to a
medium-course consistency—like coffee, not
espresso. Use the decarbed, ground cannabis
right away.

Step 4: Infuse The Butter

Just like choosing high-quality weed is
important, so is choosing your butter. I like to use
good, unsalted butter. There’s no need for a
fancy-schmancy beurre de baratte, but a high-fat,
European-style unsalted butter does the trick.

Onto the infusion process: Many cannabutter

recipes out there tend to go a bit overboard in this
department. Most call for the already-
decarboxylated weed to steep in the butter for a
long time—anywhere from two to four hours.
This certainly infuses the fat with cannabinoids,
but it also pulls the chlorophyll and other “green”
flavors from the weed, which negatively impact
the taste.

Our experiment in the CW Analytical lab found

that 80 to 90 percent of cannabinoids (that’s THC
and CBD) infused in the butter after 45 minutes
to one hour. And brown butter, which makes
everything taste better, had an infusion rate of
just six minutes due to the higher heat (without
any degradation of the cannabinoids).

If you’re making brown cannabutter, you can go

from decarb to infused butter in about 30
minutes—that breaks down to 20 or 25 minutes
to decarboxylate the weed, plus 6 minutes or so to
brown the butter (then it’s ready to strain and set
in the fridge). Infused brown butter and bourbon
banana bread, here you come.

Ready to make cannabutter? Here the best

method for infusing standard butter on the
stovetop:

abc To a small saucepan (or a DIY double boiler

—a heatproof bowl set over a pot of
simmering water), add your decarboxylated,
ground weed, the amount of butter in your
recipe, plus 1/4 cup of water (this helps
replace the water that will evaporate).
ibc Heat at a low simmer for 45 minutes to 1
hour, using your candy thermometer to
make sure the temperature does not exceed
190°F.
jbc Remove the saucepan from the heat and
pour the mixture through a fine mesh
strainer into a food-safe container.
(Cheesecloth works too, but it soaks up a lot
of precious butter.)
nbc Cover and let the butter set in the fridge,
then pour off any remaining water.

Step 5: Cook With Your

Cannabutter
Now that your cannabutter is activated and
infused, it’s ready to use. Just keep in mind that
the shelf life is shorter than regular butter—about
one to two weeks if it’s tightly wrapped. So bake
or cook with it (using the same amount of butter
the recipe calls for) as soon as possible. You can
also freeze it for up to six months. I like to keep a
log of infused cookie dough in the freezer and
slice off one cookie’s worth to bake before
bedtime every night.

Most edible recipes skip an important note: A

significant amount of decarboxylation occurs in
the oven while the cookie, brownie, or other
edible is baking. We tested my Aunty Yo’s
approach—which is to take store-bought cookie
dough and simply mix in raw, ground weed—at
the CW Analytical lab. We found that the THC
activated up to 35 percent. That’s why we only
decarboxylate the weed for 20 to 30 minutes—
because the cannabutter’s potency will further
increase as the edible itself bakes or cooks.