Despite what you may think, baking homemade edibles isn’t as complicated as it may seem. The most important step is perfecting your cannabutter, cannaoil, or other infused base you’ll be using, but once you have that down, you’ll be whipping up pot brownies and CBD gummies in no time! Getting the hang of cannabis infusion will take some trial and error, but don’t be worried if you burn some bud while decarboxylating your flower or get the dosage wrong. It will all come with a bit of practice! Speaking of practice, if you’re baking weed edibles for a party, be sure to do a trial run beforehand and give it a taste to test out the potency before serving others. Easily avoid the most common mistakes newbies make when baking DIY edibles by giving this article a quick read (and maybe even taking some notes). By avoiding these rookie mistakes, you’ll take your weed edibles to the next level in terms of flavor and potency, but will also save time and money by getting the absolute most out of your flower.
Common Mistakes When Baking Homemade Edibles
Not decarboxylating your flower
This step is essential for baking homemade edibles and should never be skipped. The decarboxylation process (heating cannabis) will turn cannabis compounds like THCA, which will not get you high into THC. Decarbing flower happens when you light a joint and heat up a dry herb vaporizer, but this process needs to be done slowly over a longer period of time to convert and retain the cannabinoids within the plant material, which is needed to infuse edibles. This is most commonly done in the oven, but cannabis can also be decarbed using a crock pot, sous vide, or Magical Butter Machine.
Cooking at a temperature that’s too high
As mentioned previously, decarboxylation takes time. In order to preserve as much of the naturally produced cannabinoids and terpenes as possible, cannabis flower should never be heated over 300 degrees Fahrenheit. To decarb your dry herb, break buds into large pieces and place on a cookie sheet. Bake in the oven at 225-245°F for around 45 minutes. Turn and mix the flower every 10 minutes.
Using too much flower or top shelf flower
Yes, you do want a potent edible, however a little bud goes a long way when it comes to consuming cannabis. You don’t need a lot of flower for a strong cannabutter, so always stick to a 1:1 ratio meaning equal parts ground cannabis to butter or oil. For example, 1 cup of butter should require 1 cup of ground flower, which is roughly 7 to 10 grams. It’s unnecessary to use top shelf flower unless you particularly like the effects of a certain strain. Cheap flower or even stems, trim, or already been vaped (ABV) cannabis work just as good for making weed edibles.
Not calculating dosage
I’m sure you’ve heard the stories or maybe even experienced an extremely strong weed edible yourself and have since been more cautious. Though it’s difficult to be precise when it comes to potency, you should be able to get a rough estimate of how much THC one serving of your homemade edibles will have. To get an approximate dosage, use an online edible dosage calculator. These websites call for the quantity of flower used, potency of the flower, and the quantity of butter or oil. This will give you the potency of your infusion. From there you’ll need to refer to your recipe for the quantity of infusion needed plus the number of servings it makes. For less potent weed edibles, you can always swap out some of the cannabutter in the recipe for normal butter. Another way to calculate edible dosage is to add a ¼ teaspoon of your infusion to your next meal and see its effects after 45 minutes to one hour. From there you will know how much cannabutter one serving should be and adjust your recipe accordingly.
Over grinding your flower
You may think that grinding your flower as fine as possible will allow more cannabinoids to infuse into the butter or oil, but that is not the case. A very fine grind will turn your baked goods very green and end up making your edibles taste like grass due to the release of chlorophyll. You need to be able to strain out the plant material at the end of the cooking process. Never use a food processor or coffee grinder to grind your flower. Stick with a standard herb grinder and leave your flower in a coarse grind.
Not mixing enough
Have you ever eaten homemade edibles and your friend is two cookies in and hasn’t felt a thing, while you’re fully couch locked watching Rick and Morty after two bites? This is a tell-tale sign that the batter wasn’t mixed enough. While this doesn’t matter for personal doses like coffee or cannabutter on toast, it matters a lot for foods that are made in one batch and will be cut up and shared like pot brownies, cookies, cakes, pizza, or muffins. When incorporating cannaoil or cannabutter into a batter or dough, use an electric mixer if you have one and over mix. It’s hard to know if the infusion is evenly distributed, so just to be sure, mix until you think your arms will fall off.
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