If you’re trying to make marijuana or weed edibles, you should learn how to make cannabis oil simply because cannabis oil tends to be more potent than marijuana butter (aka cannabutter). Of course, the biggest factor in strength is the quality, strain, and amount of marijuana material that you use, but when the playing field is level, canna-oil will win 10/10 times. Another benefit of cannabis oil is that it is something that can worked into nearly any recipe or food.
Is cannabis oil harder to make than cannabutter? Absolutely, but nothing worthwhile was ever easy. Along the way, we’ll actually also be making hash oil that we’ll eventually turn into cannabis oil. So if you’d like to vape or dab your oil, stop before we turn it into cannabis oil.
This is the perfect guide to 4/20 or whenever else you might like to take a little trip. Before we learn how to make the magical medicine, though, let’s learn a bit about the history of cannabis oil.
What Is Cannabis Oil?
Cannabis oil is a liquid extracted from Cannabis plants that can be used as either medicine or for recreational purposes. Its use dates back to 6000 BCE when the Chinese used to make food using cannabis oil and seeds. But now with modern technology and technique, we can be far more effective with the results we get from our marijuana plants.
Cannabis oil is different from cannabinoid oil in that cannabis oil has high levels of both Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Cannabidiol (CBD), whereas cannabinoid oil has only high levels of CBD.
As you probably know, THC is the active chemical in marijuana that’s responsible for the psychoactive effect. CBD has no psychoactive effect but does have some medicinal use. So if you’re looking to get high, it’s important that you make cannabis oil.
By making cannabis oil, we’ll be effectively removing all plant materials from the marijuana plant and will only be left with pure THC and CBD. The potency of this oil is why it’s so important that you only ingest small amounts, and only then take more if you need it.
How Do Cannabis Oil Edibles Work?
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When ingested, cannabis oil travels through your throat into stomach (duh.) But once it’s in your belly, your liver actually turns Δ9-THC, into the the more psychoactive 11-hydroxy-THC. From there, the THC travels into your bloodstream and into your brain and the rest of your body.
So why do edibles give people a stronger feeling? Remember how we said that the 11-hydroxy-THC produced by your live was more psychoactive than THC? If you smoke or vaporize the weed, 11-hydroxy-THC is never produced. The only thing entering your blood is regular (but still nice) THC that comes through your lungs.
**That fun fact about 11-hydroxy-THC is true about all edibles/drinkables, not just cannabis oil by the way.**
Materials Needed To Make Cannabis Oil
There are different ways to make cannabis oil, but today we’re going to show you the safer way that doesn’t involve butane, C02, or possibly blowing yourself up. But since you’ll be heating and evaporating alcohol into the air it’s very important to open all windows and use fans to ensure proper ventilation. NO OPEN FLAME.
• Marijuana. Obviously you’re going to need cannabis if you’re going to make cannabis oil. We’ll get into the specifics of the marijuana you’ll want to use, but you should know that at the very least you should be using at least an ounce of weed using this method. I recognize that’s going to be a barrier of entry to some.
• Alcohol. You’re either going to need ethanol (Everclear) or 99.5% isopropyl alcohol (which you can buy at pretty much any drug store). You’ll need 32 ounces of alcohol for each ounce of marijuana you’ll use.
• Bowls. You’ll need a couple of bowls.
• A rice cooker. It doesn’t need to be particularly big or anything. In fact, the smaller the better! You can also use double boiler method on an electric stove but don’t use double boiler on gas stovetop!
• Skillet. You’ll need this to be a tall enough to boil water and big enough to fit the rice cooker bowl into.
• A house fan. Keep your house fan blowing over the rice cooker out the window at all times.
• Cooking thermometer. Use this to check the temperature of your cooking medium (the rice cooker or double boiler).
• Cheese cloth. This is what you’ll use to strain and the marijuana plant material from the potent oil.
• Plastic Spatula. This is what you’ll use to gather your awesome oil when it’s done.
• Parchment Paper. This is what you’ll use to store your oil on initially. DON’T USE WAX PAPER
• Coconut Oil. This is what you’ll combine with your cannabis oil to make sure its edible.
• A Freezer. This is where you’ll store the cannabis oil after it’s done.
Which Strain of Marijuana To Use For Cannabis Oil
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
For this method of cooking cannabis oil, the strain of marijuana you use should have an effect on the strength of the oil you use. Ideally you use a quality strain of marijuana, but considering that you’ll need a larger amount of the plant material, it’s probably best for your wallet to find some middle ground.
Using an 1 ounce of trim, shake, and even some stems, you can expect to get around 2 grams of cannabis oil. If you’re using quality plants, an ounce can net up to 3 grams (although that’s probably unlikely).
How To Make Cannabis Oil
And now for the part you’ve been waiting for, a guide on how to make cannabis oil. There’s a bit of preparation (that begins the night before) and cleanup involved, but all in all the process shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. Steps one, two, and three should be done the night before the “cook.”
• Step One: Place the ethynol or isoporopyl alcohol (32 oz per 1 oz of marijuana) in the freezer overnight. Cold alcohol will separate the resin (the good stuff) from the flowers more easily.
• Step Two: Dry your ground marijuana completely by placing it in the oven at 110º for ten minutes. By removing most of the water from the plant, you make this process more smooth.
• Step Three: Crumble the dry marijuana with your hands, than place in a jar. Make sure you gather any keef or crumbs into that jar. Freeze the jar overnight. Dream happy thoughts.
• Step Four: Wake up and realize that you’re about to make some awesome cannabis oil. Once you’re ready to cook, place your ground marijuana into a pot and pour half of your cold alcohol into the pot. Stir gently, allowing all of the alcohol to soak into the marijuana.
• Step Five: Put that marijuana/alcohol mixture into the freezer for an hour.
YouTube / BurntMD
• Step Six: Place cheese cloth over new, clean bowl. Remove mixture from freezer and pour the plant/alcohol mixture on top of the cheese cloth (see photo above). Once you’ve removed all of the mixture from the first bowl, squeeze and strain the fluid from the cheesecloth into new bowl. This liquid will soon become your cannabis oil, so make sure you get all the liquid out of the cloth. In this process, the alcohol strips the THC from the marijuana, leaving the THC in the alcohol.
• Step Seven: Remember that other half of alcohol you still have left? Gather the ground, wet marijuana and put it back into the old bowl. Make sure to keep it separated from the liquid! Cover the already wet marijuana with the remaining alcohol. Stir, freeze, and repeat Step Six. After straining the second, frozen, mixture through the cheese cloth, all the THC should have been stripped from the marijuana and extracted into the alcohol.
• Step Eight: Now we’ll remove the alcohol and keep the THC.
To do this, we’re going to pour the green alcohol liquid into a rice cooker (or double boiler when using an electric stove). Make sure that all open flames are extinguished, a fan is blowing over your cooking medium (cooker or boiler), and that your windows are open. Alcohol fumes aren’t just poisonous, they’re explosive. So don’t skip this step.
YouTube / BurntMD
Once you’ve poured the alcohol into your rice cooker, turn the cooker on. Rice cookers are great because they distribute the heat evenly around the surface. After a time, you should start to see the liquid start to boil. As the alcohol begins to evaporate, it’s important that you move the cooker around and tilt it a bit to ensure that no part of the liquid burns. See photo above.
YouTube / BurntMD
• Step Nine: Once the liquid is gone and it’s turned into sticky oil that doesn’t move, turn the cooker (or electric stove) off. Your cannabis oil should look like the photo above.
• Step Ten: Claim your reward! Use your plastic or rubber spatula to scoop up the cannabis oil from the pot and place the oil on parchment paper. You may find that scraping the oil off the spatula and onto the paper with a toothpick is best. For all intents and purposes, you’ve just made hash oil.
STOP! If you take no further steps, the cannabis oil that you’re left with is something that you can vaporize or dab. You can’t smoke it. But if you’re hoping to make cannabis oil for edibles, you’re going to need to take one extra step.
Step Eleven: To make sure that the cannabis oil you’ve just prepared is ready for ingestion, you’ll need to add some sort of fat to solution so the liver can better absorb and process the THC into 11-hydroxy-THC. For this, we suggest coconut oil, which has been the go-to substance to use for cannabis oil.
If you have a scale, we find that it’s best to use a 2-1 ratio of coconut oil to cannabis oil. If you have two grams of cannabis oil, combine that with four grams of coconut oil into a clean pot. If you haven’t yet cleaned out your rice cooker, you should actually put the ingredients into the rice cooker or double boiler–you’ll get all the remaining cannabis oil out of the pot!
So once you’ve got the 2-1 ratio in your rice cooker pot, add a capful of water into pot. Place the pot on to of a pan with of already-boiling water. Keep this double-boiler method going for around 120 seconds, always making sure to tilt and stir the rice cooker pot so that nothing burns.
Step Twelve: Once bubbles start forming in the 2-1 ratio (about 2 minutes in), remove the rice cooker from the boiling water and scrape your the amazing and potent cannabis oil into a mason jar.
You did it!
Cannabis Oil FAQs
Can I Overcook The Cannabinoids Out Of My Edibles?
Yes, that’s why it’s important to know the temperatures when you cook. When you dry the marijuana in your oven, make sure it’s not a temperature above 120 degrees farenheit. When you decarb your cannabis oil (make the 2-1 ratio), make sure you don’t leave it in the boiler for too long.
Can I Smoke My Cannabis Oil?
No. You cannot smoke cannabis oil. You can, however, vaporize it if you haven’t turned it into canna-butter or canna-oil.
