First, I've pulled a lot of information from y'all and similar communities and want to pay back what I have learned and discovered. I've been doing this for 3 years now and finally have my process down. So here it goes.
I've gone a little unconventional with my methods but this all works for me and works well.
Ghee can be bought cheap and ghee is butter without the water and the solids.
Ghee has a smoke point around 340 degrees F.
I like to make very concentrated ghee, and my batches have been up to 100mg THC per gram of ghee. I like it 40-50mg/g.
I have found that if I take all of my good trimmings (sugar leaves and undeveloped buds) and match it with about the same weight ghee it comes out pretty much in that range.
I extract the weed right after I trim it and I trim right after I harvest.
Don't worry about decarboxylation at this stage.
1) I chop the weed into fines on a butcher block with a big knife.
2) Weigh the weed and use the same weight of ghee.
3) Add the weed to a large pot of water. Enough to roll hard while boiling. (break into batches if necessary)
4) Add half of the ghee to the water.
5) Boil this hard for 2-3 hours making up water as it boils down. Stir it once in awhile.
6) let the water boil down at the end so that you can fit the water and fat into a reasonably sized container.
7) Squeeze the weed with a potato ricer HARD back into the same pot and add the weed that is squeezed into another container.
8) Screen the water and oil from the original pot into a container to separate.
9) Add the squeezed out weed into the pot again, then add water and the rest of the ghee.
10) Repeat the boiling process again for 1 - 2 more hours.
11) Squeeze out the weed one more time.
12) I add both water and oil mixtures together into a container large enough to hold everything.
13) I heat this a bit, stir it all up and then let it sit for a bit.
14) I use a turkey baster to pull off most of the water and then pour off the rest through a screen into a smaller container if I can so that the oil layer is thicker than it would be in a wider container.
15) Chill over night in the refrigerator.
16) Pull the fat layer off in one piece if you can, turn it over on aluminum foil and scrape off the loose stuff on the bottom until it is solid ghee.
17) Wipe off the water from the large piece, cut it up and add it to a Bell jar.
18) Add the scrapings to a smaller container, heat, stir, and then cool overnight again.
19) Repeat this until you have recovered all that you can.
20) Combine all of the recovered ghee into one oven proof container. Bell jars work fine.
21) Preheat your over to 300 degrees.
22) Insert a digital oven thermometer into the jar.
23) When the thermometer reaches 270 degrees turn the oven down to 270 and set a timer for 45 minutes.
24) let it cool.
FYI: The second boiling of the weed nets about 1/2 the THC of the first batch.
A third boiling doesn't net you much.
I've had this years stuff analyzed and I segregated the separations so I could understand what I just wrote. I also worked in petroleum laboratories for 40 years, so I know how to do this crap.
My decarboxylation technique above has converted 99% or more of the THC-A to delta 9 THC with the strains I was working with. The first few times I didn't hold it long enough and didn't get the complete conversion I was looking for. This works. It also gets the last of the remaining water out of the ghee so it will keep as well as a cube of butter in the refrigerator. I know it keeps for a year, and I bet it would keep for 5 or more. But I don't know for sure.
I have my ghee analyzed at a local BelCosta lab for about $75. I encourage this if you have enough to justify the expense because you can then know exactly what you have in the finished product, cookies, brownies, whatever, and can dose appropriately. Otherwise you just have to experiment.
As told by many............ WAIT at least 2 hours before you try adjusting doseage.
When making goodies, just figure how many doses you want from whatever you are making, how strong of a dose you want, and then multiply them together to find how many milligrams THC you need total. Divide the milligram total by the mg THC per gram of ghee and that tells you how many grams of ghee you need. Subtract that same amount from the butter or oil in a recipe.
Buy yourself a potato ricer and a digital oven thermometer, and it's well worth it to buy a gram scale that goes to 2 decimals and another gram scale that will take up to 5 pounds or so. (the 2 decimal scale usually will only go up to a pound, if that.) All of this might total up to $50.
That's my payback, and I know it's long, but I think it explains how to make some potent ghee, and with this you can make whatever edibles you want that contain a fat.
I've gone a little unconventional with my methods but this all works for me and works well.
Ghee can be bought cheap and ghee is butter without the water and the solids.
Ghee has a smoke point around 340 degrees F.
I like to make very concentrated ghee, and my batches have been up to 100mg THC per gram of ghee. I like it 40-50mg/g.
I have found that if I take all of my good trimmings (sugar leaves and undeveloped buds) and match it with about the same weight ghee it comes out pretty much in that range.
I extract the weed right after I trim it and I trim right after I harvest.
Don't worry about decarboxylation at this stage.
1) I chop the weed into fines on a butcher block with a big knife.
2) Weigh the weed and use the same weight of ghee.
3) Add the weed to a large pot of water. Enough to roll hard while boiling. (break into batches if necessary)
4) Add half of the ghee to the water.
5) Boil this hard for 2-3 hours making up water as it boils down. Stir it once in awhile.
6) let the water boil down at the end so that you can fit the water and fat into a reasonably sized container.
7) Squeeze the weed with a potato ricer HARD back into the same pot and add the weed that is squeezed into another container.
8) Screen the water and oil from the original pot into a container to separate.
9) Add the squeezed out weed into the pot again, then add water and the rest of the ghee.
10) Repeat the boiling process again for 1 - 2 more hours.
11) Squeeze out the weed one more time.
12) I add both water and oil mixtures together into a container large enough to hold everything.
13) I heat this a bit, stir it all up and then let it sit for a bit.
14) I use a turkey baster to pull off most of the water and then pour off the rest through a screen into a smaller container if I can so that the oil layer is thicker than it would be in a wider container.
15) Chill over night in the refrigerator.
16) Pull the fat layer off in one piece if you can, turn it over on aluminum foil and scrape off the loose stuff on the bottom until it is solid ghee.
17) Wipe off the water from the large piece, cut it up and add it to a Bell jar.
18) Add the scrapings to a smaller container, heat, stir, and then cool overnight again.
19) Repeat this until you have recovered all that you can.
20) Combine all of the recovered ghee into one oven proof container. Bell jars work fine.
21) Preheat your over to 300 degrees.
22) Insert a digital oven thermometer into the jar.
23) When the thermometer reaches 270 degrees turn the oven down to 270 and set a timer for 45 minutes.
24) let it cool.
FYI: The second boiling of the weed nets about 1/2 the THC of the first batch.
A third boiling doesn't net you much.
I've had this years stuff analyzed and I segregated the separations so I could understand what I just wrote. I also worked in petroleum laboratories for 40 years, so I know how to do this crap.
My decarboxylation technique above has converted 99% or more of the THC-A to delta 9 THC with the strains I was working with. The first few times I didn't hold it long enough and didn't get the complete conversion I was looking for. This works. It also gets the last of the remaining water out of the ghee so it will keep as well as a cube of butter in the refrigerator. I know it keeps for a year, and I bet it would keep for 5 or more. But I don't know for sure.
I have my ghee analyzed at a local BelCosta lab for about $75. I encourage this if you have enough to justify the expense because you can then know exactly what you have in the finished product, cookies, brownies, whatever, and can dose appropriately. Otherwise you just have to experiment.
As told by many............ WAIT at least 2 hours before you try adjusting doseage.
When making goodies, just figure how many doses you want from whatever you are making, how strong of a dose you want, and then multiply them together to find how many milligrams THC you need total. Divide the milligram total by the mg THC per gram of ghee and that tells you how many grams of ghee you need. Subtract that same amount from the butter or oil in a recipe.
Buy yourself a potato ricer and a digital oven thermometer, and it's well worth it to buy a gram scale that goes to 2 decimals and another gram scale that will take up to 5 pounds or so. (the 2 decimal scale usually will only go up to a pound, if that.) All of this might total up to $50.
That's my payback, and I know it's long, but I think it explains how to make some potent ghee, and with this you can make whatever edibles you want that contain a fat.
