HELP..Wasted 25g of cannabis on my first try of cannabutter

I just got this one the other day. No do not boil the water slow simmer cook for a few hr's is how I do it. After you put it in the fridge the water will settle under the butter just drain that off.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006IUXW/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i02

if you just use butter and weed in double boiler you get a worse tasting final product. the water takes out some of the nasties. got a batch going now. peace

supermanlives said:

simmer not boil. add as much water as you want . you cant add too much water.

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I used to think this but I think I did add too much water one time. The butter would not coagulate properly. I agree that it would be hard to add too much initially, but what I was doing was pouring more hot water through my cannaball after straining it to try and get all the butter out of it. At first I thought it might have been dish soap not letting it coagulate but looking back I think my butter solution was simply just too diluted. This may have also been from the shape of my container was well, which was a bucket. There may have been too much surface area for it to really coagulate.

Sorry, I'm not trying to contradict you for contradictions sake. It was a very frustrating night and I would like to save someone the same troubles I went through.

i made some tonight without water. a pound of butter though and a small boiling pan. the butter did fiz up, the herb did turn, brownish, almost like when you vape it. i bet it hit around 250 in there. the butter came out a wonderful green. ill snap shots if you like. i just liked my fingers and im medicated.

Duplicate said:

I used to think this but I think I did add too much water one time. The butter would not coagulate properly. I agree that it would be hard to add too much initially, but what I was doing was pouring more hot water through my cannaball after straining it to try and get all the butter out of it. At first I thought it might have been dish soap not letting it coagulate but looking back I think my butter solution was simply just too diluted. This may have also been from the shape of my container was well, which was a bucket. There may have been too much surface area for it to really coagulate.

Sorry, I'm not trying to contradict you for contradictions sake. It was a very frustrating night and I would like to save someone the same troubles I went through.

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The butter is lighter than the water so it automatically floats to the top. It also hardens and unless you froze the mixture, the butter would be the only solid. Maybe you didn't wait long enough for things to separate, because as long as you have a big enough container IME you can't add too much water.

I know this thread is a little old, but I just wanted to share my own experience if it helps anyone.

When I first started making butter, I had the same advice to use a crock pot. After doing that for a few times and spending hours of stinky house, I started experimenting.

I have found that in my experience, 10 hours produces the same as 1 hour in the crock pot.

Boiling in a pot with lots of water doesn't do anything bad other than cause the plant matter to break up some. As long as you filter out the matter its all the same.
Water boils around 212F give or take which is well below where it would vaporize so I don't know where ppl got the idea it would degrade the THC. I have made side by side batches with one for hours in the crock, and the other for one hour with water. Its all the same.

Instead of cooking for hours on end, I cook for 30min on med high heat with lots of water. Once I strain and refrigerate for 2 days, I toss the water and reheat the butter on medium heat with MORE water. I do this 4 times. At no point is my butter weakened IME. However, with the repeated washes it cleans alot of the debris and plant matter getting rid of the bad smell and taste that can be associated with budder baked products. My cookies and brownies taste and smell like store bought. If I didn't tell you it had budder in it, you'd never guess until the high set in.

I would also like to say, that you don't just have to use harvested leaves. I pluck leaves here and there during flower around weeks 3 and 4. I usually end up with around a pound or so of dried leaves and THAT is what I use for budder. (I use the harvested leaves to make hash). I will use about 200g of dried leaf per 5 sticks of butter. I will usually net around 3 full sticks after I'm done, and to me its the perfect dose of THC. Half cookie is nice buzz, whole cookie is long lasting high. Two cookies and you're high as a kite for hours and hours.

i learned how to extract thc oil from plant material from an old cherokee medicine woman (my grandma) so it is so much easier infusing thc oil into butter no mess or straining plant material from butter making plus it makes making tinctures salves and infused oil buds (oil dipped buds) it takes my cannabutter 24 to 40 hrs to infuse and totally activate the cannaboloids what better way to get oil that extract it from trim and stems

herbwarrior420 said:

i learned how to extract thc oil from plant material from an old cherokee medicine woman (my grandma) so it is so much easier infusing thc oil into butter no mess or straining plant material from butter making plus it makes making tinctures salves and infused oil buds (oil dipped buds) it takes my cannabutter 24 to 40 hrs to infuse and totally activate the cannaboloids what better way to get oil that extract it from trim and stems

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I, for one, am interested in learning about your extraction process.

If not here, then perhaps a new thread?

dramamine said:

You can add more water at any point in the simmering process....you could even use a lid to stop the evaporation. Water isn't an ingredient, it just keeps the temperature of the butter at or below 212 F. Boiling the mixture works fine, but produces a more bitter product.

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....but if you run out of water let the butter mix cool alot before adding more. the reason it boiled all over the stove was that the temp of the butter was so high it superheated the water which expanded rapidly.
however, chances are the THC/CBD would have boiled off due to the high butter temperature anyway.
live and learn, it's the best way.

Is there a reason for water at all?

What would you lose if you just used the butter or oil?

2 Legal Co said:

Is there a reason for water at all?

What would you lose if you just used the butter or oil?

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If you only use butter, you would lose almost all of it being soaked up in the plant matter. The water helps buffer the plant matter so you can get a lot of your butter back out. If you aggressively crushed and wringed out the plant matter to get your butter, you may get probably 1/3 or less of it back out, and it would taste and smell like complete shit. I know from experience.

Additionally, water cleans out the butter. Read above where I talk about using the water to clean the butter so it smells and tastes good.

2 Legal Co said:

Is there a reason for water at all?

What would you lose if you just used the butter or oil?

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If you only use butter, you would lose almost all of it being soaked up in the plant matter. The water helps buffer the plant matter so you can get a lot of your butter back out. If you aggressively crushed and wringed out the plant matter to get your butter, you may get probably 1/3 or less of it back out, and it would taste and smell like complete shit. I know from experience.

Additionally, water cleans out the butter. Read above where I talk about using the water to clean the butter so it smells and tastes good.

for the person who couldn't get the strained butter to coagulate, that was because you were pouring hot water over it, melting it, which breaks the emulsion.

If the water boils away and you catch it before its burned, run some cool water on the outside of the pot to cool it quickly, then add more water and continue.

Simmering weed in butter doesn't smell nasty ime I don't even see why or how it could.. Yeah you lose some product, you can use more butter to reduce the % lost but butter costs money and water practically doesn't. Plus with no chance of overheating it seems like the better option.
It's pretty nasty when the plant matter starts breaking down into gunk tho.
I do wonder about THC being broken down into less active forms due to heating it for a long time?

herbwarrior420 said:

i learned how to extract thc oil from plant material from an old cherokee medicine woman (my grandma) so it is so much easier infusing thc oil into butter no mess or straining plant material from butter making plus it makes making tinctures salves and infused oil buds (oil dipped buds) it takes my cannabutter 24 to 40 hrs to infuse and totally activate the cannaboloids what better way to get oil that extract it from trim and stems

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Do you not use heat at all then, to infuse the butter?
I'm asking because I once used 2 different kinds of high quality import hashes(think it was Turkish and Nepalese Temple, both very potent and a strong up effect) for a total of .7grams, put it in a big spoon with olive oil. Heated the spoon from underneath. Very shortly after the hash fell apart in the oil, it dissolved evenly like any fatloving substance would, offcourse the plant matter was still here. The oil wasn't really hot. I stirred it well in a cup of luke warm milk and drank it.
That was my most hallucinogenic experience from cannabis, ever, in my 10 years of smoking. Everything looked shifted, perspective was totally gone and it was a damn intense head trip. And I've had several experiences with eating cannabis, heated in milk a few times, made a few cakes, cookies etc with most of the times the dosage being around 1 gram of weed.
I extracted it with rhum once without heating and that didn't have any effect. Maybe the dose was too low, but I guess you need SOME heat to activate it.
Then do extracts like hashoil work when you mix it cold because the THC is oxidized from the air? Like how eating raw hash works to some extent because it's been heated under pressure, the oil comes out and turns dark because of oxidation?

I can't get around the fact that the hash gave me my most intense experience, and it was also the only time I used so few heat.
So either less heat is better, or my hash was laced with opium and acid?

Got a bunch of black oil lying around makes me want to try.
Does anyone find there is a difference between edibles from trim and edibles from buds? Besides that you need more...

I accidentally put in Soy Lecithin and now the water is emulsified with my butter.
I wanted to triple wash this but now the water and butter is totally mixed, even freezing.


Can I add example lots more water and hope it brings out the chlorophyll?

Or should I boil off the extra water and call it? Used 2oz of bud trim for cancer pain management cookies.

I used a cheese cloth,.

Nothing beats a crock pot.

2 Legal Co said:

Is there a reason for water at all?

What would you lose if you just used the butter or oil?

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another good reason for the water is that as long as it is there you can't get the brew hotter than 212 degrees. 212 is not optimal but it keeps you from burning the hell out of it

Try decarb for 30 minutes at 225 degrees Fahrenheit, then grind up material with hands add butter necessary and put back in the oven for 90 minutes at 225

I don't think you need to make another step out of decarboxylating the weed. You will know know then the extract is potent and decarb has happened if you look at the weed simmering after 2-4 hours it will get a mushy look and change color. You should simmer it for at least that long. I go for 5-8 hours in total with great results. Always with water under the butter, in the same pot.