Basic Crockpot Canna-Butter For Recipes

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PsychedelicSam
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Basic Crockpot Canna-Butter For Recipes

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For the novice cannabis cook, canna-butter is the gateway to effective infused edibles. It is the simplest and most basic ingredient in scores of delicious desserts and other dishes, although it's desserts that get the most attention for canna-butter. There are various skill levels, just as with anything else, and here today we're presenting the simplest and most basic way to get your canna-infused adventures off and running. I will try to address some fallacies in the criticism of this method by "edible snobs" who have progressed beyond this but obviously have forgotten their roots. Everyone should try this early in their experience just to understand the basics of cannabis extraction, not something with a lot of directions and detail that you've got to be concerned with. You can do those later. Right now it's new and you don't need a lot of distractions.

For basic canna-butter we need a heat source, in this case the crockpot, some cannabis and some butter, preferably unsalted and not ghee or clarified (more on this later). Easy peasy. We utilize the crockpot for our heat source because of several reasons. First, it's easy and most households have one these days, at least up on the shelf if not in used. They're cheap, especially at the thrift shop, few bucks max. Secondly, it's induction heating instead of direct heat from a burner or open element which allows for a more consistent heat throughout your extraction. Thirdly, and importantly, you can set it and pretty much forget about it for a while without having to stand over it to prevent burning and other mishaps. Just come back every few hours.

This is a fairly long method which I advise and will try to school you in the reason I do it this long but that part is essentially up to you. I'm not there to slap your wrist and you may not have the patience and if that's the case, you shouldn't be using a "slow cooker" but you be the judge. The reason I first use this length of time was because a trusted cannabis caregiver had told me that that # was the magical one for optimal psychoactivity and I believed him with no questions asked. As I became more knowledgeable in cannabis extraction I finally figured it out.

Shown below are the basic ingredients for this guide. They are a crockpot, unsalted butter, water and cannabis. This method uses water as a means to control temperature and a means to wash the worst tasting compounds from the cannabis and prevent its absorption by the butter. It will still have a weedy taste but at a lower level that won't interfere with the overall taste of the edible. The water also allows for a more concentrated extraction than a butter/cannabis only method because you don't have to cover the material. Using water to provide much of the cover means that you can use less butter for a higher concentration until the saturation point is reached.

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The standard extraction ratio for most of canna-butter guides is 1 pound of butter per ounce of cannabis but that will be dependent upon the quality of the reefer. For our purposes here I'll be using 2 sticks of butter, .5 pounds or 1 cup, 2 cups of water and 14g of cannabis. That's 7g per stick with one stick being a common measure for many recipes so this would be good for 2 batches. If making your butter with a specific recipe in mind and just 7g and it calls for a stick of butter, add an additional 1-2 tablespoons per 7g of cannabis at the start of your process to allow for absorption and loss. Or you can add fresh butter to your canna-butter to reach the needed amount without reducing potency. 2 cups of water are used because most crockpots this size require 2 cups of liquid.

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Add the water and butter to the crockpot and turn it on high if you have that setting. Place the lid on the crockpot and let the butter melt, stirring it occasionally to speed up the process. Then add your decarbed cannabis material to the butter and water mix and stir it up. More on "decarb" later.

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If your crockpot has more than an on/off function, turn it on high until the mixture gets hot and starts boiling then switch it to low for the remainder of the processing. Entire cooking time is 13 hours, that magical hour.

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Prepare to strain your mixture. I'm using a portion of cheesecloth folded into layers. It can be found in most grocery stores and hardware stores by the paint supplies. I also use a potato ricer as my press but you can overlap the corners of your straining materials and twist a wooden spoon around to tighten and squeeze. Clean t-shirts, pantyhose and other such items also work well. I then strain it all into a bowl.

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After 13 hours turn off the crockpot and lift out the inner lining to cool enough for easy handling but not cool enough for the butter to start gelling.

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Pour the butter/water/cannabis mixture through your straining material into a bowl big enough to hold it.

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In order to separate the butter and the water we will chill the mixture. The butter will rise to the top of the water and, when chilled, will form a "puck" or slab on top of the water. Then the water is drained, leaving your canna-butter ready of use. You can just put the bowl in the refrigerator and pull the puck off the top to remove the water. However, I do it slightly different. I like to pour the mix into a jar, seal the jar and turn it upside down, causing the butter to rise to the bottom of the jar and the water down by the lid. When it hardens completely, I take the lid off the jar and pour out the water, leaving the just the puck. The water usually stinks pretty badly from the plant compounds and this way I don't spill the water over everything and have it stink, worse than bong water. I cut the puck into pieces and pour them out into my container. Either use right away in your recipe or store in the freezer.

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SisterMaryElephant
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Re: Basic Crockpot Canna-Butter For Recipes

Post by SisterMaryElephant »

Nice...
I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
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PsychedelicSam
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Re: Basic Crockpot Canna-Butter For Recipes

Post by PsychedelicSam »

When making crockpot canna-butter with water the end result will be crumbly due to there still being a minute amount of water still captured in the butter. If being used right away, it makes no difference to your recipe but if storing it, you may want to remove the rest of the water and it's easy to do. When you do this it, it will look just like green butter instead of whipped green butter and can be stored for a much longer period.

Before remelting: 187

It's simple, really. Place the initial puck and pieces into a heat resistant bowl and gently melt it. When it's completely melted, take it off the heat, let it cool then place it back into the freezer to harden into a denser puck. When this has happened, pop the puck out of the bowl, scrape off the darker sediment on the bottom and you can then portion it if desired and store in an airtight container in the freezer until ready for use.

After remelting: 188 189
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