Ganja butter gatekeeping, or grift?

[Senor Zagnut]

(Reduced to bullet points and containing 60% less angry rant than the previous version)

(It's long and somewhat bitter and comes to unpopular conclusions, so don't read it if you don't feel like it. I just *must* vent on this, and this particular forum hopefully won't start in making fun of me for it right away)


@ So I thought I'd take some ground-up ganja and make some green butter.

@ I've done thus many times in the past.

@ It was a simple matter of cooking pot and butter and water in a slow cooker or saucepan for a long, long time, then letting it cool until the butter (now a somewhat earthy shade of green) congealed on top of the water, collecting it, and then squeezing out the remnant through cheesecloth.

@ That always seemed to work just fine before. The stuff got me and my friends I shared with high when we cooked with it or just ate a spoonful with sugar. Or so I thought at the time anyway.

@ I've got 1.5 ounces of pretty good reefer to play with, all crushed and mashed and otherwise pulverized; two slow cookers, and access to all the butter and water I need.

@ Looking through various pot-oriented websites (mainly to refresh my memory of the amounts of butter and herb to use) I kept running into the statement that you have to *decarboxylate* your shit first, which seems to mean you must cook it before you cook it. In the oven, or using an expensive special machine called a decarboxylator that some dubious citizen apparently invented last week.

@ I had never heard of any decarbawhafuck that you have to do before making green butter. It wasn't a thing three years ago (the last time I made a batch) but apparently it is now. According to the current crop of soi-disant experts, if you don't decarbohorseshit your weed before you make stuff with it, you might as well throw it away for all the good it will do you.

@ I certainly *thought* I was getting high from my unprefuckillated green butter before this, but according to the weed websites I browsed, that must have been psychosomatic, the veriest *placebo*, on account of you have to do this decarbostupidosity first. Or else the THC won't ferment properly, or will turn into cat crap, or the cannacops will come after me, or some such frabbajabba. (Nota Bene: don't bother explaining how the chemical process is supposed to work. I read all of that quondam information already. Repeatedly.)

@ Looking further, it sez you need either a regular oven (not a toaster oven or a nuke) to do this, or -- AHA! I think I'm starting to get it! -- one of those special decarboxodickadoodoo devices that costs hundreds of dollars.

@ They all cost hundreds of dollars.

@ Many sites which I assumed were supposed to be informative and instructional are basically running ads for one brand or other of this thing in the guise of articles. Seriously, they go into multi-paragraph adulations of whichever brand they favor.

@ I don't *have* a fucking oven. Nor do I have a Levo or an Ardent or an MBM2 or any other brand of decarbofuckshit machine, or the several hundred dollars one of the damned things costs. If I had that money I'd spend it on good reefer.

@ I have come to the conclusion that this decarboxybuggerbitchbastard thing is one of two most unlovely impulses:
1: a gatekeeping maneuver by which some unsavory people are attempting to monopolize the art or craft of marijuana cooking, by saying it's this complex thing that not just anyone can accomplish, and if one *would* even try it, one must have obscure, expensive equipment on hand; or,
2: a commercial hype that *other* unscrupulous citizens came up with in order to sell their bogus gizmos to the public, at several hundred dollars per. That would explain the notion suddenly coming up within the last couple of years.

@ Which one is closer to the actual, I do not know.

@ You might be thinking "Well, Zagnut, just skip that step and do it your way, like you've done before". The problem is, all the jiveass about decamuthafukking my weed has gotten to me and chopped my self confidence to a stump; I'm worried, despite myself, that I must've been doing it wrong all these years and fooling myself into thinking it was working. Which is most discouraging, puts a crimp into my buzz butter ambitions, and makes me feel like shit.

@ Damn whoever came up with the decarboxylation codswallop, because they've halfway ruined me.

[Detroit Hoser]

Back in the day (twelve years ago) when my wife made weed brownies for me to help chemo nausea all she did was grind it up and add it to the batter. It worked. It tasted horrible but it worked.

I have a Magical Butter Machine. It was a gift from a friend who asked me to make weed butter for him before I'd ever thought about it so I hadn't used the crockpot method before. Within the instruction book for the MBM is a section on decarbing. Naturally, there's a decarb box for sale but there are also instructions on decarbing in a pan, so at least for the MBM it's not entirely a ploy for bucks.

I'm wondering, though, if decarbing was mainly started for edibles that aren't cooked with the THC, like gummies or hard candy where it's only added at the very end after the goop is off the burner. Beats me, but now I'm thinking of doing a comparison experiment using decarbed and non-decarbed ("carbed?") weed butter. I have the next eight days off work...

[thylacine]

It can decarb as it infuses if the temperature is high enough for long enough but it is less of a gamble to activate it first with heat (or age). I have done it both ways and decarbing first gives stronger, more predictable results. I then infuse the oil at a lower temp than I would if doing it all in one, if using a crock pot it would be warm for decarbed weed for a couple of hours, low for raw for a day.

I really just use a French press on a coffee warmer these days, often weed I’ve vaped too rather than decarbing. It is very sedating.

Coconut oil sucks it up better than butter and is shelf stable.

[Jaglavak]

Decarbing happens by itself when you burn weed. At lower temperatures it still happens but takes longer. If you don't get it hot enough for long enough it doesn't get you high. If you cook it too hot and/or too long, your precious THC will turn into other stuff and then its more of a nap time high. Anything you bake in the oven generally gets hot enough.

For other recipes, this handy chart cuts through the bullshit.


Here's the blurbage. You might poke around the rest of that site a little too. They've got a righteous DIY How-To section.

There's even an entry about making magic butter with water. But its basically a link to a youtube vid and its age restricted so you have to have a google login to see it. But it sounds like you've got a handle on it anyway.

[SmartAleq]

There has always been a really huge amount of bullshit folklore amongst the cannabis community, probably because stoned people overthink shit to a fare thee well. We all know the green butter method works just fine so don't let these idiots harsh your mellow. A similar level of BS occurs in the growing community, where arguments over which direly overpriced and overpackaged bunch of plastic, water and food dye (with some inorganic salts added) is better than the other bunches of plastic, water and food dye (with some inorganic salts added) and you can't budge people off their positions no matter how much science you chuck at them. It's religion, basically, and makes exactly as much sense as any other religion.

You go crockpot your weed any way you like and enjoy yourself!

[Detroit Hoser]

Whatever, I'm still going to experiment this week.

For science.

[JackieLikesVariety]

Originally Posted by Weedy Crocker

Whatever, I'm still going to experiment this week.

For science.

[thylacine]

Or, since the advent of legality and proper study plus the information sharing allowed by the net we know more than we used to about how to get the best results. It isn’t hard for most folks to break it up and put it on a baking sheet or in a mason jar for a while and there is a definite payoff.

I’m used to expensive weed though, the real value of decarbing is increased strength, if you get the weed cheap choosing not to care is a fine option.

[JackieLikesVariety]

I love this thread even though I have no idea what is going on. when I'm decarbing I cut out bread

[Detroit Hoser]

I've been using up last year's harvest to make room for this year's harvest that's currently curing. I've got some to play with.

I'd much prefer to infuse oil over butter. Butter wastes too much.

[Jaglavak]

Originally Posted by Weedy Crocker

I'd much prefer to infuse oil over butter. Butter wastes too much.

Huh? What wastage? Lay the lore upon me, sistah.


When making butter where you don't want the taste, I will once again preach about soaking the buds in hot water. Boil some water in a pot and turn off the heat. Wait about five minutes and then gently float the buds on the water. Give them awhile to soak and then turn them over with chopsticks to soak the other side. When the buds are thoroughly soaked and the water is bong water tea with a bathtub ring of wax and tar, they're done. Lift them out with a slotted spoon, lay them in some fresh water, and carry on with your usual butter recipe.

I usually save out before and after buds for a direct comparison. Lay your soggy bud on a window screen to dry. After a day or so it will dry to a leathery gray-green color. Under a glass you can see that all the trichomes are still there. In the bong it has almost no flavor and a subtly different high. But in butter it just about disappears and is very stoney.

I came up with this trick while trying to use up some cheap schwag with a truly gnarly funk. There was no way I was smoking that stuff, and a test batch of butter was nearly inedible even in double dutch brownies. I was sitting there looking at a bong when the light went on. Anyway, just something you might test out if you're trying for dank-free butter.

[Senor Zagnut]

Thanks for your time and attention, my fellow pothead Giraffolks. I'm getting some valuable and interesting info from your replies.

[thylacine]

I use coconut oil because it has a much higher fat content and sucks up more of the good stuff than butter. It is also shelf stable for a very long time.

I wash AVB but don’t mind the weedy taste if making oil from decarbed fresh. I use no water, just straight in to the oil. You can use water if you want of course, it works well with the coconut oil too and can stop it overheating if unattended.

[Detroit Hoser]

A couple years ago I'd probably go to the trouble of trying to make my cannastuff taste less like rancid nutsack than I do now. But here's the thing: I've gotten lazy. It's way easier to just throw it all into the MBM to cook for two hours and make something with a spicy flavor that will hide everything else (like pumpkin bread, molasses cookies, or very thick no bakes.)

Someone on a forum somewhere said she "washes" her cannabutter by melting it down, adding a like amount of water to swirl in a jar, and let it harden again. I haven't found it makes enough difference to expend the energy, though.

[JackieLikesVariety]

[SmartAleq]

I've decided that using shatter to make edibles rules over all other methods--it's simple, is not at all messy and the flavor is much better. Unfortunately, all of the people I was relying on to do processing have fallen out of the business and I dunno what the heck I'm gonna do for it once the current stash is done with. Good thing I'm not very into the edibles now, isn't it?

[Senor Zagnut]

Thanks again, everybody, for sharing your wisdom and encouraging me. I decided to try the decarp by floating my jar of shizzit in my trusty slow cooker set on high for like five hours, then mixed up the butter/water/pot witches brew in my *other* trusty slow cooker at 03:00AM in the morning last night and commenced cooking. I'm just about to unplug the appliance, cool it off some, and call it done. Gee, do I ever feel silly about the way I was carrying on the other day right now.

[JackieLikesVariety]

Originally Posted by SmartAleq

Unfortunately, all of the people I was relying on to do processing have fallen out of the business and I dunno what the heck I'm gonna do for it once the current stash is done with. :

I know the market is shitty (unless that's turned around? hope?) but is there some job opportunity here?

I need a different line of work, I am fucking sick of the one I'm in.

so grumpy! I just hit the vape, too, so that's not the problem.

[Detroit Hoser]

There's a lot of opportunity in Michigan, although I don't know if the pay is better than what you're getting now. I mean, working in the processing facility pays around $16/hr with some pretty decent health insurance and other benefits at the place Edna works. I don't know what budtenders get, but fuck retail, anyway.

I wish I had the $$$ to do some distilling/processing of shatter. I got a drum set instead.

Originally Posted by Senor Zagnut

Thanks again, everybody, for sharing your wisdom and encouraging me. [] Gee, do I ever feel silly about the way I was carrying on the other day right now.

Ah, giddouddahere, we love this stuff. And it was a good question, too, that has brought out some interesting side FYIs. What are you going to make with it?

[Senor Zagnut]

I'm gonna eat a spoonful for a test flight this afternoon. After that, the proverbial sky is the proverbial limit--i've got a pound of it now!. Which came out a beautiful shade of pale greeny-yellow, BTW, and (judging from a tiny experimental nibble) doesn't taste too strongly medicinal.

[Detroit Hoser]

Bong appetit to you, my friend!

[thylacine]

How was it?

[Detroit Hoser]

I hope it was awesome and he's still composing the follow-up post.

[thylacine]

Ahh yes, it is coming through now

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