By Troy Ivan
ibc@ichibancrafter.com

COOKING WITH CONCENTRATES IS EASY

Adding new ingredients to cooking is exciting; nothing is more exciting than cooking with cannabis. Sharing a delicious cannabis treat you made yourself always feels extra special, and friends will always be appreciative and talk about it for a long time. The good news is that using cannabis concentrates to make these goodies is incredibly easy. No special recipe is required. You can combine the concentrate with your favorite recipe’s fat, oil, or butter (fat) portion and continue preparing the dish as usual. It’s best to remember that the foundation of all cannabis concentrates are the essential oils of the cannabis plant and are not water-soluble. This means the concentrate will separate from water-based contents, but their oil composition makes them ideally suited for combining with all kinds of fats. To combine the concentrate and fat, gently heat the fat portion, add the concentrate, stir, and concentrate should quickly melt and mix uniformly. There is debate about which fat provides the most bioavailability. There is science behind which fats are absorbed faster or deeper, but for my purposes in cooking, I choose the fat that fits the recipe best and have never noticed much difference. Sunflower lecithin is an emulsifier that claims to deliver a higher bioavailability, so it might be worth checking out; I typically don’t bother with it and won’t include it further in this discussion. For now, let’s just keep it simple.

Knowing the potency of your creation is very important so that when sharing it with friends, no one has an underwhelming or overwhelming (scary) experience. Using concentrates to cook provides a clear idea of the potency and cannabinoid content being added directly into your recipe, so there is no question about how much of the cannabinoids made it into your creation, like when using an infusion or cannabis flower, which is impossible to know and is a crapshoot at best. 

DOSAGE IS A CENTRAL TO PREPARATION

Understanding the amount of THC you are working with is probably the most crucial consideration in preparing anything medicated, especially if you plan to share it with others.  Controlling the potency of the final product is essential because you don’t want anyone consuming more THC than planned and having an unpleasant experience, turning them off to our life-changing medicine.  The dosage of an edible is determined by how many milligrams (mg) of THC are contained per serving.  A ‘standard’ dose defined by many recreational cannabis regulations is 10 mg, so it’s a good benchmark to work from.  For first-time edible experiences, starting with 5mg and working up from there slowly is a good idea.  For the inexperienced, it’s vital to understand that the onset of an edible’s psychotropic effects can take up to 2-hours, so patience should be exercised, and 2-hours should pass before increasing consumption.  The effects will take a while to build and last for several hours, so prepare accordingly.  Experienced edible consumers might consume hundreds of milligrams at a time. Be careful not to blindly follow what someone else consumes, and be confident and cautious with your own consumption decisions.

THC edibles purchased at a dispensary will have the dosage labeled with premeasured portions.  When doing this at home, we have to do a little planning, estimating, and math, but luckily, it’s pretty easy.  It only takes a few steps to determine the final product’s per serving THC content in milligrams (mg).

STEP 1: Determine the total amount of THC in the concentrate. 

For dispensary concentrates, the potency will be labeled with THC, THC-A, and “total possible THC.”  The total possible THC is estimated to be THC + (THC-A x .87).  So, after decarbing the concentrate, that’s the amount of THC available to work with.  If you make your own concentrates and have access to testing, you will have a very accurate measure of the THC content you are working with.  From here, you can move to Step 2.

Most of us who make our own concentrates don’t have the luxury of testing and rely on estimation.  People often ask about buying home testing units, and I can’t say strongly enough, don’t waste your money because they are all utterly useless to the best of my understanding.  Our best estimation will get us pretty close, considering that the best lab testing is +/- 15% accuracy, and I’ve had conflicting lab results using the same material much wider than that.  To roughly estimate my concentrates, this is how I look at them.

Color Before Decarbing      THC % after decarb weight           

Super dark green/black                  50-60%

Light brown and murky                  60-65%

Light brown and clear                     65-70%

Amber to golden and clear             70-75%

Absolutely perfect                            75-85%

Distillate                                           90-98%

Estimated THC percentages are based on the post-decarb weight of a concentrate. Multiply the THC percentage by the total weight of the concentrate in milligrams for the total amount of THC in the concentrate. 

STEP 2: Determine the THC content per volume unit of carrier. 

If you plan to use all the concentrate from Step 1 in a carrier and use all of it in a recipe, you already know the total amount of THC you are working with and can skip to Step 3. 

To split batches of a medicated carrier, using some now and some later, or using it in multiple dishes, it’s important to know the dose in each volumetric measure unit.  Carriers to be stored for use at a later time need labeling detailing the contents and dosage per measure for safety and peace of mind.

To calculate the THC content per unit of measure, divide the total THC determined in Step 1 by the carrier volume used.

If, after doing the calculations, you decide you’d prefer it to be more or less potent, just reduce or increase the amount of carrier and recalculate.

STEP 3: Determine the per serving THC content of the end product. 

End product dose per serving calculations requires four pieces of information:  1. Volume of the medicated carrier 2. THC per volume unit 3. Number of servings being prepared 4. What’s being calculated for: THC per serving or how much carrier to use for a  desired dosage. 

TIPS FOR HANDLING STICKY OIL

Using cannabis concentrates in your cooking is as easy as I’ve described, but handling small amounts of sticky concentrates can be troublesome. Simple tools and a little experienced knowledge can easily avoid these frustrations. To help with the accurate measurement of a recipe’s potency, a small unit scale is handy. When working with just a gram or so of concentrate, most scales won’t recognize such a small weight, so having a scale capable of measuring small weights is essential. If you have premeasured concentrates, you can put them straight into the fat with no problems. When dealing with more concentrate, you may find a silicone mat or unbleached parchment helpful paper to set concentrates or tools on.  You can quickly become a sticky mess and get sticky concentrate in places where sticky concentrates aren’t supposed to be. Concentrates become very sticky when they are handled and begin to warm. They will even cling to a silicone mat and any non-stick surface. These sticky situations can be managed by using heat, cold, or fat, depending on what the concentrate is stuck to.

If you have concentrate stuck to a metal utensil that can withstand heat, you can hold a lighter to the clinging bit of concentrate, and it will very quickly turn to a liquid that will drip off or loosen enough to be stirred into what you’re making. If the concentrate is a sticky glob stuck to a mat or parchment paper, stick the mat in the freezer for 1-2 minutes to stiffen up, and it’ll be easy to remove. Be careful with this. If you leave it in the freezer too long, it will become like glass and shatter into little shards all over the place, losing valuable concentrate, and to add to the pain, you’ll be picking tiny sticky pieces off everything for a week. If the concentrate is an unmanageable mess smeared on a mat and you’d like a more uniform, easy-to-handle shape, fold the mat in half with the sticky concentrate stuck to itself, put it in the freezer for 1-2 minutes with something holding the mat folded over onto itself, remove the folded mat from the freezer and peel away one side of the mat. Repeat the fold, freeze, and peel steps as many times as needed to get the desired shape. Lastly, use a little fat if the concentrate is smeared on a surface, the side of a bowl, utensil, finger, skin, hair, or whatever, and the sticky bit will soften for easy removal.

The final piece of advice about handling concentrates and general cannabis cooking is a caution in handling the utensils while you’re cooking and putting them in the sink. I habitually taste things that look yummy on a utensil before cleaning them. This habit led to the saying in our Facebook group, “Beware of the spoon,” and it’s a real warning. Sometimes, you lick the spoon without thinking, and suddenly, a couple of hours later, you’re standing in the grocery store, and BAMM, you’re super high out of nowhere! Beware of The Spoon~~~~

COOKING WITH CONCENTRATES CONSIDERATIONS

When cooking with cannabis, I focus on including the core ‘desirable’ components of cannabis in my culinary activities. The ‘desirable’ components of cannabis are the cannabinoids (i.e., THC, CBD, CBG), terpenes, and flavonoids. These desirables almost exclusively reside in the trichome of the cannabis plant that exists on the surface of the plant material, so the trichomes are our primary target for collection with extraction and the components we want to include in cannabis cooking. Other ‘undesirables’ components of the plant are the lipids, waxes, chlorophyll, and cellulose that provide no real benefit, warranting inclusion in the culinary arts. While the lipids and waxes aren’t desirable, they aren’t a serious problem when it comes to cooking. However, chlorophyll is the enemy. Many old schoolers and internet groups encourage people to “get everything out of the plant,” but there are only distinctly two, and only two, types of chlorophyll on the entire planet in all plants and algae. Chlorophyll in cannabis is neither special nor unique. Most importantly, chlorophyll causes a swampy odor and terrible flavor in poorly made edibles, causing many belching nastiness and gastric distress. Avoid chlorophyll in concentrates as much as possible, but if you need the health benefits of chlorophyll, it’s far better to include raw sources like spinach, kelp, and microgreens in your diet.

The necessity of decarboxylation is one of the most critical considerations when cooking with any form of cannabis and concentrates.  To decarb, or not to decarb, that is the question!  This is a big topic, so if you are unfamiliar with or interested in different techniques to decarb at home, I encourage you to read my post on decarb Decarboxylation 101 Basic Understanding and at Home Method Comparison. The cannabinoid usually targeted for cannabis cooking in its natural state when not decarbed is THC-A, then once decarbed, it becomes THC. The THC-A will not get you “high” where THC will. For cooking with THC-A, it will have to be incorporated into a recipe that will not be exposed to heat, like a salad dressing, sauce, dip, spread, and those types of dishes. The vast majority of cooking with cannabis is for the psychotropic and/or medicinal effects of THC, so decarbing before incorporating any form of cannabis, including concentrates, will usually be necessary before using it for cooking. An unfortunate consequence of most decarbing is the loss of the light and volatile terpenes in the process. To learn how to decarb for true full spectrum and high terpene count oil refer to my post, Jar Tech Decarb to Keep the Terpenes: Real FECO, Carts, and Terpy Deliciousness.

While considering the temperature and time impacts on changing THC-A into THC, keep the idea of cannabinoid tendencies toward conversion, degradation, and evaporation with every increased increment of heat and duration of exposure.  To keep it simple, let’s just think of cannabinoids trying to begin vaporizing at around 300°F then accelerating as we get closer to and past 400°F.  As you start to experiment, the idea to keep in mind is that if the concentrate is already decarbed, introducing heat as low and as short as possible is best.  The incorporation into the fat and a recipe will protect the cannabinoids from any discernible adverse effect in most cases.  Problems will arise at higher temps, like in a hot pan or under a broiler, when the concentrate has nowhere to hide, like medicated butter thrown onto a smoking hot pan.  There is a balance, but don’t stress over it too much; just keep it in mind when planning your dish and keep the heat application within reason.

To cook with cannabis, a concentrate, an infusion, or the plant itself can be used.  Concentrates are far superior to anything else to use in cannabis cooking. Using cannabis plant material makes food smell bad, taste bad, leaves chewy plant matter in the end product, and can cause stomach discomfort and gastric distress.  It does take the least effort but shows in the very low quality of the finished product. Infusions are pretty popular and can work, but they’re inferior for cooking because it’s impossible to even guess at the potency, and the voluminous amount of carrier needed to deliver the necessary amount of cannabinoids can be too much for many recipes. Concentrates are superior to cook with because you can see exactly what you are working with, estimate potency closely, and know the amount to include for your desired dosing. What I love about cooking with concentrates is the control of how much you include in any fat volume. You simply use the original recipe for what you are making and incorporate the exact amount of concentrate you desire to use; super easy. So, what concentrates are the best to cook with? I am an extraction guy, so I like cooking with concentrates that I craft myself using food-grade alcohol and the Quick Wash Ethanol (QWET) extraction method. Crafting the concentrate myself provides comfort in knowing precisely what’s in it, and I can use very low-cost material to make perfect cooking concentrates. Several concentrate forms can be used for cooking, and they all have unique advantages and disadvantages.

CONCENTRATES FOR COOKING

RSO/FECO (approximately 50-55% cannabinoids)

Rick Simpson Oil (RSO) and Full Extract Cannabis Oil (FECO) are heavy black concentrates most often crafted at home. Old schoolers will start jumping up and down about equating RSO to FECO because RSO initially used naphtha, then later isopropyl for the solvent, where FECO uses food-grade ethanol. These days, most people are using high-proof food-grade ethanol for extraction at home, so I accept RSO and FECO as being interchangeable terms for the same thing. For those unfamiliar with “food grade ethanol,” it’s just a fancy way to say grain alcohol. A significant advantage of using RSO/FECO is it’s already decarbed and ready to go. All you have to do is decide how much THC you want to include in the recipe, melt the concentrate into the fat portion, and carry on preparing the dish as you normally would. The main disadvantage to these concentrates is the chlorophyll that causes its black color and can result in unpleasant aroma, flavor, and stomach or gastric discomfort.

QWET (60%-80% cannabinoids)

Quick Wash Ethanol (QWET) is similar to RSO/FECO but without the undesirables. This is the form of concentrate I often use and craft myself using decarbed cannabis and the QWET process. QWET is a form of ethanol extraction using frozen cannabis material and ethanol brought below freezing temperatures to create a tincture for extraction and a transparent light brown to amber concentrate absent of undesirables. By eliminating the undesirables, the potency increases dramatically, and there is no swap like smell or taste from chlorophyll. The significant advantages are it’s already decarbed, has high potency, great aroma, agreeable taste, and you can use low-quality starting material or trim to make it very affordable. Since decarbing is required for cooking, there is no reason to use good quality starting material to make QWET bound for cooking. There are no disadvantages to using QWET for cooking.

DISTILLATE (90%-98% THC)

Distillate is produced by post-processing concentrates, referred to as “crude,” through fractional distillation to increase the THC potency into the high ninety percent range. Distillate is the hotdog of the cannabis industry, made with all the scraps, out-of-date concentrates, low-quality materials, and about anything with THC in it. Distillate is a fully decarbed concentrate with all undesirables and desirables other than THC removed. The main advantage of using distillate is it’s flavorless, scentless, and completely ready to be incorporated into the fat component of your recipe. The disadvantage is that all other cannabinoids and desirable cannabis components have been purposefully removed. Any synergistic and entourage benefits contained in full-spectrum oil are not present in distillate, and many would argue that it’s less medicinal with a lower efficacy. The importance of THC working in conjunction with other cannabinoids and terpenes has been the topic of many studies where it’s been shown that the effectiveness of THC can be as much as 10x higher in the company of other cannabinoids than on its own.

BASIC DISPENSARY CONCENTRATE FORMS (65% – 85% cannabinoids)

BHO, Rosin, Live Resin, Sauce, Sugar, Shatter, Wax, Crumble, Pull-N-Snap, Sap, and such that you find in a dispensary are primarily intended for smoking/vaping but, if handled correctly, will make the most aromatically delicious edibles ever. These concentrates have unbelievable aroma and flavor because the oil is in its natural full spectrum form with all the desirables intact and undesirables removed. They can be used to cook with if decarbed, but it would be wasteful if not decarbed properly. For best results decarb with the Jar Tech Decarb Process to preserve the light, fine-quality desirables that make them glorious. Lastly, check out the Value at the Dispo post for more info on how use these concentrates to seriously up your edible game on the cheap.

KIEF (50%-60% THC)

Kief is the original cannabis concentrate, a collection of trichomes that have been harvested from the cannabis flower. Trichomes cover most of the cannabis plant but when we speak of ‘kief’ it’s most often a reference to the richest trichomes in the area of most abundance, on the flower. Like dispensary type concentrates, good kief is almost too high-quality to cook with, but that doesn’t mean you can’t. Kief comes in different levels of quality depending on the material it came from, storage, and the amount of green plant material it contains, so lower quality kief from trim can be reasonable to cook with.  Kief also requires decarbing before being used for cooking, and as we already know decarbing ruins the finer qualities of cannabis so it’s no problem at all to use lower quality kief.  It’s best to use kief with the least amount of ground plant material, but it’s not a deal breaker.  There are a few ways to make kief and if any of them are performed too aggressively, especially if a grinder is used, a lot of green plant material will get mixed in. Like with RSO/FECO, the green material will negatively affect the aroma and flavor of the end product so it’s best to use kief with the least amount of green possible. Cooking with kief is similar to cooking with the cannabis plant material, it requires decarb (instructions below) then to steep in fat so the contents of the trichomes will release into it. Many recipes say to add the decarbed kief to the oil or butter over light heat and mix until the kief is dissolved, then add to your recipe. That works, and if you’re in a hurry it’ll have a good outcome, but there are a couple more things you can do to improve it and take it to the next level. Recipes often mention kief ‘dissolving’ even though they can’t actually dissolve, the cellulose husks that formed the trichome and housed the desirable cannabinoids and terpenes remain intact. The inclusion of the husks adds two minor complexities. First, they don’t release their contents that easily, so they need some time to soften and fully loosen to let go of all the goodness they contain. To do this, you combine the kief with the fat and simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes then allow it to rest overnight and simmer for 15-20 minutes again the next day. Second, the fibrous cellulose husks don’t dissolve and will leave an unwanted texture in some recipes. By using a fine wire mesh coffee filter to strain the fat after the second simmer time the husks can be separated and the medicated fat ready for cooking.

Decarbing Kief (simple): Put kief on a Pyrex dish, cover with foil, and place it into a well-preheated oven at 240℉ for 60 min or 260℉ for 40min. Some people reduce the time by 20% for kief because there’s no extra plant material in the way and the cannabinoids receive more direct heat. Experiment with both methods and see which works best for you. This method keeps it quick and easy, there’s a more complex method, but it takes a lot more effort that may or may not be worth the hassle and depends on the time you have.

Decarbing Kief (complex): Decarb kief in a preheated sealed canning jar, in a preheated oven, again at 240℉ for 60 min or 260℉ for 40min. The jar will trap the evaporating terpenes that will settle and condense on the jar’s glass after removing from the heat and the jar cools. Don’t open the jar until it’s completely cooled or the evaporated terpenes will escape into the open air. Next, heat the chosen fat, load it into the jar and use it to collect all the invisible terpenes condensed on the inside glass surface, then allow to set overnight. Lastly, remove the contents of the jar (you may need to heat the jar slightly to get it all out) and simmer the contents for 15-20 minutes. While the fat is still warm and loose strain out the husks using a fine wire mesh coffee filter, and your medicated fat is ready to cook with.

ADDING TERPENES

There are an unlimited number of recipes you can easily combine with cannabis concentrates. You can melt decarbed concentrate in butter and combine it into ready-made mac ‘n cheese, chili, creamed spinach, pasta, or whatever you can imagine. Use your favorite recipe and turn it into a medicated wonder, stretch your boundaries and experiment.

I have mentioned the importance of terpenes and how they should be considered a desirable component in our concentrates. The bad news is we evaporate off or convert the most delicate terpenes irreparably with decarbing and cooking. The good news is we can now buy isolated or strain-specific profiles and use them in our cooking to help achieve onset effects, aromas, and flavors. Terpenes must be added at a point where the dish will not have heat applied again and there is time to air out and mature a bit. Terpenes are a little tough to work with because they are so strong you only need a very small amount. I would advise working with them a bit before including in a large dish for the first time.

EASY AND FAVORITE CONCENTRATE COOKING

I know I said, in the beginning, you can only combine the concentrates with fats, but there is an exception I use in one of my favorite recipes that I talk about all the time. I started making an espresso-vanilla-cannabis cotton candy that’s incredibly fun and yummy. It has a light adult flavor, coffee house aroma, nice caffeine kick, and a cannabis edible high to it. The problem is it’s sugar-based and there are no fats in the ingredients, but there’s an easy way to overcome this. Use food-grade ethanol to thin the concentrate to a loose liquid state similar to the same consistency of the ethanol itself, then slowly combine with the sugar, stirring in just a little at a time so you don’t liquefy the sugar. Once it’s mixed well, spread the sugar in a thin layer on a cookie sheet and allow it to dry overnight, stirring it once in a while when you walk by. This sugar will be very stable as is, but if you combine it with water-based liquids, like to sweeten a drink, the oil will separate when the sugar melts so think about your application well ahead of time so you don’t waste your sugary goodness. To make the espresso-vanilla-cannabis sugar I use for making the cotton candy I do the same thing I detailed with the cannabis but with espresso and vanilla extracts. I make my own espresso and vanilla extracts for the most amazing flavors, but if this isn’t an option you can just as easily use pre-made versions. Lastly, I combine the sugars well and have medicated amazingness. I use the sugar to make the cotton candy, top the whipped cream on my chocolate-espresso lava cake or eat as is because it’s crazy good!

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