How To Make Cannabis Infused Oil

This week’s blog post is from Herb Hightower’s column bringing together the cannabis community through strain reviews, tips and tricks, and industry updates.

How To Make Cannabis Oil – Crock-Pot Method

It seems like every day that passes cooking and cannabis each become more popular. So, it only makes sense that cooking with Cannabis is becoming more popular but how do you infuse foods of all shapes and sizes with THC? In college baking pot into brownies got the job done, kind of, but now that we have sophisticated cannabis grown by professionals with college degrees and lab grade technology do we really want to pick ground flower and stems out of our teeth on our old college brownies? My name is Herb Hightower and buckle in for a culinary adventure where we’ll learn how to prepare our favorite foods with a cannabis twist from sauteing veggies, adding flavor to salads, or finally updating and improving the old brownie recipe.

Crock-Pot Cannaoil Recipe

While you can make Cannaoil many different ways, the reason you may want to cook in a crock-pot and the reason we chose this method is so you don’t stink up your kitchen or the entire house as well as making cleanup a breeze. To make it even easier than a soupy mess in your crock-pot that sucks to clean and makes you worry you’ll get the kids stoned next time you try a pot roast, pun intended, we included a mason jar into the mix and added a water bath to the crock-pot. Also, most crock-pots don’t get that hot, even on high, so you don’t risk burning off the THC with this approach. 

What Type Of Oil Makes The Best Cannabis Oil

When making cannabis oil any type of oil will work but not all oil is created equal. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is good for flavor and heart-healthy fats. Pure Olive Oil has a higher smoking point, not as flavorful as Extra Virgin Olive Oil, but you can fry with it. Vegetable oil is good because it has a neutral taste and a high smoke rate. Coconut oil is all the craze right now and great for vegan-friendly recipes. Avocado oil is not the most price-sensitive option but has the same heart-healthy fats as Extra Virgin Olive Oil and another option for high smoke rates which again doesn’t burn at high-temperature baking. We chose to use Extra Virgin Olive Oil for our recipe because that’s what we had in the cupboard and has always been the tastiest oil on the block according to my tastebuds. 

What Kind Of Cannabis To Use

We’ve been reviewing High Level Health’s massively awarded cannabis flower in our blog for over a year. All posts can be found in the news section of this dispensary website. Since we’ve done a lot of reviews, we’ve collected a good amount of amazing marijuana. So, we decided to use a conglomeration of ten different strains of quality flower, from some of the strongest Sativas and Indicas on the plant to heavy CBD strains to make this batch of Cannaoil!  

Steps To Make Cannabis Oil In Crock-Pot

Step 1 – Add Ingredients To A Mason Jar

Once you’ve selected your choice for oil, again any oil will work but each oil will serve a specific purpose and our choice was Extra Virgin Olive Oil, combine a one-to-one ratio of oil to cannabis. Our ratio was a combination of different strains making up an ounce of premium, award-winning High Level Health ground cannabis to one cup of oil. We came to this ratio by first lightly grinding, don’t over grind because the flower will go through your cheesecloth later in the straining process, our cannabis in a traditional hand grinder, and our one ounce filled a single measuring cup. So, as long as you go with the one-to-one ratio you’ll have infused some potent oil with cannabis assuming your pot was potent, to begin with. You can manipulate this ratio by adding more cannabis or more oil to strengthen or weaken the end product. In the end, you’ll want to combine your one-to-one ratio of cannabis to the oil inside of a mason jar and then hand seal the jar, no need for the old-school sealing of the jar like the pickling process, just crank down one time hard on the lid and you’re set.  

Step 2 – Add Mason Jar To Crock-Pot

With your awesome, slushy mixture of cannabis and oil gently place the sealed jar into the crock-pot which you have previously filled with ¾ of the way full of a water bath, and return the crock-pot lid over the stoney science experiment. Another great reason to use the crock-pot method versus the stovetop method is that you can set the crock-pot to medium or even high without fear of burning off the THC which can happen at 400 degrees Fahrenheit as most every crock-pot will not heat up that high. I like to place a wireless thermometer in the bottom of the crock-pot water bath so I can monitor the temperature because the last thing you want is a rogue crock-pot getting too hot and killing the THC from an ounce of high-grade marijuana that you spent your hard-earned money on. 

Step 3 – Cook Cannabis Slow And Low Then Burp

With this recipe, we are completing the decarboxylation process while infusing the oil with cannabis. Decarboxylation activates the delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC chemical and it needs to be done in some way, shape, or form to engage the intoxicating, psychoactive effects that we all know and love. You can decarboxylate in the oven beforehand to speed this process up by a few hours but again, risk the chance of stinking up your house. Also, the crock-pot method helps with controlling the heat throughout the entire process and makes it as easy as slow cooking a pot roast. Most, if not all, slow cookers don’t get warm enough to boil water as water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, well below the 400 degrees that can render THC ineffective. 

So, with your water bath situated somewhere between 175 and 210 degrees cook your cannabis and oil mixture for four to six hours. To avoid the chance of pressure build-up and explosion, which is extremely rare, burp your jar once during the first two hours of your cooking time by opening up the lid and resealing by hand as you did before. During the burping process, you can stir the mixture well and then place it back into the water bath for the remaining amount of time. We believe six hours total is the ideal time needed, but you can stop after four hours with similar results in a pinch.  

Step 4 – Strain Spent Cannabis Flower

After six hours in the water bath, remove the mason jar with oven mitts and set it on the counter to cool for five minutes. Once cool to the touch, cover an additional mason jar with cheesecloth over the top to pour the oil mixture through your strain collecting the spent cannabis flower in the cheesecloth(don’t throw this out just yet you can mix in brownies, pesto, or whatever you’d like as there is sure to be some THC left in the spent flower). 

Step 5 – How To Use Your Cannaoil

Once you have your Cannaoil strained you can use this oil in any way you can imagine. Just substitute Cannaoil for whatever your traditional recipe calls for when baking edibles. So, if your brownie mixture calls for two tablespoons of oil you can substitute your Cannaoil in its place. Now if your first batch of edibles turns out to be too strong then with your next batch of brownies substitute one tablespoon of regular oil and then add just the one tablespoon of Cannaoil. Remember your potency will largely depend on the strength and freshness of your original cannabis flower so test your edibles in small doses to determine the strength of your end product before you share with friends to avoid overdosing. Get creative as well and try your oil in any way you use traditional oil but remember to not exceed that 400-degree Fahrenheit mark which would essentially burn off the THC in the oil. 

Storage – Refrigeration Is The Best Bet For Cannaoil

Now that you have infused your oil it’s time to talk storage. First off, and hopefully, it doesn’t need to be said but please do keep this mixture out of reach of small children or anyone under the age of 21. 

Best practices for storage include keeping the Cannaoil in a cool, dark place with the lid sealed tight on whatever container you feel comfortable with, glass is better than plastic and a mason jar works great but you can upgrade your storage with an oil dispenser glass bottle online for around $10. Storage in the refrigerator is best if you can keep it out of reach of children as the Cannaoil will degrade slower in a refrigerator than in your cupboard. 

Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed learning how to infuse the oil with cannabis and enjoy cooking with Cannaoil even more. So, get out to the local High Level Health dispensary near you, grab some marijuana and let us know how your cannabis cooking experiences turn out by emailing us at gm@highlevelhealth.com, we might just include you in our next food forward cannabis blog!  

Links to Herb’s other food-inspired strain blogs – Snickerdoodle Fail, Black Cherry Pie Punch, Papayas, Mimosa, Wedding Cake, Blue Dream, Cannabutter.

Cooking With A Smile,

Herb Hightower

Herb Hightower is a freelance writer, and cannabis connoisseur reporting on all things cannabis for High Level Health.