Although there are many oils you can use for infusing cannabis, healthy, high-fat cooking and finishing oils are key to a greattasting and physically satisfying edible experience. My favorites are coconut, olive, sesame, walnut, and avocado.

Servings
Eight 1-tablespoon servings

Prep time
10 minutes

Cook time
4 hours

Idle time
24 hours plus overnight

Approximate THC per serving*
10%: 30.4 mg
15%: 45.7 mg
20%: 60.8 mg

What you’ll need
Distilled water
Tea strainer
Medium/large pot
Bowl filled with ice water
French press coffeemaker
Heat-resistant glass dish or baking tin
Aluminum foil
Glass jar

Ingredients
¼ ounce (7 grams) cannabis
5 ounces oil (recommended: coconut, olive, sesame, walnut, or avocado)

(Jeff the 420 Chef photo)

Step 1 — Soak and blanch herb

  1. Coarsely grind dry herb (also known as flower or bud) and soak in distilled water for 24–48 hours. Change the water twice a day. This cleans out a lot of the impurities that cause bad taste.
  2. The next day, place “cleaned” herb in a tea strainer. Bring water to a boil in pot. Place tea strainer in boiling water for 5 minutes.
  3. Remove tea strainer after 5 minutes, then place in bowl of ice water for 1 minute. Remove from ice water and pour distilled water over the tea strainer to rinse out any residual impurities. Remove herb from strainer and wring out excess water.

Step 2 — Dry and decarb

  1. Spread cannabis evenly in a large baking pan and lay a large piece of aluminum foil loosely on top of it (i.e., don’t crimp it down tightly around the edges). Let it sit overnight. Your cannabis should be dry by the next morning. You can skip this step if you use a dehydrator.
  2. When cannabis is dry, preheat oven to 300ºF.
  3. Now, crimp down the foil and “bake” for 20 minutes. (This is how you decarb your cannabis.)
  4. Remove from oven. Let sit for 5 minutes so THC or CBD vapors can settle back onto the herb. Remove foil and loosely cover with a couple of paper towels. This creates a dark environment with airflow.
  5. Let pan sit, covered with paper towels, on the counter for 2–4 hours to dry out any residual moisture.

Step 3 — ­Infuse oil

  1. Pour oil into a French press placed standing up in pot of simmering water.
  2. Mix decarbed cannabis into oil and cover the French press. Press plunger to just above the oil. This will be your water line.
  3. Gently simmer for 4 hours. Check the water level every 20 minutes to ensure it is even with or slightly higher than the water line.
  4. After 4 hours, remove the French press from the pot, push the plunger all the way down, and strain the oil into a clean jar. Your final yield should be about 4 ounces.
  5. Use immediately or refrigerate for up to 2 weeks. To reliquefy oil that has solidified, place oil container in a pot of hot water for 15—20 minutes.

NOTE Your final yield will weigh +/-20 to +/-50% less than your starting weight, depending on how moist or dry your cannabis was when you started the process.

*Approximate dose per serving is based on infusing 5 grams of cured/dried/decarbed cannabis into 5 ounces of oil.