Determining THC content in edibles
How Much THC Should You Put in Your Edibles? from CannabisNet on Vimeo.
The biggest challenge with making (and eating) your own edibles is determining THC content. This is pretty much the reason why some people end up getting too stoned. To help clear the smoke, here’s a useful and practical guide to dosing.
Ideally, you should be working with lab-tested strains to tell you exactly how much THC content the strain has. THC levels vary widely from plant to plant, but if you don’t know how much THC is in the plant material, keep in mind that the national average of THC is around 10%. Those that have 15-20% THC are above average strains while those that are 21% THC and more are extremely strong. So if you can’t find lab tests on the strain, you can estimate that it contains 10% THC.
1 gram of bud is equivalent to 1,000mg of dry weight. A strain with around 10% THC, 10% of 1,000mg is 100mg. When cooking or baking with cannabis, a gram of the bud would have at least 100mg of THC. All you need to do is take the amount of ground cannabis, convert it to milligrams, and then divide it by the recipe yield to come up with a per-serving dose of its THC content.
The recommended amount for beginners is 5mg for each serving. 3 grams of ground cannabis would result in 300mg THC. 300mg divided by the recipe yield, for example using a cookie recipe for 60 cookies would result in 5mg of THC per cookie.
Cannabis Extraction
Finding out exactly how much THC is in edibles will always be a tough question to answer. Licensed edibles growers actually do testing in different stages: testing the cannabis flower to be used to provide them with an initial analysis of various cannabinoids and the terpenes, then there’s the next testing to help determine how effective the extraction process was. They also test how much plant matter was used after the extraction to know how much cannabinoids and terpenes were left behind.
If you’re making edibles from your own home, you’ll lack the tools and knowledge needed to have this kind of information on hand. Butter and oil extraction calculations are also inefficient. When you extract cannabis into a type of butterfat, you only get around 40 or 50% of the cannabinoids and terpenes. Another factor that affects this is the kind of fat that you use since some oils are less effective when it comes to extraction although generally speaking coconut oil and butter are the best choices for extractions. Vegetable oil and canola keep much fewer cannabinoids.
In short, the best and only way to really know exactly how much THC is in your butter is to have it analyzed. Even professional testing methods can have inaccurate results sometimes. The bottom line when it comes to edibles is to always consume in small amounts and wait up to half an hour in between doses before you consume large amounts.
Here are some ways you can reduce variancy when making edibles:
- Check the strain label before you begin the extraction process. Depending on the dispensary or producer, some will indicate the THCA content while others indicate the THC. If you are given a THCA percentage, the conversion from THCA to THC is 0.88.
- When working with butter, portion vertically because gravity will impact everything. Cannabinoids each have different molecular weight. Butter from the bottom of the batch will be different from what’s on top, so don’t scoop from the top.
- Mix well because unless you’ve consistently measured cannabis butter in each cookie you’re making then you’re going to get an error in the amount of cannabis you’re dosing. The best way to avoid this is by mixing until your batter is completely homogenous and then continue mixing some more.
- Don’t eyeball – this method might work in cooking but when it comes to making edibles you need measuring cups. Use the measuring tools specified in the recipe and fill the cups up precisely.
If you aren’t sure how much to eat, always assume that the piece you are holding contains the maximum THC content. Then you can always go for seconds or thirds if you feel like you need more of a hit but always wait around 30 minutes before doing so.
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