What to Know When Making Weed Edibles

Edibles are one of the most common ways to use cannabis, but if you are making them yourself it is important to know what to consider and how to make proper weed edibles.

Choosing a Strain

While there are various strains of cannabis, the main three options are Sativa, Indica, and Hybrid. Each of these categories have various medicinal and recreational purposes.

Sativa

Cannabis-Sativa is known for producing what some call a “mind high.” It encourages focus and creativity while creating an energizing effect that can reduce anxiety.

Indica

Cannabis-Indica is more known for producing a “full-body high.” This equates to people experiencing intense relaxation and is useful for reducing insomnia

Hybrids

Hybrids are a combination of Indica and Sativa and can have various effects. They have a variety of uses, which ranges from being used to ease the pain of chemotherapy or offer anxiety relief.

How to Properly Dose

When making edibles, it is important to make sure that you provide proper dosing of cannabis. If not, you’ll have little to no effect or having a high that’s more than you bargained for. Now let’s get into the math. First, most cannabis will be between 10-20% THC. 1g of cannabis equals 1000mg. That means 1g of 20% THC cannabis contains 200mg of THC. Next, find out how many doses you plan on making, or rather how many cookies or brownies you plan on making with the marijuana. Let’s say you are making 20 cookies. This works out to be 10mg of THC per cookie, which is a common amount for a casual user.

200mg THC/20 doses = 10mg THC per dose/per cookie

THC is also, according to research, about four times more available than when you smoke it. This means that eating 10mg THC is like smoking 40mg THC. 

Once you have this figured out, measure your ingredients accordingly and be sure to portion the edibles correctly.

If you’re not sure how many milligrams (mg) you should use, follow this guide:

• 1-2mg THC: considered micro-dosing and is a good place to start for new users.
• 2-5mg THC: depending on tolerance, this could still be considered a micro-dose.
• 5-10mg THC: common range for recreational users.
• 10-50mg THC: considered strong and recommended for experienced users.
• 50-100mg THC: very strong and is used mostly for medicinal purposes.

Decarboxylation

There’s a reason why most people smoke marijuana. It’s because marijuana has little to no psychoactive properties when eaten raw. Before being heated or burned, cannabis is full of compounds known as THCA & CBDA, which by themselves have many benefits and possibly are even superfoods, but will not result in any sort of high. 

Decarboxylation or the de-carbing of cannabis is key to activating the psychoactive and other useful compounds of marijuana. When cannabis is heated up or burned it turns THCA into THC, which is responsible for giving you a high. It also converts CBDA to CBD which is known for its relaxing properties.

This is a key step in the process of making edibles. To do so you need to cook the flowers, leaves, or steam in the oven at 240ºF for 40 minutes to convert THCA to THC and 90 minutes to convert CBDA to CBD.