Cannabis edibles are fun and delicious, and they’re also becoming increasingly popular among cannabis consumers. Making them at home can be an excellent way to spend your time.

Regardless of how skilled a cook you are, like with any other food, you can make some mistakes while making cannabis edibles, and that’s quite common, especially on your first few tries. So, after your edibles don’t turn out quite as expected, you may start wondering how to make them like a pro and improve their flavor, texture, and even potency.

Fine-tuning your cooking process will help you step up the game and take your cannabis edibles to a whole new level, so you can be proud of your culinary delights when serving your friends or even enjoying them alone. Even though there’s no universal formula for creating quality edibles, there’re common mistakes we all make at some point while making cannabis-infused foods. If you are still wondering about the mistakes you could be making, the DOs and DON’Ts for a successful recipe below will help you make your treats even more delightful.

DO Find the Right Ingredients

Like with any recipe, you must pick the right ingredients for your edibles. Different recipes call for varying ingredients, so you must carefully check them before getting started. Moreover, different cannabis strains can affect the results. For example, Indica strains produce a sense of relaxation, while Sativa strains give consumers energizing boost. Hybrids combine both Sativa and Indica genetics and are either Indica or Sativa dominant. Besides, cannabis strains also come in varying flavors and aromas, so choose them carefully based on your edibles’ taste.

DON’T Use More Cannabis than Needed

Making cannabis-infused oil or butter doesn’t require ounces of the flower, and more isn’t always better. To calculate how much cannabis you need requires you to know the recipe and the potency of your flower – the percentage of cannabinoids in it so you can estimate the strength of your edibles. A little cannabis goes a very long way, and even if you use too much of the flower, the lipids in the oil won’t be able to bind with all cannabinoids, and you will waste your cannabis flower. In general, you’ll need 1 cup of cannabis flower and 1 cup of cooking oil of your preference to make homemade cannabis oil.

DO Decarboxylate the Cannabis First

Raw cannabis doesn’t contain THC. Rather, it contains its precursor THCA – the acidic form of the compound, which is nonreactive. Decarboxylating cannabis heats it to a specific temperature to lose a CO2 molecule and for THCA  to convert to THC, which will produce the effects you expect from a cannabis edible.

The most common method to decarboxylate cannabis is by using an oven. Set the temperature to 230 degrees Fahrenheit and place the oven rack with cannabis in the middle position.

Cover the baking sheet with aluminum foil, break up the cannabis, spread it across the foil, and cover it from the top with another piece of aluminum foil. Put the baking sheet with cannabis in the oven and wait for 45 minutes.

DON’T Throw Your Cannabis Straight in the Slow-Cooker

Without decarboxylation, you probably won’t experience the cannabis effects as cannabinoids in the cannabis flower won’t activate and deliver results. Still, many skip the step and add the raw cannabis to the slow cooker to decarboxylate in the oil, but we don’t recommend doing so. Although it may seem like an easier way, the longer your cannabis soaks into the oil, the worse it will taste, and your cannabis oil can bring a bitter, unpleasant taste into your edibles. It’s also trickier to control the temperatures in a slow cooker, and you might use too much or too little heat.

DO Use the Right Temperatures

Decarboxylation is crucial to prepare edibles successfully, but doing it at the correct temperatures is equally important. Experts agree that it takes approximately 230-250°F degrees to decarboxylate cannabis, and that’s a good temperature range for THCA to convert to THC while preserving other cannabinoids and terpenes in flower.

DON’T Use Too Much Heat

When you are short on time, you may want to use higher temperatures so that you can decarboxylate the cannabis much faster, but you must slow down. Cooking cannabis at high temperatures can cause THC to degrade. THC can be completely broken down at higher than 292F temperatures.

DO Use a Hand Grinder

After decarboxylating the cannabis, it’s best to use a hand grinder to break it into smaller pieces, rather than kitchen appliances like a coffee grinder that can grind the cannabis into a powder. Grinding cannabis into powder may negatively impact your edibles’ taste and look.

DON’T Overgrind Your Cannabis

When you first start making cannabis edibles, you might mistakenly believe that grinding the bud into a powder using a food processor or coffee grinder will help it blend better and help camouflage that distinct taste of cannabis. In reality, grinding cannabis into powder can even intensify its grassy flavor. Unfortunately, it can also make your edibles look green and way less appealing.

DO Follow a Recipe

If you want to nail expected results, you must follow a recipe even if you love improvising in the kitchen. So many things can go wrong while making edibles: you may end up having unwanted flavors, textures, or even potency. Recipes for homemade cannabis edibles cover all the necessary steps you need to take to make your homemade cannabis delights potent and full of flavor.

DON’T Give Up

As you probably have much more on your schedule than just making cannabis edibles, your mind might wander off. You may forget your flower in the oven, use more amounts of a particular ingredient, or forget to use it at all. Getting started with cooking edibles may indeed come with many errors, and that’s common. We all have tossed away edibles we expected to be full of flavor but ended up in our trash bin. Don’t give up if you fail on your first try. The first pancake is always a mess!

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