Ready to Make Weed Edibles at Home?

Ellen Scanlon:

This podcast discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over.

Chef Amanda Jackson:

Any strains, really, that have fairly high levels of terpenes that are aromatic I’m usually down for, because those are easier to pair. They’re a lot more fun to play with. It’s like using herb rather than just using cannabis for the effects. Because while, yeah, I enjoy the medicinal part, I’m here to eat. I’m really just here to eat.

Ellen Scanlon:

Welcome to How To Do the Pot, a podcast helping you feel confident about cannabis for health, wellbeing, and for fun. I’m Ellen Scanlon.

You just heard from Amanda Jackson, a California based chef who you might recognize from the Netflix show Cooked With Cannabis. I know we all have the December holidays on the brain right now, but I want to step back for one second to share something that you might not be following. Green Wednesday, which is the day before Thanksgiving, is a very big day in the cannabis industry. This year it was the second highest sales day for cannabis across the US, 4/20 was first. And over the Thanksgiving holiday across the US people spent nearly $300 million on legal weed. Digging into these huge numbers, $300 million worth of weed in a few days, what struck me is the surging popularity of edibles. Many of us are buying edibles at the dispensary, and this holiday season I want to give you the tools to consume in what might be a new way for you by cooking with cannabis.

Last week you heard some of our favorite cannabis experts’ best advice for preparing to cook with weed, including some test kitchen tips from Monica Lowe, the author of the Weed Gummies Cookbook. Today we’re sharing an episode from our very popular series about cooking with weed, and it covers everything from how to deal with the smell, how to dose your goodies, and how to make sure you and your guests all have a fun and delicious experience. Before we get into the show, have you checked out how to do the Pots Friday infusion reels with recipes for weed infused cheddar bay biscuits or rosemary pumpkin seed brittle? Stay tuned to Do the Pot on Instagram for more delicious holiday treats.

Maybe you’ve heard of a cookie casualty, someone who was looking for a good time and ate a cannabis cookie, then had a terrible time that they definitely do not want to repeat. Hopefully dosing in the legal market is making that a more rare occurrence. But what if you love homemade cookies or you just really want to try cooking weed food at home? We’ve got you covered with the help of chefs who have a lot of experience cooking with cannabis. Chef Amanda Jackson says that step one for cooking with weed is to have fun.

Chef Amanda Jackson:

Stay creative and stay curious. Don’t lean into being afraid, lean into curiosity. It’s just weed, it’s just food. A lot of us, especially those of color, we come from a long line of cooks. Culinary school didn’t necessarily teach a lot of us how to cook, but it did add language. Meanwhile, the vast majority of this I’ve learned on the job and with my elders, not at school. We have to be really careful, I think, about not being gatekeepers and not allowing information to act as gatekeepers. If you’re not a chef and you are not doing some Michelin type shit, who cares? Another big part of this all is setting the vibe and knowing exactly what you’re making your butter or your oil for. Are you making this to put in cookies to eat before bed? Are you making this for a salad to have on your lunch break? It just depends on really what you’re doing and what you’re going for.

Ellen Scanlon:

Michellee Fox is a native Brazilian, a farmer, and a sustainable chef. She suggests trying some edibles from a licensed dispensary to find the dose that works best for you.

Chef Michellee Fox:

Go to the store. Because the companies that are selling at the dispensary, they have to make sure that that milligram amount is 100% correct. When you’re trying at home, you are still trying to figure out how to get that amount correct. But if you buy a gummy that says 2.5 milligrams and you eat that and you’re like, “Okay, I can totally handle that,” maybe you’ll try one more and that would be five milligrams. And you’re like, “Okay, I feel a little more but I’m still good.” Because when you’re cooking at home, there’s a lot of a guessing game in a way because you can’t just send your cookie to the lab to get tested.

Ellen Scanlon:

Chef Amanda has great advice for how to get started in the kitchen.

Chef Amanda Jackson:

My best practical advice for home cooks is to get a cookbook. When I first started doing this, I had to piece all of these things together on the Internet, but all of these people who I used to follow on the Internet who were giving away this information for free years ago, they all have cookbooks now. And I really do suggest starting there, because they start you on how to do dosages while you’re making it so you actually learn the same process that the rest of us do. It can be really, really daunting, but it’s really not necessarily a super hard thing.

Ellen Scanlon:

So what are chef’s tips for dosing your food with cannabis? Chef Michellee breaks it down.

Chef Michellee Fox:

I think the most important part is to master the volume of THC for CBD per recipe. I would start between one and 2.5 milligram THC edibles, and make sure to write it down and do test kitchen. Test kitchen is really important. Try the first recipe, measure the amount of THC, figure it out, how long you’re putting it in the oven, write it down like a diary. The hardest part I think is the overusage of THC. So I like to do things like, for example, if I’m making a cookie, I’ll make a couple of THC cookies but then I’ll make the same version of the same cookie with the CBD. So then you can eat one CBD cookie, one THC cookie, and then you fill it out and then you go again, one CBD cookie, one THC cookie. And keep on going until you don’t want to eat cookies any more.

I cannot express how important it is, the balance between CBD and THC when you’re consuming, because it balances each other. So if I do a 2.5 milligram of THC, I will do a five or sometimes 7.5 CBD. I think that when we first started this whole revolution of eating cannabis, nobody really had access to CBD. It makes a difference when you’re consuming both.

Ellen Scanlon:

With so many podcasts to choose from, finding a favorite series can take some trial and error. We started How To Do the Pot’s podcast club because, well, we love podcasts and when we find a good one, we want you to enjoy it as well. If you’d like to put a podcast on our radar, please reach out at hi@dothepot.com or you can DM us @DoThePot. If all this talk about cooking is making your mouth water and you’re looking for a good food podcast, check out Smart Mouth, a food history podcast hosted by Katherine Spires, a former food editor at PBS and LA Weekly. Every episode of Smart Mouth is a deep dive into something specific and food related, like peaches or mayonnaise or Betty Crocker and Home Economics.

Did Betty Crocker love weed? I’ve always wondered. You’ll never look at food the same way ever again. Katherine talks to fascinating people in the food space about their favorite dishes to find out what makes them tick. Some of my favorite episodes are with comedians like Molly Lambert and Kate Willett. Food can be very funny. There are also deep dives into things like New York City food, school lunches, and more. The next time you want some inspiration in the kitchen, listen to Smart Mouth. You can find it on your favorite podcast player. Chef Amanda uses an app that helps calculate the ratios of THC and CBD.

Chef Amanda Jackson:

Jeff the 420 Chef, he has a calculator. It’s an app, you can calculate CBD or THC, one of my favorite resources, and you can make literally anything. And once you do do you’ll see, “Oh, the likelihood of you just giving yourself this outrageous dosaging, that’s a choice.” If you are a person who is an experienced cannabis user, even if you’ve never had edibles, I always just start with five and move up hour by hour. Because you can always take another one, but you can’t come down like that. And actually, you can. Have CBD laying around in something fast acting like a CBD joint or water or a tincture that will be fast acting if you are a person who’s afraid you’re going to get too high.

Ellen Scanlon:

We’ve shared this tip before and it’s a really good one to remember. If you feel too high, have some CBD around. Easiest is probably an oil tincture or maybe a CBD joint, and take it to balance out your high. You’ll feel better in about 15 to 30 minutes. So how do you choose the strain to use in your food? You may have heard of terpenes, which give food its smell and taste. If you’re curious about terpenes and cannabis, check out How To Do the Pot’s episode 25, “Will I Vibe With This Bud?” Chef Amanda explains what they are.

Chef Amanda Jackson:

Terpenes, it’s really more about the aromatics. I find it easier to explain terpenes to people who understand essential oils. If you know most of the names of essential oils you’re like, “Oh, okay, I get it.” I think that’s the easiest way to explain it, is a comparison to essential oils.

Ellen Scanlon:

When you’re ready to buy flour for your recipes, Chef Amanda has another tip. Your nose knows.

Chef Amanda Jackson:

Pick it up, smell it if they’ll let you. You know, COVID, but if they’ll let you smell it, do that and take it home. That’s the one you should pick, the one that makes you go, “Hm.” And if they won’t let you smell it, ask the bud tender what it smells like. They usually know. I just went, I was at an all you can eat buffet, and once a week I literally would go and I’d get different strains until I tried them all. That’s when I learned about the smell, the terpenes. And then I’d go to a different dispensary after that that had different stuff and just keep trying through. And the same way sommeliers keep a notebook of wines they tasted, I have a notebook of strains I’ve tried. And that was really just me wanting to also spend the time learning about weed in a way that made sense to me.

Ellen Scanlon:

One of the words you’ll hear about cooking with cannabis is decarboxylate. What is it?

Chef Amanda Jackson:

It is just a really, really, really big word that means activating the THC compound in the cannabis with heat. There is a point where you actually do activate the THC the same way we spark when we smoke. But for cooking we don’t want that burnt taste, so we’re just going to heat it enough to get to that point. And that’s all we’re doing in the oven. We’re baking it for a certain amount of time at a certain level, like I do 225 for about 35, 40 minutes, and that usually is good for me. So many chefs do it in different ways, just like people cook things in different ways. You cannot skip decarb or you’re not going to get high.

Chef Michellee Fox:

When the plant is on the ground, it’s all THCA, which is the fat, is what we call it, of THC. Now, when you put it in the oven or heat it up, cook it, that’s when it transforms into real THC. So you can find charts online of how long you want to decarboxylate. If you pass that time, then you start to kill all the good stuff that the cannabis have. Because it’s not just about getting high, it’s about the nutritious benefits that cannabis have.

Ellen Scanlon:

I hope these tips are helping you feel ready to cook with cannabis, but please be willing to experiment a bit to get to your perfect outcome. Even pros have a learning curve and can have some challenges with weed in the kitchen. Colorado based chef Emily Oyer shares a story from when she was a contestant on the cooking show Chopped 420.

Chef Emily Oyer:

So a cannabis and cooking disaster is when I was on Chopped 420 and I was trying to be a showboat and show off and be cool in front of Laganja Estranja. And instead of paying attention to what I was doing, I just put a bunch of raw cannabis inside of my sauce, which then activated it. So I had to throw out everything, because if the judges would have had that sauce, they would have been so stoned they probably would have been immobile. And that was on TV. So that was quite the wreck.

Ellen Scanlon:

For today’s high five, tips for cooking with cannabis. Number one, relax and have fun. Don’t let big words intimidate you, and know that you get to decide how intoxicating to make your food. Number two, consider how you want to feel. Do you want a cookie to nibble on that will help you get a good night’s sleep, or would you rather make a salad dressing to spice up your dinner? Start with a low percentage of THC. And remember, when you eat cannabis it can take one to two hours to feel the effects. Number three, pay attention to dosage. Start with a cookbook like the 420 Gourmet or the Art of Weed Butter, I’ll link to them in the show notes. These chefs have done the work in the test kitchen to help you navigate how much weed to add to your dishes.

Number four, do strains matter? Cannabis is a plant, so different strains might work best to make particular foods. Think of it as another herb. Next, choose your ratio of CBD to THC and have fun finding a strain that appeals to your body’s unique endocannabinoid system. Try to smell it if you can. Number five, cook the weed. Decarboxylation is just heating the weed in the oven. It’s how you activate the plant to bring on the feelings of intoxication, relaxation, pain relief, or whatever you’re looking for. Stay tuned for next week’s episode, when we’ll give you a little history lesson about pot brownies, talk all about infusing your food, and get you started with some easy to make recipes. Happy holidays.

For lots more information and past episodes, visit dothepot.com, and that’s also where you can sign up for our newsletter. For sneak peeks behind the scenes, please follow us on socials @DoThePot. And if you like How To Do the Pot, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It really helps more people find the show. Thanks to our producers, Madi Fair and Nick Patri. I’m Ellen Scanlon, and we’ll be back soon with more of How To Do the Pot.