Edibles Decarbing & Cooking Advice

[Eekybod]

Hi Follks,

I'm venturing into edibles with Green & AVB.

I've been wondering why, when, over the years I've made edibles with RSO, been given gummies , or bought D9 distillate sweets that they haven't seemed to work, all the while my friends be IRIE!

I'm just learning about cytokines and gut microglia as I've recently been diagnosed with MCAS, Histamine intolerance, Hashimoto's, IBS, (h)EDS, Fibromyalgia, allergies and ME.

I'm allergic to certain Terpenes and I have to do a lot of strain homework every month.

I made 3 different grades of Canna Oil a couple of weeks ago, and struggled to feel anything from the edibles I made with any of them.

Batch 1
50g Homegrown,
Decarbed in foil envelope in a Marvin the Martian air fryer at 120 degrees for about 45 minutes, checking every 15 minutes.
Transferred the decarbed weed with 500ml Coconut Oil, 500ml water and about 1 tablespoon of Sunflower Lecithin into a slow cooker.
Cooked on the lowest setting for about 4 hours.
Strained the weed, water & oil mixture to remove plant matter.
Poured the Canna oil & water into a jug and put in a fridge to set overnight.
Once Canna oil set, pour away the water.
I got under 500ml of oil, it was very green.

Batch 2
7g Pick n Mix random selection of 22 - 26% THC Indica MC buds
Decarbed with the same method as above.
Extracted with 300ml Coconut Oil, 300ml water and about 1/2 tablespoon of Sunflower Lecithin into a slow cooker.
Cooked on the lowest setting for 3 hours.
Strained the mixture to remove plant matter.
Poured the Canna oil & water into a jug and put in a fridge to set overnight.
Once Canna oil set, pour away the water.

I got about 250ml of Canna Oil

Batch 3
The strained plant matter from batch 2 was very green so I thought I'd do a second extraction .
This time I used 250ml Coconut oil & 250ml water and a teaspoon of Sunflower Lecithin. for 2 hours in a slow cooker.
I knew it wouldn't be as strong, but wanted to get as much out of the plant as possible.
I got about 200ml oil.

This has been my first time decarbing weed and making canna oil.

I've been trying out the different grades for pain relief by rubbing the solid oil on my injuries.

I've been making chocolate edibles for my Dad's (straight) neighbour who is very ill with cancer, feeling nauseous from morphine , has no Metoclopermide and isn't sleeping.

I started by making chocolate with the oil from Batch 3.
I gave a few to his wife, emphasised no obligation on their part, with no offence taken on mine if he didn't want them or didn't like them. I said I'd wait to hear from her before making any more.

A couple of days later I've heard the neighbour call to my 75 year old Dad over the garden fence, and asking him to pass on the message that the chocolates were lovely!

My cue to make some more!

He said he didn't "feel"anything off them, but he had slept better.

This was a win for me, as I didn't want to make him feel more unwell by making them too strong, especially considering the morphine sickness and not having any Metoclopermide.

I made another batch of chocolate with the same strength and told them they could gauge it together.

Separately I gave them samples of the 3 different grades of oil to use topically as a pain relieving massage oil, to taste, and to gauge strength if they wanted me to make them any more.

AND a MASSIVE bonus to help bring my Dad into 2026, who's already let me make another batch, he just HATES the smell.

Does anyone have a smell proof method?

Someone said to use a mason jar to decarb the weed in an air fryer, before adding water and coconut oil to the same mason jar, and putting it in a slow cooker and using it as a water bath, cooking the oil in the jar for about 4 hours.

Has anyone used this method?

Any tips for minimising the smell would be gratefully received - last time I had the air fryer and the slow cooker on extension cables outside and the neighbourhood smelled lovely!

 

[Hazy-Haze]

Air fryer is basically a vaporiser. Don't use it.

For me, possible ways to decarb.

- Rice cooker that can do 120-150C, Coconut oil as the transfer/holding medium, decarb time 10-30 mins.
- Saucepan on hob, 120-150C, Coconut oil, decarb time 10-30 mins.

I use the saucepan mostly and I also tend to make edibles specifically. I add the sugar/syrup early into the decarb (after 10 mins at say 120C) to try and lock the terpenes in or you end up with a room smelling of terpenes as some of them vaporise off (and feeling high as a kite after inhaling them).

I used to make tablet fudge and that was almost ideal for both decarb and locking in the terpenes. You would melt the butter, add the flower, decarb for 10 mins at say 150-160C, add the sugar, condensed milk, get to a boil and then whip/mix constantly until the mixture turned dark brown, which would add another 10 mins of decarb but while locking in the terpenes to the sugar/milk mix. It used to give a decent grade of edible that was very effective. But it didn't last long due to the butter, unless you froze it. I find the butter causes the fudge to start going off within about 10 days. Refrigeration is a must with butter based candy. Coconut oil doesn't suffer from the same issues as much and seems to be stable for much longer.

If you are making oil for application to skin, I wonder if BHO or a different extraction method would work better. I don't need topical application so never explored it, but I would expect you would need DMSO or something similar to allow it to pass through the skin and that would then push into dosing it. I expect say a THC laden patch that could pass the skin barrier could be crazy strong and be fairly unpleasant. I have no experience of actually doing any of this, but have talked to people who do BHO and Iso/acetone type extractions on cannabis and other plants. I also know of some people who have done the acetone rice cooker extraction method that gives you full spectrum oil which they used for, amongst many other things, cancer (oral dosing), skin cancer (topical and oral dosing) and dampening down immune issues.

If smell is a specific issue, build an extraction box. Basically a box, with active extraction through a couple of active carbon filters. The filters are fairly cheap on ebay. i use the filters to remove solder/flux fumes when soldering, but you can do the same with most chemical vapours. So build a box with a hole in the top. Attach a metre of ducting to it, put the filters and the fan on the end (ducting>filters>fan) so you can draw air from the box through the filters. You want negative air pressure in the box so air is being pulled into the box and then through the duct and through the filters. The alternative name for this would be a fume extraction hood or in schools/labs you might see a fume cupboard, but it's basically the same thing.