How To Make Cannabis Tincture

It’s Cannabis Tincture Time

When it comes to cooking with cannabis there are so many different ways to infuse cannabis into your food. Depending on your tolerance and recipe, the method in which you add cannabis to your food can change. For me, my favorite way to involve cannabis in my favorite foods is tincture. Also when you don’t have time for a puff, or you can’t, this is also a great way to enjoy cannabis.

What is Cannabis Tincture?

Before I explain how you can create your own cannabis tincture, let’s discuss what tincture actually is. In the most basic sense tincture is a cannabis extract. This means liquid is infused with weed, and is solely meant for sublingual consumption. You cannot smoke or vaporize this liquid. For our specific purposes here we will only be talking about alcohol based products. You can create this liquid with glycerin or oil, but that is known as an infusion in most circles. To me personally, it doesn’t create as potent of an end product.

The great thing about tackling the task of making cannabis tincture at home is that it is by far the easiest way to make a cannabis infusion to cook with. So let’s go over the steps on how to make cannabis tincture.

Supplies needed to make cannabis Tincture:

1. 1. Decarbed cannabis – around 8 grams (If you aren’t sure how to decarb your cannabis, check this article to LEARN HOW TO)
   2. 6 ounces of 200 proof ethyl alcohol or 190 proof everclear
   3. 2 freezer safe glass containers, like a mason jar, with a lid
   4. Weed Grinder (See some of our favorites HERE)
   5. Small unbleached coffee filters
   6. Cheesecloth (If you don’t have any grab some HERE)
   7. A dropper bottle to store your tincture (Like this ONE)

Now that you have your ingredients ready let’s get started!

 Creating Cannabis Tincture:

1. Figure out how potent you want it to be. A good tip on making a cannabis tincture potent is how long you steep it in alcohol. The longer it steeps the higher the potency, but at the same time, more chlorophyll will be in the final product which will result in a bad taste. We recommend starting at 2 hours, then next time you make more, adjust accordingly. Once you figure out how long you want to steep it, it’s time to start prepping your weed.
2. Decarb your 8 grams of cannabis and freeze it. This process helps trichomes detach from the plant more efficiently.
3. While freezing the weed, you’ll want to put your alcohol in a separate container and place it in the freezer.
4. Leave both containers in the freezer for 24 hours.

             First Wash

1. To perform this you will need to pour half of the alcohol into the jar with the weed. Tip: To prevent your hands from getting too cold, yeah wrap the alcohol and weed jar in a towel.
2. Now add the lid and shake the alcohol weed mixture for 5 minutes. This process extracts all the good cannabinoids and terpenes from the plant material.
3. Once that’s done you’ll return both the alcohol and weed containers back to the freezer for an additional two hours.
4. Once that two-hour waiting period is up, remove the jar with weed/alcohol mixture from the freezer, and shake it for another 5 minutes.

Tip: Again use a towel to prevent cold hands if needed. You can leave the alcohol-only jar in the freezer.

             Time to strain the weed!

This is going to be a double filter strain. First through cheesecloth to catch the bigger pieces of plant material, and then strain it through the coffee filter. This will remove other unwanted compounds and residue.

1. Set up another jar for the coffee filter.
2. Place the cheesecloth over the lid of your weed/alcohol jar, and pour the liquid that strains through into the coffee filter jar.

Note: If you can set the jars on top of each other and strain from one to the other without making a mess, great, if not just do it by pouring the contents from one into the other. It should take about 10 minutes.

              2nd Wash

1. Repeat the previous steps with the remaining amount of alcohol.
2. Pour it into the jar which has weed in it and you just strained. Shake for 5 minutes.
3. Leave it in the freezer for two hours.
4. Remove, shake again and repeat the straining process.

              Reduce Volume of Liquid

1. Remove the coffee filter from the jar, leave the lid off and let the jar sit undisturbed in front of a fan. This will allow excess alcohol to evaporate.
2. Once it is reduced by half, it’s all done.
3. Go and bottle your final product into the dropper bottle and enjoy! Note: Store the eye dropper bottle in the fridge to prolong its lifespan.

End Result

        That’s it. You just made your first batch of cannabis tincture! When cooking add a few drops to whatever you’re making and you’ll be feeling an amazing tasty buzz for sure!