Cannabis Coconut Oil: Benefits & How to Make it

Cooking with marijuana can be an incredibly worthwhile venture. It presents a unique set of challenges, and with nearly limitless options, the results can be delicious and provide a good high. One of our favorite new ingredients is cannabis-infused coconut oil. There is a variety of different types of canna oil out there, but cannabis coconut oil has become a hot favorite because it's dairy-free and provides a few additional health benefits. If you've been wanting to learn how to make weed oil, this is the post for you!

How Cannabis Infusion Works

Cannabis infusion is the simple process of taking dried marijuana or hemp flower, activating the THC or CBD, and bonding the desired cannabis chemicals to the desired ingredient. THC and CBD both easily bind to fat, which is why creating cannabis butter or oil is ideal. A cannabis coconut oil that has been properly infused offers a wide variety of culinary applications, provides the same psychoactive and therapeutic benefits as eating other edibles or smoking, and gives the added perk of coconut oil's health benefits.

Coconut Oil Benefits

We highly recommend cooking with coconut oil infused with cannabis. Not only is it easy to cook with, but it's vegan-friendly, remains solid at room temperature, and tastes delicious. It has also been found to contain healthy fatty acids that provide necessary energy and boost your body's metabolism. Coconut oil is thought to be a heart-healthy food that may reduce seizures, raise good cholesterol, and reduce your overall hunger levels. It's also thought to improve dental health, reduce stress and asthma symptoms, and help with hair and skin health if applied topically. Additionally, coconut oil uses are essentially limitless - it can be used to replace most any other oil in any recipe.

Because coconut oil has so quickly become incredibly popular, there is some controversy surrounding various health claims. There is, however, a consensus that less processed coconut oil is much healthier. Use extra-virgin coconut oil whenever possible, as it is likelier to be the more natural product. Additionally, too much coconut oil will add a lot of extra calories to your diet. Experts suggest that oils should not take up more than 10% of your daily calorie intake.

How to Make Cannabis Oil with Coconut Oil: Washing Cannabis

Knowing how to make THC oil may seem intimidating, but it only requires a few steps that are fairly easy to follow. We've chosen to provide a canna-coconut oil recipe washes the flower using a French Press. This process may be deemed unnecessary by some, but others swear by it to remove the bitter-tasting compounds that make edibles taste unpleasant. There are other ways to infuse cannabis and oil, but we've found this to be an easy process. If you're wondering how to make CBD oil with coconut oil, you'll simply follow the exact same steps - just use hemp flower instead of marijuana flower. Of course, you can buy CBD Oil directly want to avoid the kitchen mess. Check out our friends at CBD Infusionz for some of the highest quality CBD oil! 

What You'll Need

• 1/4 ounce of cannabis flower

• 8 ounces of coconut oil

• Water

• A French Press, Cooking Pot and Oven

Measure Your THC Concentration

You can make infusions with any cannabis flower, but you should pay attention to how much THC is in the strain your using. There are various THC calculators available that help determine the strength of your final product. If you're not looking for much of a high, make sure to use strains with lower THC levels (and vice versa).

Prep Your Cannabis for Cooking

You'll want to clean your flower before cooking it. This process will only get rid of undesirable residues and debris - it will not lose any of its potency. To safely clean your flower:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil.
2. Submerge your dry cannabis for 4-5 minutes.
3. Remove any debris that has collected at the top of the water.
4. Drain the cannabis from the pot of boiling water and submerge it in ice water for a few minutes.
5. Remove the cannabis from the ice water and let it completely dry out on a paper towel before cooking.
6. Break up your dried flower and grind it into smaller pieces.

Cook Your Flower: How to Decarboxylate Cannabis

This step of the process is called decarboxylation (known as "decarb"), a chemical reaction that activates the cannabis. Once you activate your cannabis, it becomes psychoactive - the state required for proper infusion. If you put flower that has not gone through decarb in coconut oil, it will not provide any of the desired benefits. To properly activate your cannabis, follow these steps:

1. Heat your oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit (295 degrees Fahrenheit if you're using Hemp flower).
2. Place your flower on a cooking sheet and bake for 30-60 minutes.
3. Take your flower out of the oven and immediately begin infusing it with coconut oil.

Please note that baking your cannabis at higher temperatures will result in burning off the terpenes that provide the psychoactive and therapeutic effects.

Liquify Your Coconut Oil

You'll need to liquify your coconut oil before infusing it with your cannabis. It's best to start this part of the process while you're cooking the flower. To liquify your oil, follow these steps:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil.
2. Place your coconut oil in a French Press, cover, and place in the boiling water until the oil is liquified.

Infuse Your Coconut Oil

Once you've completed these last few steps, you will have made canna-coconut oil!

1. Mix decarbed cannabis with the liquified coconut oil in the French Press.
2. Cover the French Press with its plunger lid and keep it in the boiling water for three hours.
3. Stir the cannabis oil every 30 minutes and refill the boiling water, as necessary (water should be level with the cannabis oil in the French Press).
4. After 3 hours, press down the French Press strainer and place the strained cannabis coconut oil into a jar.
5. Place your cannabis oil in the fridge to solidify, then keep refrigerated.

Cooking with Cannabis Coconut Oil

After you've created your cannabis-infused coconut oil and it has been properly stored, there are several ways you can get it ready for use:

• Place jar of solidified oil in boiling water until liquified, then use like olive oil.

• Leave the jar at room temperature for an hour to create a soft solid.

• Chip out the amount of oil you need, then liquefy in a skillet for immediate use.

There is an endless supply of coconut oil recipes out there - and yes, you can use your cannabis-infused coconut oil for all of them. Whether you're baking, cooking, using it as a dressing, or using it as the base for a stir-fry or pasta dish, cannabis coconut oil is the perfect ingredient for providing functionality, flavor, and a good high.

Give our cannabis-infused coconut oil recipe a shot, use it to make a meal, and then let us know what the final product turns out like! Also, feel free to leave your own recipes for weed oil infusions below!