Dear Cheri,

Can you freeze cannabutter?  How about freezing cannaoil? 

Also, is it OK to freeze edibles? I am making meals with my cannabis infused oil and I wanted to know if it's OK to freeze the  meals infused with THC oil?

If so does it take away from the potency or quality?  I am making hot pockets but would like to freeze them and microwave when ready to eat. 

Yes!  You can freeze edibles made with cannabis infused oil or cannabutter without compromising the potency or quality of the medicine.  In fact I highly recommend doing so.

You can also freeze the cannabutter or cannaoil for longer storage.  Simply bring to room temperature when you are ready to use.  Keep in mind that fats can still go rancid in the freezer, so try to use within six months.  

But when it comes to edibles freezing makes a lot of sense!

Can You Freeze Weed?

Yes, you can package cannabis flowers well and freeze.  I would not do this if intended to smoke or vape the cannabis.  But for cooking it is fine, and for making concentrates it is often part of the process.

What happens when you freeze weed is that the trichomes get brittle and they break off easier, which is why the colder the better when making concentrates like dry ice kief.

Can You Freeze Edibles?

Freezing edibles makes a lot of sense.  

Let's face it you probably don't want to, nor should you, eat an entire batch of medicated foods at once.  Freezing allows you more flexibility with portion control and the luxury of saving your medicated foods for when you really need/want them.

When I wrote The Cannabis Gourmet Cookbook, I purposely tried to design the recipes so they could be easily portioned and, whenever possible, frozen for longer storage, look for the "Freezer Friendly" notation throughout the book.

Do Edibles Lose Potency When Frozen?

I consulted with Dr. Jeffrey Raber at The Werc Shop (one of the world's premier testing labs) about this question.  While he had no hard data on food cannabinoid stability when frozen, he did say that cold temperatures do slow chemical degradations.  Likewise there shouldn't be any significant issues with freezing edibles, although each food might react slightly differently.

Some foods definitely do freeze better than others (for detailed instructions check out the non-cannabis cookbook I wrote,  The Complete Idiot's Guide to Easy Freezer Meals).  However, the presence or absence of cannabis in the recipe's butter or oil is not a factor.

What you need to be concerned about more than cold is heat.  While some heat is necessary to decarboxylize the cannabis -- the chemical reaction that turns the raw plant's THC-acid into THC -- remember that too much heat will destroy it.  THC is rendered useless at 392 degrees F,  but it starts to break down long before that.  You can bake at higher temperatures of 400 degrees F or more, so long as the food itself does not get any hotter than, ideally, about 325 degrees F.