HELP! My homemade edibles taste awful! Why are the ones I buy at the dispensary so much better tasting? How can I improve the flavor of what I make at home? I need to know how to make edibles not taste like weed!
The second the most common question I get (after how to properly dose edibles) is how to make edibles taste better.
While there are a few rare individuals who enjoy the acrid green flavor of cannabis in their food, most do not, so you're not alone.
In answer to your first question, store-bought edibles often taste better because they are usually made with a specially produced distillate or isolate -- a pure cannabis concentrate, created specifically for edibles manufacturers.
When making distillate for vape cartridges, the maker will usually add terpenes and flavors, elements that were removed in the process of creating the distillate, back in. When creating distillate for cooking, the terpenes are usually left out, making for a more neutral flavor.
Home cooks, on the other hand, don't always have the luxury of specially created distillate. More often than not, they will cook with trimmings or flowers from the whole plant, or with solventless concentrates like dry ice kief, water hash, or rosin.
These have more flavors as more of the terpenes remain intact. However, that's a good thing as many of the plant's medicinal effects are carried in the terpenes, so in my mind, it's a worthwhile trade-off for a little less than ideal flavor.
That said, there are some things you can do to make edibles taste better, even when cooking with whole plant cannabis.
Techniques for How to Make Edibles Taste Better
- Make your infusions (cannabis butter or oil, etc) as strong as possible in order to use less of them in your recipes. For example, if you make your infusion using double the amount of cannabis suggested in the links in this point, you would only need to use half as much in your recipe to get the same dose. Make sense? Make up the difference in the recipe with unmedicated butter or oil.
- In spite of advice you'll hear from most other cannabis cooks, and in spite of it being a built -in function of a popular cannabis butter making gadget, do NOT finely grind your plant material. It serves no practical purpose. What you are trying to extract is ON the plant not IN it. Fine grinding deposits more plant material into your finished infusions, and that means more herbal green flavor. Yuck.
- When it comes to how to make your edibles not taste like weed, use a heavy hand with herbs, spices, and other flavoring ingredients. While the taste of cannabis might come through in something delicate like vanilla custard, you'll never notice it on a pizza with the works.
- Cannabis infusions like butter and oil lose some of their green flavor when they are cooked. So, for instance, if I were going to medicate a cupcake recipe, I would be better off adding the cannabis to the cake, which is baked, than to the buttercream frosting, which is not cooked at all.
- Depending on how I am going to use it, I will often add water when infusing cannabis butter or marijuana oil. This takes away some of the green color and herbal flavor (although it can still taste mighty weedy). This method works great when you plan to cook with these ingredients, as opposed to say whipping butter for a frosting.
- I love cooking with concentrates as you get far less herbal flavor. Dry ice kief is a favorite. It is easy to find or easy to make (see this page on my website for instructions on making dry ice kief) and can be stirred into most any recipe. See this article for tips on cooking with kief and hash. I have also been using cannabis oil concentrates, especially since getting a Source by Extractcraft as I can now make my own.
- While cookies, brownies, and candies are popular marijuana edibles, from a flavor perspective, savory foods often naturally meld better with the flavor of cannabis, and if they have enough herbs and spices going on, do a better job at masking the flavor we are all trying to avoid.
- For those who consider themselves foodies and cannabis connoisseurs, you can match the terpenes in the cannabis strains you are cooking with to the terpenes in your recipe ingredients. This will make the flavors enhance each other rather than fight each other. For instance, match a strain high in myrcene with a mango dish, or a strain high in alpha-pinene in a dish seasoned with rosemary. Terpene matching has a lot in common with wine tasting. Flavor notes and nuances can be subtle, but when you read about those fancy gourmet cannabis dinners by chefs like Andrea Drummer and Chris Yang, the chefs are usually pairing the strains according to what they are preparing. Be sure to download my Free Terpene Cheat Sheet below as it can help you get started.
- If your cannabis purveyor offers a terpeneless distillate for cooking, try it, you may get results on par with commercial edibles makers. But keep in mind, you will be sacrificing the benefits of full spectrum, whole plant medicine.
Do you have other tips for how to make edibles taste better? Please share them in the comments section of this post!
FREE Terpene Cheat Sheet
Download my free Terpene Cheat Sheet and start using the power of terpenes to improve your edibles' flavor and enhance their medicinal effects. The handy Cheat Sheet, that you can use in the kitchen or take with you to the dispensary, covers 14 of the most common terpenes, the strains they are commonly found in, their medicinal effects, and foods and recipes they work well in. Fill out the form and get your hands on a copy now!
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I always do what’s called a “wet cure” with my cannabis before decarboxylating. I loosely grind the flowers and sugar leaf, put back in the glass Ball jar and add warm water, leaving enough empty space so I can shake the contents. I shake the jar for a minute and leave it to infuse the water with the chlorophyll and other elements that create the bad flavors. THC isn’t water soluble so there’s no worry about losing any to the washes. After an hour or so, the water turns brown. I put some cheesecloth over the mouth of the jar, empty out the dirty water, refill with fresh warm water and repeat the process. Do that until the water doesn’t turn brown anymore. Then spread out the cannabis on a baking sheet to dry and proceed with decarbing and infusing as usual. I make cookies with the canna coconut oil and they taste just like normal cookies. I also add a little liquid sunflower lecithin to the cookie dough to help the effects come on faster. Not too much lecithin because I think it tastes a little like plastic. A teaspoon in a batch of cookies seems right. You’ll find out what amount works for you.
You CAN do a water cure. I personally do not like this method. While THC is not water soluble, I do believe trichomes get knocked off the plant this way and you lose some. But if it works for you, great. There is more than one method, I just don’t personally like this one.
As far as lecithin, it also does not seem necessary in this case. Lecithin helps bind fats to water and this seems unnecessary in a cookie recipe. As far as lecithin “bringing on the effects faster,” if you feel it does, then do what works for you. There is no scientific proof of this and personally, I have never felt a difference.
I do an Everclear soak. How would I get the green out?
You can’t really get the green out, but you can avoid letting the green in, something you may or may not want to do depending on what you are using the finished tincture for. The shorter the alcohol wash, the less green. You can also finely filter which will remove some green. How do you plan to use the tincture?
I was wondering in regards to collored foods, ex. Red Velvet cookies, are there any tips for getting the same color in original recipes? Or should I just experiment and try to figure it out. I’m trying to get a new baked line out for my shop, and I’m a little stumped. Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope you’re having a splendid day
I am not sure what you are asking. Sorry. Color should not be any different than adding color to any nonmedicated recipe.
I let my rough shake soak at least overnight in room temp water to leach out nasty flavor, draining and re-soaking several times. I use enough shake that losing a few trichromes here and there isn’t an issue. Then I add my butter and more fresh water and simmer slowly for 3-4 hours before straining through a jelly bag and then cool. I use about an ounce of good shake to a cup and a half of butter to get a full cup of ghee by the time I’m finished. Makes great shortbread cookies with a surprisingly mild flavor compared to not doing the leach first.
Cheri . Love Love Your Very Informative Site ….The Best That I’ve Seen !!!!!………I’ve Got 7 grams Of Hashish ……..What Are My Options Please …….My Lungs Are Poor & I Can’t Smoke Anymore !!! …….Video Recipes Would Be Greatly Appreciated ……Please Respond With Videos & Pricing For Recipes . Thanking You In Advance For Your Kind & Speedy Response
Thank you for the kind words. I am not sure what you asking for. There are tons of recipes on this site, as well as articles on cooking with kief and hash. You can find my cannabis cookbooks on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Cheri-Sicard/e/B001IO9U9Y/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1531324920&sr=8-1
For videos please see my comprehensive online cooking course at http://www.Cannademy.com .
Thank You So Much For Your Speedy Response To My Previous E-mail . I Guess That My Questions(?) Are……. Do You Have A “Detailed Instruction Video” For Me To Process My “Chunk Of Hashish” ??….Do I Grind It Up Some How ?? Do I Melt It Down Some Way?? How Many Cookies Will This Chunk Produce Or How Many Brownie Cakes Should I Be Expecting To Make ?? Are Cookies Or Brownies The Best & Easiest Way For Me To Process This “Chunk” ??…….Once Again I’m Looking Forward To Hearing From You To Help Me In This Matter & Thanking You Again
There is no single answer to how much it will make. That depends on a bunch of different factors including how strong the hash is, your tolerance, how strong you want the cookies to be. Take my free dosing class to start to get a handle on dosing, although my full cooking course and advanced dosing courses deal more with hash and kief. As to processing, I talk about cooking with hash and kief both the course and on this website. You would decarboxylate it, grind or grate it or dissolve in butter or oil, depending on what you are cooking, and use it that way. See these links as well
Cooking with Kief and Hash – https://www.cannabischeri.com/food/cooking-basics/cooking-with-cannabis-concentrates-kief-and-hash/
Kief and Hash Texture Issues – https://www.cannabischeri.com/ask-cheri/keep-kief-powerdy/
I was wondering in regards to collored foods, ex. Red Velvet cookies, are there any tips for getting the same color in original recipes? Or should I just experiment and try to figure it out. I’m trying to get a new baked line out for my shop, and I’m a little stumped. Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope you’re having a splendid day
I HAVE BEEN SEARCHING &RESEARCHING OPTIMAL TIME/TEMPS FOR DECARBING & INFUSING THC . CURRENTLY USE A LEVO II & ALTHOUGH IT ONLY MAKES “SMALL BATCHES” IT FITS MY NEEDS. CURRENTLY DECARB AT 240*F FOR 60 MINUTES & INFUSE AT 75-80*F FOR 8-12 HOURS(TEMPS SUFFICIENT TO KEEP COCONUT &/OR OLIVE OIL LIQUID) LEVO RECOMMENDS INFUSION TEMPS OF 160-180*F …MY THOUGHT IS THAT INFUSING AT HI TEMPS IS UNNECESSARY & DEGRADES THC &TERPENES. DO YOU HAVE TIME/TEMP RECCOMENDATIONS TO MAXIMIZE DECARBOXALATION &INFUSION ABSORBTION
SORRY FOR “ALL CAPS”… I’M NOT SHOUTING MY KEYBOARD IS STUCK
I am not a fan of the Levo because it does not allow you to use much cannabis. You do not need to infuse for 8 hours, although you can. Find decarb info here
https://cannabischeri.com/mary-jane/learning/marijuana-decarboxylation/
I have several articles on infusing, none on this site use the Levo, but there are articles on infusing in slow cookers, Mason jars or the Ardent FX or Nova, those will all be in the cooking basics section.