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Is It Necessary to Make Infusions when Cooking with Cannabis Concentrates? 

By Cheri Sicard
September 2, 2020

A question I am frequently asked concerns cooking with cannabis concentrates like FECO, RSO, Hash Oils (in all their various forms and textures), Isolates, and Distillates.  The question is always the same:

When cooking with cannabis concentrates, do I need to make an infused cannabis butter or oil with the concentrate OR can I just stir the concentrate into the recipe?

Good news!  You do not need to take the time to make a long, slow cooking infusion when cooking with cannabis concentrates!

Assuming your concentrate is already decarboxylated, you can simply stir it into your recipe.  

This works especially well with powdered isolates or distillates.

How to Add Sticky Cannabis Concentrates to Recipes

When you are working with hash, wax, budders, rosin, etc. it's not quite as easy as just stirring into the recipe, like you can with a powder.

In most cases you will first need to dissolve the concentrate into one of the recipe's ingredients.  Doing so will help you incorporate the medication more evenly and help you avoid some portions that are over medicated while others lack potency.  

If your recipe does contain butter, oil, or another fat, these are good ingredients to gently heat and stir in the concentrate until it has melted.  

If your recipe does not contain butter or oil, you might dissolve in milk, or stir into mayonnaise or some other ingredient.

  The idea is to EVENLY incorporate the cannabis concentrate into an ingredient before evenly incorporating that ingredient into your recipe.

But the bottom line when cooking with cannabis concentrates:  long cooking infusions like cannabutter and cannaoil are not necessary.

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About the author

Cheri Sicard is the author of Mary Jane: The Complete Marijuana Handbook for Women, and The Easy Cannabis Cookbook.  Her online courses at Cannademy.com have educated 1000s of students about marijuana, cannabis cooking for home cooks, and making infused topicals.

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