Making Glycerin-based Cannabis Tincture

 

 

I like tinctures. They’re fun to make and they are great to add to teas or anything else really. Sometimes they’re made with alcohol, but I prefer glycerin for my cannabis tincture. I’ve made it the other way, but I don’t typically consume alcohol, and the glycerin tastes better, so there you have it. For this tincture, I used Cuvee, Galactic Jack, Orange Vision, Pennywise, and The Flav, with Indica dominant over Sativa in the blend. And thanks to MzJill and SubCool at TGA Genetics SubCool Seeds for their endless commitment to patients. Their strains are awesome!

Apologies in advance for no pictures of the decarboxylation process, but I got involved and forgot to take them. But the process is simple. I don’t grind the cannabis, but instead gently break up the dried buds to take out as much stem as I can and then put them in a turkey sized oven bag. The reason I don’t pre-grind the bud is that doing so disturbs the trichomes too much in my opinion, so whatever I do with the bud while handling it, I do it carefully. I put that on a cookie sheet in the oven at 240 degrees for about 45 minutes. An hour is also fine because the bag protects it from burning. Several times I took the bag out and redistributed the cannabis for even heating. When it was done, I took it out of the oven, letting it cool a little bit so that the terpenes didn’t escape. It did get a little moist in there while that happened, but it only took around 5 minutes or so to become cool. It’s great to use one of these bags to decarboxylate with because otherwise the house reeks from the smell. Unless of course, you happen to like that smell.

After the decarb process, I broke up the cannabis bud further and put it into the crockpot on the Keep Warm setting. Some folks have said that the Warm setting is too warm, but I haven’t been able to verify it. I just made myself insane trying to find one that actually said “Keep Warm” on it. Which I did. And then I measured the temperature anyway. The idea is not to cook the compounds out of it, but to instead, infuse them into the glycerin. After breaking up the bud, I then poured food grade glycerin over it, covering the cannabis. I stirred it around to blend it all together and then let it simmer for a little over twenty four hours. You can also make this without using a crockpot, using a jar and a cupboard, but it takes longer. And you have to shake the jar daily, which I can never remember to do. All I end up with is a glob. So I prefer the crockpot method.

After the cannabis/glycerin cools a bit, with my husband’s assistance, we transferred the mixture to the press. I purchased this press through Rich Gulch Products. It’s the best press I’ve ever used. I don’t know if they’re in business anymore, but I’ve included a picture in case anyone wants to have something to refer to. Eventually you end up with a disc shaped piece of plant material after all the liquid is pressed out. The remaining plant material is fed to the worms in my worm farm. The cleanup process is easy peasy and if you’ve ever strained stuff through cheesecloth, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

And then, voila! You have cannabis tincture! It’s great for pain, controlling inflammation, really anything that I need it for. Even used as a daily tonic, cannabis helps keep my immune system balanced so that it doesn’t run amok again. And now for some pictures! And that’s the finished product at the top of the page!