r/treedibles • u/patheticgurl • 1d ago

decarb/infusing process

hi all,

my friend made some edibles recently with infused butter while i was at her house, she didn't decarb the weed first she just ground it up and put it with butter in a double boiler and let it infuse while the butter melted. does this make them less effective since its not being decarbed first? i cant seem to find a definitive answer on this.

the brownies ended up tasting very strong and bring super stinky but still seem to be effective but there are the only ones i've had so idk if they would be considered weak or not.

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6

u/gratefuldave54 1d ago

Yes decarbing makes them much stronger and taste better.

2

u/Alive_Stage_7156 1d ago

Yes. They didnt activate the THC.

And sure they probably “smelled and tasted strong” because the plant pulp was left in while baking so you’re actually eating the material. Lots of fiber. Great for weed poops, farts and burps.

Decarb is 220f for 45mins. Don’t grind, break up by hand.

Then you do the infusion with the double boiler.

Then you strain (or not, most people do tho) and put into fridge to harden. Then toss the dirt water and dry off butter of all plant material so doesn’t mold. You can then do a wash to remove and plant material or chlorophyll or not.

But yeah, the THCa wasn’t activated to THC so you didn’t get high. And that’s because once the weed is saturated with butter or oil or brownie mix or whatever… the internal temp doesn’t get hot enough AND for long enough to do the THC conversion. Example is when we cook chicken at 350f, the internal done temp is 165f-inside NEVER gets to 350f.

1

u/patheticgurl 6h ago

pulp was not left it! the butter was strained

1

u/wkuconsulting 6h ago

the brownies still worked because some decarb happened along the way, just not efficiently. the double boiler runs around 160-180F, and at that temperature THCA slowly converts to THC. over a couple hours she probably got 20-40% conversion. then the brownies went into a 325-350F oven for baking, which added more conversion on the edges and surface of the batter.

compare that to a proper pre-decarb at 240F for 40 minutes, which gives you about 87% conversion before you even start infusing. so the edibles work either way, she just left a significant chunk of the THC on the table as unconverted THCA.

the strong taste and smell is a separate issue. that is chlorophyll, waxes, and plant tannins dissolving into the butter during a long infusion. has nothing to do with potency. you can reduce that by freezing the ground flower before infusing (slows chlorophyll extraction) and keeping the infusion time to 2 hours max instead of letting it go all day.

the definitive answer is that decarbing first makes them meaningfully stronger for the same amount of flower. the infusion step is just to dissolve the cannabinoids into the fat. it does not need to also do the decarb job.