CBD isolate
Isolate is a pure CBD chemical extract with no other compounds from the plant or extraction method. Perfect extraction creates a clear, whitish, crystalline form that can become a white powder if crushed. Isolate that isn’t highly refined often has a damp, yellowish appearance, a reflection of its origin.
You can cleanly add isolate to a carrier oil, leaving no residual cannabis taste or smell. It’s mostly still used as an additive; however, people have been known to vaporize it exclusively for its effects.
Infusing CBD
Infusion is a common DIY method of extracting the beneficial compounds from plant matter’s chemicals and aromas. The process is worth exploring more if you have the time and interest.
Discovering the basics of CBD infusions
Most of cannabis’s plant matter is in lipid form, so the best way to create an infusion is with another oil-based material — butter, coconut oil, ghee (a clarified butter), or whatever. This combination results in bioavailability, or your body’s ability to take in the chemicals. Soaking the plant matter for an extended period imparts the valuable chemicals and aromas are into the carrier or base oil. Heat can also create this transfer as long as the heat isn’t so high that it compromises the plant’s integrity.
You can use CBD flower to supplement almost anything. It’s a great addition in butter for cookies, ghee for curries, oils for salad dressing, and so on. You do want to know the actual concentration of full-spectrum plant chemicals you’re infusing into your oil. All reputable providers — at the dispensary or online — will provide you with the certificate of analysis (COA), which outlines the concentration of cannabinoids and sometimes even terpenes in what you’re buying. The CBD concentration is written as a percentage; common numbers range from 5 percent to 25 percent, with 5 being low strength and 25 being the highest.
Calculating concentrations like a champ
To calculate CBD concentrations, you have to convert the percentage of CBD in the flower to the number of milligrams in the volume of the flower. From there, you separate the volume into milligram servings based on your dosing requirements; that may be anywhere from five to a couple of hundred milligrams depending on your needs.
Don’t worry; you don’t need some fancy graphing calculator to figure this stuff out. The app on your phone is just fine. Here’s an example.
You have 1 gram of 15 percent CBD flower, and you want a 10-milligram dose per 1 tablespoon of oil. Convert 15 percent to a decimal (divide 15 by 100) to get 0.15.
Convert 1 gram to milligrams; 1 gram is 1,000 milligrams. Multiply 0.15 by 1,000 to get the amount of CBD per gram of flower.
0.15 CBD × 1,000 milligrams = 150 milligrams/1 gram of flower
For a 10-milligram dose, divide 150 by 10 to get the number of servings.
150 milligrams CBD/10 milligrams CBD = 15 servings
Therefore, you need 15 tablespoons of oil for 1 gram of flower to have a 10 milligram/1 tablespoon ratio of CBD to oil.
Two grams of the same flower would be 300 milligrams per gram of flower (2 × 150 = 300), 3 grams would be 450 milligrams, and so on.
Infusing CBD at home
The best way to pick up a new skill is to do it. Because infusions are so time-tested and safe to make and use, now is a great time to dive in. You’ll need a few items that may already be lying around your kitchen if you delight in trying out new or specialty recipes. To be fully prepared to begin, grab a grinder or mortar and pestle, something to cook the infusion in (more on that in Step 3), and a fine mesh strainer. Cheesecloth also works!
1 Figure out the concentration.I explain the math for this process in the preceding section.
2 Grind the flower.Grinding the flower makes exposing every little bit and immersing it in your oil of choice easier.
3 Combine the base oil or fat in the appropriate volume to the cooker.Olive oil, coconut oil, butter, ghee, sesame oil — the options are endless from an oil standpoint.As for the cooking device, you want something that controls the heat over time so you get a proper infusion. A host of tools are readily available, from stovetop double boilers to slow cookers. You can also get options made specifically for the cannabis and hemp market. Levo and Ardent are two great brands.
4 Cover the cooker, set it to high, and cook for one hour.
5 Turn the cooker down to low and cook for two to three hours.The slow and low heat is important here because the heat and time create a chemical reaction necessary to activate the cannabinoids in the CBD flower. This reaction is properly known as decarboxylation.
6 Strain the mixture through a fine mesh strainer or a cheesecloth to remove the plant matter.
7 Store your infused oil in an airtight container.An airtight container is important here because when you expose cannabis to oxygen over a long period, it activates prematurely. That early activation ultimately degrades the potency and flavor. If you use butter or animal fat, put it in the fridge or freezer if you don’t intend to use it all right away.
Using CBD Extracts to Make a Product
Whether you make CBD extract at home or you buy one of the many available in stores, making, cooking, or preparing CBD anything at home is easy breezy. It’s as simple as having another ingredient to add to whatever you’re making, as long as what you’re making requires some sort of fatty or oil-based substance.
Creating a useable topical or consumable product
Creating an effective home product by using CBD is quite simple if you stick to fatty oil and animal fat extracts. (You can use extracts that have other compounds in them or that aren’t fat-soluble, but that’s outside the scope of this book.) The most important piece is knowing how to create proper doses within your recipe. The formulas are pretty straightforward:
Amount of CBD in container (in milligrams)/Size of dose (in milligrams) = Number of CBD doses per container
Volume of vial for your final product (in milliliters)/Number of CBD doses = Volume of product dose
Here’s an example: Say you have a 315-milligram tincture vial of CBD, and your personal dose is 15 milligrams. Plug those numbers into the formula, and you find that you can get 21 doses from that vial:
315 milligrams/15 milligrams = 21 doses
Now look at the size of the vial
