LeastExpectedGrower
Well-Known Member
It's been a while since a thread on THC infused honey...so why not.
I have some honey this year. Started out with 132lbs at the end of September to be exact. Half of it was 'early harvest' done in early July (think spring flowers, apple/pear blossom and larger tree/plant nectar & pollen), the second half was fall harvest. That ends up being about 2 and 1/3 5 gallon buckets worth.
A shot from mid-fall harvest. I run it through a fine sieve twice, but no other heating or filtration.
Yes...I have a couple hives, and yes it's both fun & work; and sometimes like having 80,000 mostly annoyed ex-girlfriends living in the corner of your yard.
I also happened to have a half pound of newly harvested/dried/cured cannabis on hand plus almost an ounce of trim. So, you know... time to play.
One of the prevalent online types of infused honey recipes is two-ingredient...just honey & cannabis; decarbed and then slow heated (crockpot or double boiler) for a number of hours. The second is the more traditional infuse oil, use an emulsifier, then add to honey and heat method.
I decided to try the first to see what would happen. There's all sorts of guarantees that you don't need fat to bond with the THC and the honey will deliver. I'm interested in if anyone has had luck with this method. Have YOU done it; how did you find it?
. 
So here it is. You'll notice that the honey is dark amber/orange. Anytime you heat honey (or beeswax) up past about 180-185 it darkens and in the honey, you lose some of the other beneficials. Not too worried about that, I have plenty of unheated honey in my life. The cannabis (trim plus a little small popcorn bud, amounting to about 2/3 of an ounce) was decarbed at 240f for about 45 minutes in the oven in a mason jar. Shaken a few times during. In retrospect I think I didn't de-carb enough to really 'activate' the THC. The decarbed cannabis was combined with 2 cups (by volume) of honey, and put in a crockpot water bath for 6 hours.
Findings: Don't know if it was a botched de-carb, or if its the 'THC can't bond with sugars (though it has a low water content)' thing...result after a week of moving from 1/4 teaspoon all the way up to 2 teaspoons...was none of the THC related stuff...no cerebral/mental high, no body effects, etc. BUT (and this is actually a great thing too)...a half a spoonful of this and you'll go to bed and feel nuthin' special then sleep like a deadman/woman for 8 hours and wake up feeling great. I've never slept as good as when testing this out. We'll actually use the crap out of this on 'work week' nights.
---------
Next up...trying one of the other recipe styles... this time with coconut oil, sunflower lecithin, etc. So yeah...Here we go again. Decarbed about 9g each of Tangerine Dream (auto, sativa leaning), and Blueberry (auto, indica leaning).
This time it was 250f for just over an hour, same mason jar method, shaking it ever 15 minutes. Next I dropped in a half cup of 'virgin' coconut oil...that's what the label says anyway, and there were no signs of molestation or appendage prints in the solidified oil, so I'll assume that no one had deflowered it. And a good tablespoon plus of lecithin each jar (shake well to combine).
The next 3.5 hours each jar went into the water bath at ~185F give or take. At this point I pulled it, cooled the jars and stashed them in the 'deep freeze' overnight. In the morning I let the jars warm up and then they went back into the heat bath at ~185f for another hour and 15 or so. Towards the end of the oil's time in the bathI warmed two more jars with 400g (about 1.5 cups) of honey each so it would be liquid; just about 10 or 15 minutes.
Once both were out of the bath and cool enough to handle, strained the oil/cannabis/lecithin mixture out of each jar into new jars. I used my fine mesh strainer with a couple added layers of cheesecloth and used some pressure to push as much of the free oil through as possible. After that I took the spent cannabis solids and wrapped and twisted/squeezed out any last oil remnants into each jar..discarded the leftover out in the wilderness behind the house.
Next I poured the honey into the mixture, and spent a good amount of time shaking and reshaking across a few hours. As it cooled and I could see a little bit of oil separating, I added a bit more lecithin and shook well and that took care of that.
Jar with fine strainer & canning funnel ready to go:
Before the straining begins:
Looks good, but you can see the oil separating at the top a bit:
More Lecithin added, lookin' good:
And here with a little stir is where we end up when cool:
Definitely a funky texture...closer to those 'whipped creamed honey' products. Herbal smelling (but not awful), and with pretty dominant coconut flavor happening. Took about half a teaspoon (Tangerine Dream jar) an hour after dinner last night (big bowl of chili with melted cheddar), and after about 90 minutes I wasn't getting much. Throwing caution to the wind and knowing I would be climbing into bed soon, I took another 1/4 of a teaspoon. Lucky that bed was happening because I was safely under the covers when it all came crashing in. Boom, the kind of full body & slightly psychedelic high that says you've really taken 2 or 3x as much as you need.
I'm going to play with this second recipe some more. I think the half cup of coconut oil is too much and it could possibly come down to 1/4 cup or maybe less, and retain more of the honey vibe and less of the fatty frosting like texture. That probably would also allow me to use less lecithin. I'll also play with less cannabis. Ideally, it would be perfect to get a light but present buzz with a teaspoon and something heftier with two. Then you can use it more like you'd do when snacking, or in tea, etc.
Thoughts, ideas and/or anything you've tried that worked?
I have some honey this year. Started out with 132lbs at the end of September to be exact. Half of it was 'early harvest' done in early July (think spring flowers, apple/pear blossom and larger tree/plant nectar & pollen), the second half was fall harvest. That ends up being about 2 and 1/3 5 gallon buckets worth.
A shot from mid-fall harvest. I run it through a fine sieve twice, but no other heating or filtration.
Yes...I have a couple hives, and yes it's both fun & work; and sometimes like having 80,000 mostly annoyed ex-girlfriends living in the corner of your yard.
I also happened to have a half pound of newly harvested/dried/cured cannabis on hand plus almost an ounce of trim. So, you know... time to play.
One of the prevalent online types of infused honey recipes is two-ingredient...just honey & cannabis; decarbed and then slow heated (crockpot or double boiler) for a number of hours. The second is the more traditional infuse oil, use an emulsifier, then add to honey and heat method.
I decided to try the first to see what would happen. There's all sorts of guarantees that you don't need fat to bond with the THC and the honey will deliver. I'm interested in if anyone has had luck with this method. Have YOU done it; how did you find it?
. So here it is. You'll notice that the honey is dark amber/orange. Anytime you heat honey (or beeswax) up past about 180-185 it darkens and in the honey, you lose some of the other beneficials. Not too worried about that, I have plenty of unheated honey in my life. The cannabis (trim plus a little small popcorn bud, amounting to about 2/3 of an ounce) was decarbed at 240f for about 45 minutes in the oven in a mason jar. Shaken a few times during. In retrospect I think I didn't de-carb enough to really 'activate' the THC. The decarbed cannabis was combined with 2 cups (by volume) of honey, and put in a crockpot water bath for 6 hours.
Findings: Don't know if it was a botched de-carb, or if its the 'THC can't bond with sugars (though it has a low water content)' thing...result after a week of moving from 1/4 teaspoon all the way up to 2 teaspoons...was none of the THC related stuff...no cerebral/mental high, no body effects, etc. BUT (and this is actually a great thing too)...a half a spoonful of this and you'll go to bed and feel nuthin' special then sleep like a deadman/woman for 8 hours and wake up feeling great. I've never slept as good as when testing this out. We'll actually use the crap out of this on 'work week' nights.
---------
Next up...trying one of the other recipe styles... this time with coconut oil, sunflower lecithin, etc. So yeah...Here we go again. Decarbed about 9g each of Tangerine Dream (auto, sativa leaning), and Blueberry (auto, indica leaning).
This time it was 250f for just over an hour, same mason jar method, shaking it ever 15 minutes. Next I dropped in a half cup of 'virgin' coconut oil...that's what the label says anyway, and there were no signs of molestation or appendage prints in the solidified oil, so I'll assume that no one had deflowered it. And a good tablespoon plus of lecithin each jar (shake well to combine).
The next 3.5 hours each jar went into the water bath at ~185F give or take. At this point I pulled it, cooled the jars and stashed them in the 'deep freeze' overnight. In the morning I let the jars warm up and then they went back into the heat bath at ~185f for another hour and 15 or so. Towards the end of the oil's time in the bathI warmed two more jars with 400g (about 1.5 cups) of honey each so it would be liquid; just about 10 or 15 minutes.
Once both were out of the bath and cool enough to handle, strained the oil/cannabis/lecithin mixture out of each jar into new jars. I used my fine mesh strainer with a couple added layers of cheesecloth and used some pressure to push as much of the free oil through as possible. After that I took the spent cannabis solids and wrapped and twisted/squeezed out any last oil remnants into each jar..discarded the leftover out in the wilderness behind the house.
Next I poured the honey into the mixture, and spent a good amount of time shaking and reshaking across a few hours. As it cooled and I could see a little bit of oil separating, I added a bit more lecithin and shook well and that took care of that.
Jar with fine strainer & canning funnel ready to go:
Before the straining begins:
Looks good, but you can see the oil separating at the top a bit:
More Lecithin added, lookin' good:
And here with a little stir is where we end up when cool:
Definitely a funky texture...closer to those 'whipped creamed honey' products. Herbal smelling (but not awful), and with pretty dominant coconut flavor happening. Took about half a teaspoon (Tangerine Dream jar) an hour after dinner last night (big bowl of chili with melted cheddar), and after about 90 minutes I wasn't getting much. Throwing caution to the wind and knowing I would be climbing into bed soon, I took another 1/4 of a teaspoon. Lucky that bed was happening because I was safely under the covers when it all came crashing in. Boom, the kind of full body & slightly psychedelic high that says you've really taken 2 or 3x as much as you need.
I'm going to play with this second recipe some more. I think the half cup of coconut oil is too much and it could possibly come down to 1/4 cup or maybe less, and retain more of the honey vibe and less of the fatty frosting like texture. That probably would also allow me to use less lecithin. I'll also play with less cannabis. Ideally, it would be perfect to get a light but present buzz with a teaspoon and something heftier with two. Then you can use it more like you'd do when snacking, or in tea, etc.
Thoughts, ideas and/or anything you've tried that worked?
We don't need a single rice-crispy treat to last us a week... we'd like to have one decent sized treat to be a night's worth of effect per person.
