Help with Canna Honey Please...

Howdy, BanjoDude.


The honey can extract the cannabinoids but it's slow going and not as strong as if you had used a solvent of some sort and mixed the two. A lot of commercially available infused honey is honey and infused glycerin or coconut oil with an emulsifier with the honey itself not being infused. While popular, this does not really give you a potent product.


I make my honey using a Green Dragon, alcohol, extraction and after I mix the concentrated tincture with the honey, I evaporate off the alcohol which then leaves the cannabinoids behind in the honey. It's very effective and you can make it any potency you want. Because you heat the honey to evaporate the alcohol, it will lose it's latent moisture and thicken up a bit too much to use well with a dropper but if you tailor the potency so that the dose is a teaspoon, like a table honey, you'll have a very valuable way to dose.

 

I have no doubt that it will be successful. Using the freezer instead of heat to extract makes the final product very clean. The main job is done by the brittle trichomes meeting the ice cold alcohol. The heat from the evaporation really only concentrates your cannabinoids. They go into solution with the alcohol within minutes and will remain that way whether you use heat for reduction or just air evaporation. I'm currently evaporating a batch naturally for a project and had it tested a couple of times and have the same results as a heated one.


The dosing is pretty easy if you know the profile of the material. I have found with all my testing that by coincidence a GD reduced to a general ratio of 4g per 1 fl oz will produce a potency very similar to the cannabinoid percentage of the material. For example, if you have a strain with 20% cannabinoids per gram and you make your GD to the ratio mentioned, 4g/fl oz, then your GD will test out to about 20mg per milliliter


When you transfer your cannabinoids to the honey you will retain the same strength but because of the difference in viscosity and absorption mechanics, I allow 1ml per dose instead of just a few drops. Unfortunately, if you make the honey at a 1:1 ratio, it will be too thick to use with a dropper very well. It's better to use more honey than GD to give you a better dosing option as well as keeping the serving size at a familiar volume for most people.


If you have a 20mg/ml GD and want to make an infused honey with a dose of 10mg/teaspoon, you would use that 1oz of GD with 4 fl oz of honey. Each oz of that GD has 600mg of cannabinoids which will be transferred to your honey. A teaspoon is 5ml. Each ounce of honey will have 150mg and each ml is 5mg. 2ml is 10mg but that is still too strong for what you want. I'm going through this like this to show you how to calculate the dosage.


Since you don't want it that strong use 6-8 oz of honey. 6oz will give you 3.3mg/ml and 8 would give you 2.5g/ml or 12.5mg/tsp. One thing that I recommend before you transfer your GD is to winterize your final GD, after reduction. That will remove the excess waxes and oils, polar compounds, and give you a nice clean honey. It takes 36 hours in the freezer for those waxes to coagulate enough for filtering. You don't have to but it makes a cleaner product.


By the way, the reported THC/CBD percentages are generally the total of the THC and CBD isomers which also include THCA, THCV and CBDA along with CBDV. Of course, during the decarb the THCA is converted to THC but the CBD will remain fairly stable while the CBDA converts to other cannabinoids. Very little CBDA converts to CBD but the things it becomes are as important to the overall effects as the CBD.

 

No, I'm not assuming 100% extraction. I'm just saying that by coincidence a Green Dragon with a general ratio of 4g/fl oz has a similar set of numbers to the raw material. However, milliliters are 1 decimal point further right than percentage of the raw material. For example, if your bud tests at 24% total cannabinoids that means there are 240mg in that gram of bud but a GD with a ratio of 4g/oz will have only around 24mg/ml. You will never get 100% extraction because there will always be some residual left behind but this coincidence has proven to be the case time after time after time in my personal lab tests..


It's the mg/ml that you can be pretty sure about at that ratio and because of that you know how much is in your honey and can calculate that your numbers will correspond equally in the honey. You're not using an extraction now but instead, a solvent transfer where the potency is a known factor, although it is only 1/10 of the bud percentage so, like I said, it's just convenient that it works that way but it does give you a good platform.


Now that I know that you are going to use 151, I can add a few pointers. You can reduce as far as you want with it for this application, even if it separates. 151 is high enough in alcohol volume that it will give you as good an extraction as 190, but it's going to be a little more uncertain for your dosing and I propose that instead of only partially reducing to the separation point, reduce your solution all the way down, including the water, until you get an oil. At that point you would add 1.5 oz of fresh 151 and stir it until it reconstitues. Then use that for your honey dosing.


You might think to just use the oil alone to infuse the honey but the concentrated oil does not infuse into the honey as well as when it's being transferred to the honey by the alcohol solution.


Let me just give you another example concerning the extraction and dosing using your Chemdawg. That strain is around 16-19%, so we'll use the middle of that range, 18%. In each gram of bud there will be 180mg and in your 7g you'll have 1260mg and that would be your total with 100% extraction. Your GD will have 17-18mg per milliliter at 4g/oz or 540mg/oz. 7g of material will give you 1.75fl oz of your alcohol extraction for a total of 945mg if you use the whole thing in your honey. THIS is the number you use for your dosing. In this example, that is a 75% extraction rate which is comparable to the most efficient concentrates.


You could use your dosing in this manner: You have 945mg and you want 10mg doses which means that you have 94.5 doses. Then you want that dose in 1 teaspoon, or 5ml, so 94.5 doses would equal 472ml of honey which in turns tells us that you want to use 15.75 fluid ounces of honey for your 7g of GD. You can do this by weight, also, if you have the desire.


BTW, keep the lid off the crockpot until all the alcohol is gone then you can put it on. Get the honey hot before you add the GD and heat until the dark oil you'll see dissipates.

 

If you're using raw honey then definitely leave that. It will help. When you heat your transfer, your honey will get thicker because of it so there are a couple of things that you can do in addition. First, measure your raw honey then when the oil has dissipated into the honey, let it cool some and then measure it again. Even with the extra water from the 151 you'll lose some moisture and then that will throw off your dosage a bit. My suggestion here is to add fresh honey to reach your volume mark and then heat the honey just a little more to blend the fresh into the infused. It won't be a lot and the fresh honey will thin it some.


Another thing you can do is thin your honey with distilled water first. Add an extra ounce of water and heat it into the raw honey until it blends into the mixture. Then you add your GD and proceed.


You'll be able to judge what you need to do. Just watch it. Towards the end when everything is infused, you'll probably start to see foam bubbles in the honey and that's usually an indication that it's finished.


Feel free to ask any questions during the process.

 

How do I add oil to the honey

 

What kind of oil do you want to add?

 

Cannabis oil ,it's not alcohol base

 

It doesn't matter what the extracting solvent was. It should easily dissolve in 190 or 151 proof drinking spirits, ethanol.


Do you know how to decarb your oil? You'll need to do that first.

 

No, can you please tell me how.

 

If I have the honey heated up before I add the oil and then heat for 20min

 

There are 2 ways to decarb your oil that I'm aware of and which you use will be up to you.


You can place your oil in a heat resistant glass container and then place that in a hot oil bath. Hot oil would consist of some cooking oil in a pan and keeping it at 240°F. Set your container of oil in the hot oil bath. The cannabis oil should start bubbling, small bubbles. Those are the CO2 being released as it decarbs. When the bubbling stops the decarb is finished.


Another way is to place your oil in a 240°F oven until the bubbles stop.

Once you've decarbed your oil, it's best to dissolve it in some 151 or 190 proof alcohol and add that to your heated honey. Continue heating until the alcohol has evaporated and the oil has dissipated into the honey. You'll know that it's finished when the alcohol bubbles stop and the honey starts to foam a little. Different kind of bubbles.


Bubbles, bubbles everywhere.

 

Is the oil already Decarb if it comes from a dispensary

 

Sorry but unfortunately, it's not. I think it's a product that they should have for those who do want to make edibles with it.

 

Tina, making edibles with concentrates isn't real convenient if you only have a gram or two and have to pay dispensary prices. However, if that's the position you're in but have a little patience, you can get that hash oil to decarb itself. You can add it to a little alcohol and let it sit for 3 months. It will naturally decarb in that time with the help of the alcohol and after that time you can easily use it to make some honey.


I didn't want you to get discouraged. Infused honey is good.