The Best Hacks for the Marijuana Home Cook

Cooking at home is on the rise: 60% of us cook at home more than five days a week. While there are favorite recipes, some are also experiments with new flavors, new styles, new methods—and maybe even cannabis. To help you, here are the best hacks for the marijuana home cook!

Clean your cannabis

Some plants, especially outdoor plants, can be contaminated with dirt, bacteria and even bird droppings. First, avoid this by purchasing clean nuggets from a reliable source. Fix a bad situation by cooking the nuggets carefully, as boiling water is not hot enough to affect the cannabinoids you are targeting with an infusion.

RELATED: Do This With Marijuana Before Making Edibles

Photo by underworld111/Getty Images

Decarboxylate

This step converts the active ingredients from THC-A in the raw plant into tissue-penetrating THC. Skip this step and your edibles may reach you hours later in your liver rather than your mouth, stomach, esophagus, etc. where they will take effect more quickly.

Strain with gloves

DO NOT press or strain with bare hands. Not only is it unhygienic, you'll also get stoned. The sheer quantity will definitely make you feel something. People say that's not true, but it happened to me a few times when I broke this essential rule. Also, you can use a spatula to rescue the last drops of your brew from gloved fingers, you can't do that with bare hands, ew.

Illustration by Danielle Guercio

Use devices whenever possible

Devices can be helpful because they do a lot of the tricky work for you. Temperature control, stirring, and timing are all things you can screw up, no matter how great a cook you are. When I tried the Magical Butter, I realized that technology is about to go wild in the cannabis world.

Use a good saturation ratio

Try not to overfill the infusion with flowers; You need to have enough liquid to actually strain. The less liquid you use, the harder it will be to recapture the treat-filled liquid. A good starter ratio is 1 gram of material per 1 ounce of medium, be it alcohol or glycerin.

Invest in a soda stream

If you enjoy adding mocktails and cocktails to your creations, buying canned and bottled seltzer is not only bad for the environment, it's also bad for your wallet. A soda stream pays for itself within months and you always have bubbles on hand.

Photo by Flickr user mariobonifacio

The freezer is your friend

Store anything you won't eat immediately in the freezer, where its shelf life will be significantly extended. Even a bottle with a few drops of olive oil can enhance a salad when the time comes. The same goes for the brownie, which you cleverly cut in half and keep in the freezer so it doesn't go bad. Garnish with ice cream another day!

Don't overdo the heat

One reason you don't see many sauteed or fried cannabis products is for the simple reason that the direct heat of a pan or grill could kill the party vibe and leave you with sleepy CBN. You can grill and fry things, but try to use things that cook quickly or add the cannabis after the fact. Ovens are such a common use because of the even and controlled heat. Staying below 350 degrees is the smart plan.

RELATED: 7 Super Easy Ways to Add THC to Your Coffee

With these tips, you can now avoid most major ganja mistakes. Now you can do your best while you wait to be able to purchase cannabis cooking tools in the store like we should have done from the start.

Illustrations by Danielle Guercio