I ran another small batch this time with the crock put on high, i monitored the temperature closely, turning it back to low to keep the temp regulated and this time the results were phenomenal.

Also, it took about 45 minutes or so for the center to reach 180 degrees farenheit. So you'd have to adjust cooking times.

My conclusion: If you have a crappy crock pot like mine that doesn't heat from the bottom, monitor the temperature if you can, if you can't float your cooking vessel in preheated water in the crockpot on low, that should keep the temperature even througout.

also if you float it, you should probably cover it with tin foil or something, to keep condensation out.

BTW Flame, your a genius!

Is it possible you could detail this a little more. I think I get the idea, but I'm having trouble finalizing it in my head. I think we definitely do have a crappy crock pot. We're just borrowing it from my parents. It only has low and high. We tried low and nothing really happened. You have given us a little bit of hope back as we see it very well could be a the temperature.

How would you suggest pre-heating the water to know you have it hot enough?

You said it hit 180 at 45 minutes.. Did you turn it down at this point? Is there anyway you could estimate what times you had it turned up to high and down to low? Any idea for us to follow would be great.

The only thermometer we have around is a meat thermometer.. Would it be helpful to put that in the crock pot to at least see about where it is?

We've already taken most of them, hoping something would happen, but it hasn't. We have 4 left. Is there any chance that if we squeeze those back out into maybe a shot glass, we could re-cook them and get something back out of them?

These are pretty much just questions out to anyone, if anyone knows. Flame has been great throughout this whole thread. I'm envious of all the knowledge, but I'm trying to get it down

Hi guys, and welcome to thread Kgreen and niltrog

Firstly, can I just say great work on the troubleshooting Kgreen. Spot on!

Getting the temperature just right is sometimes a tricky process.
The problem arises due to the need to keep the weed and oil within quite a narrow temperature band.

It needs to be:

Hot enough to melt the resin heads and allow the THC to amalgamate fully with the butter/oil, but, below the first THC vaporization point, otherwise the THC starts to evaporate.
(Roughly speaking the required range is between: 80 and 140 degrees Centigrade, or 175 and 285 Fahrenheit).

One of the principal reasons for using a crock pot is because it prevents overheating of the weed since, even on the highest setting, most don’t go above 95/100 degrees C.
Remember, due to the simmering times (upwards of two hours or more) if the mix was exposed to anything much higher, even a few degrees over the vaporization point, quite a pit of potency could be lost by just slowly 'leaking away'.


Secondly, (a potential crock pot solution, and an alternative to using the 'Water bath' method) anyone who thinks their crock pot is not getting or maintaining a high enough temperature might consider using an oven instead.

N.B. Ovens generally tend to be a little inconsistent in setting and keeping a constant temperature. My experience in using a fan-assisted electric oven, for example, was problematic (I found that the fan caused the temperature in the oven to be actually much hotter then it was set to - burning off some of the THC), however, assuming you've got access to a fairly reliable oven, it' may well be a better option than 'under-cooking' in an old or inefficient crock pot or 'water bath'.

Oven settings should be at either gas mark 1/2 (120/130 degrees C, or 250 Degrees F), or, if that doesn't seem to be getting hot enough, try at Gas mark 1 (140 degrees C, 275 Degrees F).
N.B. Very important, cooking at gas mark 1 will mean your oven temperature is right on the first THC vaporization point and will potentially reduce your potency if it achieves or exceeds this temperature for any length of time.

For niltrog (and anyone else who might this useful), it sounds from your description like you might be a bit light on the amount of oil in your caps (The consistency of the 'chopped' bud won't have helped either I'm afraid, but don't worry, we may still be able to rescue it).
With bud it can be difficult to gauge exactly how much oil will be needed to fully extract the THC simply because, depending on how dry the bud is, a percentage of oil will be 'soaked' up into the ground plant material.

What you need to try and achieve is a mix which is a little less than half and half (half oil soaked powdered bud, half liquid oil).
It doesn't need to be exact, but try not to end up with a mix that is less than a third oil/two thirds residue, as the effects will be reduced.

My advice would be to squeeze out the contents of the four caps into a very small oven proof container, add some more oil and re-heat (perhaps in the oven this time) for another hour. If you could 'top up' the mix with a 'pinch' or two of finely chopped bud that wouldn't hurt either lol.

Anyhow, thanks for all the kind words guys, and good luck.

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Cannabis Capsules A-step-by-step-guide.

Wow, yeah.. If those are the general temperatures of crockpots, I really think that was one of our bigger problems. That and the mixture being off. We thought it was a little light on oil. but we even put in a little extra. We didn't want to go off of the recipe too badly. We might have an option to grind it down better now too. Now that we have a better idea on how much we should use, I think we're about ready to try it again.

We're going to only do 6 caps worth in a shot glass and hope that helps a little. I was wrong about my number on how many we had left, it was only two, which would be hard to mess with anyways.. We just took them because usually we at least felt a liiiiittle something. We also more recently saw your picture with the bud frothing, and we saw much more liquid.

With that and the temperature a little more understood, this batch could be one. *crosses fingers*

Thanks so much, Flame and everyone. This thread is great!

i dont get this shit.. its WAY to hard to make

the only thing i understand is put 1.5 g's of good bud broken up in the crockpot, wit coconut oil, cook for 2 hours, and injecT??!

We're just about done with this new batch. We're trying half-amounts in a shot glass, and we went with more coconut oil, as per the suggestion. We already waited a while this morning before we started. Then we had to wait for the crock pot to heat up. Then, after an hour, we realize the crock pot is cooling down. We're like.. "um wtf" so we decide to just throw it all in the oven.

We have been using a meat thermometer to track where the air temp and mixture temp have been. We have documented about 2.5 hours at 190-215F. This is since we moved it to the oven. We just ignored any original cooking time in the crock pot. The result so far is a lot closer to Flame's pictures. We have a decent amount of oil sitting on top of some gunk. We're just waiting for it to cool so we can throw it in some capsules. The oil is green. The smell has been what we would think is perfect. It's just been hanging out. We're way excited to see how these one turn out. We think this could be the batch. Here's to hoping everything comes out strong enough

Will post back.

Alright, well.. We took 2 two hours ago and now.. meh.. I think it's a little more than it was with the last batch, but it's not really anything like we were hoping/thinking, based on the responses. We really don't know what could have been up this time. It was definitely cooking 190-215 for just about 2.5 hours.. There was enough coconut oil this time. If anything, it may have been a touch much, but it only made the capsules a little fuller. I don't know if we should take more and hope for more, take them later and get what we can out of them or what.. I have a job interview coming up Monday and if that goes well, we might be a little better off, but right now, we really can't afford to keep losing this much bud to it.

*sigh*

Hi niltrog

I notice from your last post was at the two hour mark, so I'm still hoping they may have worked out for you after all.
Generally it's at least an hour and a half to two hours before people start to feel the effects, and they won't 'peak' until about four or five hours after swallowing. So here's hoping (flameon crosses fingers), otherwise I'll be as disappointed as you!

I made a new batch myself on Thursday (for the weekend), and thought I'd best check the potency in advance. So I took two and waited, after two hours nothing, so I stupidly took a third thinking I must have had some mild weed, ten minutes later however, the first two started to kick in and I was out of it for the rest of the night. lol

Sometimes you never can tell!

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Cannabis Capsules A-step-by-step-guide.

Niltrog, what kind of weed were you using?

I am about to make a batch this evening, I hope, with some sensimilia, its usually pretty high quality stuff, so I am hoping to have a good example of what these little guys can do before the end of the night.

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"This is the ghost of normal everday assumptions which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only "mad-men" ask why. One lives longer in order that he may live longer. There is no other purpose. That is what the ghost says."
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence.

I have been using clarified butter that I made myself, but I think I may have been putting too little in. I'd say my oil:fat ratio is probably 50/50, even though these work very good, and much better since I've been monitoring the temperature a bit closer. Unfortunately I won't be able to make a clear judgement on the next batch. The bud i used to make those last batches was absolute crap. Still though, it took 4 capsules to give me a pleasant high, and that bud was really nasty.

Also, I made a little with some bud I'm sorry to admit to ever smoking. The plants either weren't flushed correctly, or were sprayed with something, or perhaps both and it smelled like perfume, but tasted like popcorn and gave you a wicked headache. I decided to cook it, because I just couldn't take smoking it anymore and i noticed that the high was much clearer, with little to no headache, I wonder if cooking it prevents your body from digesting certain chemicals that may be present in the plant that would normally mess you up if you smoked it?

Been meaning to post, but hadn't quite gotten to yet. That last batch I was talking about is still the last batch we have made, but I can update on what had turned out with them. After that two hour mark, they still hadn't really kicked in much. Like the time before, we could feel maybe a little bit of a high, but it was only like we had smoked a few hours prior and were just tired. Not at all like we had taken the descriptions to be.

Going into the next day, we knew about what time we were going to get up, so we set an alarm for 1.5 hours prior to that. We woke up just enough to take another two and go back to sleep. We woke up about an hour and a half later and got up, hoping maybe it would be stronger in the morning. Again, it was faintly a feeling have having smoked, even though we didn't. We deemed them a bust, but we're not totally discouraged yet.. Just a little wary.

I don't really know what type of pot that last batch was made of. I don't know them well enough to tell. Ultimately though, by the end of the bag, it was getting pretty weak. This had been the same stuff for the past couple weeks, so it was apparently easy to tolerate. We think maybe part of that problem was that it was relatively weak. This new stuff we just got is definitely a lot better, so we're kind of excited to try it again. We just had another few questions before we went for it.

Since our crock pot is broken now, we ended up cooking that last batch in the oven. We had watched the temperature and we marked 2 solid hours at about 215F. Is there something wrong with this method? The original directions in the thread say crock pot or pan on the stove, but we figured that as long as the temp was in the correct range, it would work. Should we maybe cook it at a little bit higher temp, since it seems we could actually go all the way up to 280 and be okay? Those pictures of Flame's batch showed it getting all frothy. Should we be expecting to see frothy? We didn't really.. Maybe a little bit, but I would expect a higher temp to help with that?

We also think we may have gone just a little too much on the oil, so we will have to very careful on that this time. How much of a chance is it that the batch would be very affected by too much oil? We had ground it up better this time, so it cooked down and mixed in a little better, so I think that's why we ended up going a little over. Knowing that now, we'll go a little less, but it's hard to judge. I don't want to end up having too little oil because if I add it, it still had to get cooked into that, taking more time. If we go too much, it might dilute it too much.

So I guess the main questions are about the temp/frothiness, cooking in oven versus stovetop, and how easily the amount of oil will totally void a batch?

Hi Niltrog nice to hear from you again

To cover some of those issues:
The temperature question is possibly the only one that might be a little tricky (most of the important details are explained in post 179).

I'd avoid the water bath method if I were you (although I've used it successfully many times in the past, I've found that too many people are finding it difficult to maintain a high enough temperature for long enough), instead stick with the oven and you'll be fine as long as you remember to keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't get too hot.

I'm comfortable with recommending gas mark 1 as the setting (275 Degrees F) as long as people are aware that if their oven is old (or unreliable) it may get too hot (i.e. above the point when THC starts to evaporate). Even then to be honest a few degrees over probably isn't going to do any noticeable harm. You'll probably be able to spot if its too hot from the increasing 'weed' smell.

Regarding the frothiness of the oil, you'll start to see that at around the 30 minute mark as the weed starts to oxidise in the oil, the amount you get will depend on a number of things.
That particular batch was slightly more frothy than I usually get mostly due to the weed not being dried and cured enough, however after about an hour or so the majority of that will have started to dissipate.

One critical point, make sure your using well dried and activated bud before you grind it up.
Put it in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, again at gas mark 1. This will drive out any water molecules and help convert any remaining inactive compounds into active THC (depending on your weed, this can boost the THC yield by around 50 percent).

Regarding the amount of oil, think of the THC like salt crystals in water, not enough water means all the crystals won't dissolve (the water won't absorb any more due to reaching a saturation point), too much water however, and the mix is diluted (much less of a problem though).

Melt the oil first and then stir in the ground bud, wait for it to settle and then add a little more oil if necessary. You should aim for about half and half (although as long as you've got roughly a third more oil than residue you'll be fine.

Have you tested any of the weed yet for potency? It might be worth smoking a nug to get a feel for how strong it is, I wouldn't want you to go through the process for the results not to be everything you expect.

Anyhow, good luck and keep me posted

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Cannabis Capsules A-step-by-step-guide.

Wow, great information, thanks Flame

We ended up napping, so I'm not sure if we'll get to making them tonight. That really helped clarify some of the questions we weren't sure about this time. Each time, we feel like we're more and more ready for it, but they haven't turned out. We figure they have to eventually, we just have to figure out our method. We will definitely have all of that in mind and we'll post back when we see what happens.

We definitely know that this stuff is a lot more potent than the stuff we had for the last batch. The other stuff started out good, but we got tolerated to it pretty quickly. This new stuff is pretty crazy. We shall see.

Hey, that sounds like good news.
If you want to try a 'sample' test run first, just use 0.5 of a gram (after the stems have been removed) and a level teaspoon of oil.
It'll make enough for about 4 or 5 caps.

Should be a good indicator if you've cracked the method without risking too much 'green'.

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Cannabis Capsules A-step-by-step-guide.

Cool. That's about what we've been doing, but it's nice to see some "official" numbers. We've been estimating about a half batch, but to just shoot for .5 and a level teaspoon will be even easier. We go through capsules a little quick because it's two people trying them, but if we get them to work right, we'll be happy. We didn't start them tonight, so we likely will tomorrow morning.

Nice, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you.
One small tip. I find that if I take one capsule and then take another a couple of hours later, I don't get as high as I do when I've taken two at the same time.
So, rather than just taking one and waiting to see what happens, I'm tempted to suggest going with two to start with. Hopefully, they'll do the trick.

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Cannabis Capsules A-step-by-step-guide.

Yeah, we've been doing the two at a time recently. We figure if that's going to be about the normal "dosage" for us, we can do most of our testing with that. When they work, if one is still a nice buzz, that's cool, and if three makes it that much crazier, all the better.

Speaking of, how different would you say it is between two and three of yours? We've been expecting a notable difference, and according to your descriptions, it sounds like they are definitely different. Even to the point of a few hours and how "out of it" it sounds like you can get from three.

My girlfriend just thought to ask: Would it make much difference to the batch if we check on the temp and stir it up during? We have been, so hopefully that hasn't been the problem, but we're just wondering. If it's better to just leave it, then this next time, we'll make sure the temp is good and then just leave it alone this time. We're just paranoid that the temp is all of a sudden going to scorch the batch.

I stir mine briefly about once an hour. Taking the lid off a crock pot (or opening the oven door in your case), causes quite a big temperature drop which will take a fair while to build back up, so just do it a couple of times only.

As for dosage, I take three at a time from my current batch (not great weed), to achieve the same high as I normally get from two.
However, I do like to be well and truly blazed.
I'll be brewing up a batch this afternoon using a gram of some very potent dutch hash, where just one will almost do the same job.
I love Christmas, it's a great excuse to use the 'good stuff'!

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Cannabis Capsules A-step-by-step-guide.

Well I decided to take these bad dogs last night for Christmas Eve as I had nowhere to be and I was around good people (stoners). I had made a small batch a while ago but it was not enough for all of my guests so I made another batch with about 2 grams. So total I had about 2.6 grams for about 6 people. We all took them at about 8:30pm along with a ton of food and we were all loaded by 10:00pm. I was wasted all night and I still have a nice little buzz this morning! Everyone loved these little capsules we got so loaded it took us about an hour to get the Wii hooked up. We were all so ripped all we could do was try to play Wii and laugh, it was the most fun I have had in a long time.

Thanks Flameon!