As the debate heats up regarding the recreational use of marijuana, it is legal in 23 states for it use for medical reasons. Can any share there experiences with the group in making chocolate infused with marijuana. Second, do you think as more and more states legalize its recreational use, we will see more edible products, especially chocolate, becoming a "new" product category?

updated by @paul-defruscio2: 04/10/15 10:08:42

I haven't made any of these products myself (not since college anyway), but in regard to your second question I think that answer is a very big yes. There are already a number of companies doing this. A quick Google search will bring up a slew of them.

I think the biggest holdup at the moment is that the legal issues still aren't worked out. For example Colorado is working on legislation that would require marijuana-infused food products to limit themselves to specific amounts of THC per serving, and I think most States are going to want to see something like this. This makes sense, but controlling for specific amounts of THC per serving strikes me as something that's going to be beyond the ability of most small-batch producers. Somebody's going to have to figure that out however, at which point I think this will turn into a niche, but sizable, market.

I do not currently have any practical experience making THC infused chocolates, but I have been looking into it pretty hard. I've done plenty of infused outlets and butters for medical purposes, but never cocoa butter. Being in Washington, I have a pretty unique opportunity. I have all the equipment to make bean to bar chocolate, I just need to devise a safe, reliable and consistent way to infuse the cocoa butter with the cannabis.I'm thinking the lowest cost option would be to infuse the cocoa butter directly with the dried plant matter. I think a sous vide system, vacuum-sealing the coca butter and flowers together. Heat to ~200 for 8 hours and then strain the cocoa butter to remove plant matter, and then send a small sample to get tested for potency. Washington state laws require every infused product to be tested for potency, so each infusion should be of as much cocoa butter as is practical, since potency testing must be done by a state licensed lab.

Tom

I do believe you have a very unique opportunity. Would like to chat with you. Can we exchange phone numbers? By the way, who is the little elf?

Best

Paul

The pic attached is a bar made by a customer using our pour-n-pack program.

Sure, send me a pm and we can discuss that in private.

The little elf is my daughter during her first Christmas.

That bar looks interesting. I've been pretty disappointed at everything called "chocolate" I have seen here in Washington. My experiences are pretty limited when it comes to that, but from what I saw, there was one company in the Seattle area selling medicated chocolates, and it was NOT chocolate. I didn't even want to try one after seeing hydrogenated oils in the ingredients.

What is your pour-n-pack program? I'm assuming you're in either California or Colorado?

pour-n-pack is a single use, eco-friendly solution designed to produce and package chocolate bars. here is the youtube video showing how its used

Pour-n-pack april 2013.

Best

Paul

That's pretty slick.

1. What do you want to know?

2. It already has

:D

I won another award.

Cannabis chocolate is already very common in Holland, where it's mostly sold as a souvenir. It's just a matter of time until it becomes a popular product in legal and medical states in the US.

My suggestion for achieving controlled and repeatable results is to skip the infusion process altogether, and use already extracted cannabis oils. The ones made by reputable companies have been tested for potency and purity.

My personal experience with chocolate medical edibles was making a few batches of bonbons with a cannabis oil ganache filling. For the filling I just dissolved some CO2 extracted oil (4 grams for every 32 bonbons) in MCT oil, and then incorporated that into the melted chocolate. Ganache was made as any other. This was for a double-lung transplant patient who could no longer use inhalation as a delivery system. He wanted them mostly for anxiety relief, so these were made with a high-THC oil, but it can certainly be substituted with a high-CBD oil for other medical needs.

Cheebs

Thanks for the detailed information. At this point in time we are more interested in producing a bar. So the next question do you add the oil to the chocolate as the chocolate is being tempered? or after the chocolate is tempered? or does it matter? My goal is to produce a bar with a consistant amount of THC of CBD

Thanks

Just dissolve the cannabis oil in melted cocoa butter instead of MCT oil, and mix thoroughlyinto the chocolate with a stick blender, before tempering.

I forgot to mention that the cannabis oil must be decarboxylated for edibles. This is done by slowly heating the oil to about 210-220F, until you see small, uniform bubbles appear. Continue for about 3-5 mins or until the bubbles stop. Now your oil is ready for proper processing by the human digestive system.

Personally all my experience is with butter various nut oils , olive oil and tinctures. That said I have found that roughly 190 degrees sees the least degradation of the cannabinoids. One process that may be of use is to actually make an alcohol tincture and then evaporate out he alcohol with low heat creating an extract. The extract can then be added in measured doses to warm cocoa butter, though it likely will need to be warmed first to aid in it mixing uniformly throughout the butter. Naturally the strength is going to vary by plant strain, and harvest so each batch has to be individually tested, but once evaporated it is easy to test for potency and determine the appropriate quantity of extract per batch of chocolate.

One thing to note is that using a super tincturing method is best. That is where you grind the plant matter and then add the alcohol until the plant is submerged by a good inch (typically 750ml of 195 proof alcohol to 1 ounce of mmj) blend well and place in a 3qt pot. place on ELECTRIC heating coil and slowly bring to med. low heat wherein you start to get pin bubbles forming. Lower the heat to maintain just a pin bubble and stir occasionally. Heat thusly for 12 minutes ( sometimes the plant may urge you to stop at 10 minutes or continue to 15 minutes - that's between you and the plant) remove from the heat and poor off into a jar. After it cools, strain and squeeze the last of the alcohol out of the plant matter. Notice you now have an emerald green tincture. Now you can use the tincture for in liquid filled bon bons and such or add to chocolate recipes wherein the low heat levels will naturally evaporate off the rest of the alcohol.

It is interesting to know that if you use 90-100 proof alcohol and the same process, you can actually kill the THC while keeping the rest of the cannabinoids such as CBD. This tincture comes out very tanic looking - brownish, rather than green. If you use dense couch lock type strains such as NYC Diesel or Bubblegum, or other heavy Indicas, you will get a powerful aid for insomnia, relaxing of smooth muscle cramps, aid for indigestion, stomach upset and wasting syndrome. It will also aid in the relief of menstrual cramping and other symptoms as well as for the easing of tension headaches - all with out the psychoactive high. I have not tried it myself but I would guess it might give aid in the other health issues in which CBD has proven to be effective medicine. Since this tincture has a higher water content it is going to be a bit more tricky to use in chocolate recipes, though you could likely pre-evaporate, and thus concentrate the tincture moving it toward an extract.