The following are the tools and equipment you will need to make the cannabis medicine used most often by others and myself.
I’ve put photos and purchase links (NOT anything about affiliate links–again, I get NO compensation for anything I refer to you/others) to most of these to give you an idea of what you will need but except for the decarb box you can use other brands if similar.
In fact, if you find a similar silicon box with thermometer probe that’s not this brand, go for it!
At the end are the gadgets definitely NOT to use. NOT the Ardent, NOT the Levo, NOT the MagicalButter.
I’ve tested 3 of them and gave them all away. They don’t get hot enough to activate the plant material or they overheat and burn the expensive stuff. Overheating your plant material changes the cannabinoids to undesirable and side-effect-giving ones as well as makes your final product smell and taste very stinky!
I’ve communicated heavily with their tech departments, run small temperature gauges in them and TESTED the plant and medicine I made with these and the active ingredients of THC and CBD were hardly present.
So even though these “all-in-one” gadget’s websites make it look all kind of easy to make your medicine, and it “looks right” at the end, and they claim they’ve done all kinds of potency tests otherwise, they did not work for me. And they cost $250 to $400 or more. Don’t be tempted!
So what you’ll really need for consistent medicine-making each time:
Toaster oven that keeps a steady temp with a “bake” setting, adjustable temp gauge, with adjustable cooking rack, interior dimensions about 11″ x 10″ x at least 8″ tall measured from the low rack setting to below the top heat element or so INSIDE.
When purchasing a toaster oven for making your medicine, I suggest buying the decarb box first, put the temp probe correctly into the box and measure how tall it is from its bottom to the top of the temp device and then buying the toaster oven in person and taking the box and/or your tape measure with you. From the rack being in the lowest position to the heating element on the top, you want about 7 inches to 8 inches clearance or the decarb box with the temp probe will not fit correctly.
Place the rack on the lowest slot so the decarb box with the probe sticking out the top of the decarb box fits in the toaster oven without touching any heating element.
As a note for 2022 and who knows going forward, the trend in new toaster ovens is for very narrow top-to-bottom measurements.
If an affordable toaster oven cannot be acquired, you will use your regular oven and it will need strict calibration and setup before you use expensive plant material in it. Toaster ovens once calibrated per the decarb box instructions often only vary 2-5 degrees inside the closed-up decarb box while the outside-the-box oven temp remains steady.
A regular stove-top oven outside-the-box will vary 20-35 degrees and hopefully only 10 degrees inside the closed-up decarb box. The 10 degrees is not ideal, but workable if needed. However, if using a regular stove-top oven, you MUST use the decarb box to successfully make this medicine.
Decarb box with temp probe This box is purposeful. You need the plant material enclosed and made out of this material to keep the temperature consistent and at a certain temperature for all the plant material that’s placed inside it but without burning it. The plant material MUST be enclosed/covered when it decarbs or you could lose up to half of your main ingredient cannabinoid.
And the temperature probe needs to fit tightly into the box like this does, with the gauge reading part able to be set outside the hot toaster oven onto the counter.
** Decarb or decarbing is short for decarboxylation. At certain temperatures and for a certain amount of time, the trichomes on a cannabis flower bud loose some of their carbon dioxide and change their THCA and CBDA chemicals from acids into the THC and CBD cannabinoids we know that are active for use in our bodies. Without this first decarb activation, that happens either by hand heating it some way, or heating it by smoking it in a pipe, a vaporizer or joint, your body would not be able to utilize the medicine (and you wouldn’t get high). The decarb box is the box we will use to initially heat activate our plant material.
Gram scale should have a minimum weight of .1 gm for later cannabinoid testing purposes that only uses a tiny amount– but you will be using 1-13 grams to make the medicine, the maximum weight would be good to be over 30 OUNCES and have a tare function so you can put the plant into a small bowl to measure it out and with the bowl and the plant the weight still within the scale tolerances.
Below is a short 3 minute video showing how to weigh your cannabis plant, which is exactly-exactly the same whether weighing marijuana THC-rich plant or hemp CBD-rich plant. Both cannabis types look, smell, feel, taste, weigh and in all ways are identical except one has more of the cannabinoid THC in it.
Tongs Small and precise, to fit in your plant storage jar and pick up and work with the plant material to help keep your hands mostly out of its jar.
Scissors Fiskars micro-tip scissors (you really need this tiny micro tip type scissors, a good quality that will be sharp and ONLY used to cut up your plant material).
HACK: When your scissors get sticky from cutting up bud, you can easily clean them off. Use a small spray bottle of Everclear 190 proof alcohol and spritz some on the scissors and carefully with your fingers use the alcohol to remove the sticky. I don’t like to use rubbing alcohol because it has other ingredients I don’t want on my hands. But regular high proof alcohol only needs a little spritz to clean off the scissors, or sit them to soak in some too, the sticky comes right off and you can then rinse them under water and dry for the next time.
(2-4) as one cup and two 2-cup, maybe even a 4-cup regular GLASS measuring cups
(2) 5 oz. glass measuring vessels. Anchor Hocking makes a brand. These are useful when making very small 1 or 2 oz. versions of the Recipe.
(1 or 2) shot-glass size mini-measure glasses (again, for making any very small amounts of the Recipe)
BOVEDA humidity packets needed to safely and long term store your cannabis dried and cured plant material. They protect the trichomes terpene medicine and helps keep it all from getting moldy. You need the 62% RH (relative humidity) and the 8 gram little square size will protect up to an ounce of plant. You can add more packets if you have more to store.
HACK: When the Boveda packets are fresh and good they feel soft and pliable, pillowy when squished a bit. Once they get hard and crunchy feeling they should not be used. People discard those. BUT you can enclose the spent packets with a very lightly damp piece of paper towel in a closed mason jar for a few days and the packets will become useable again and soft. I have found the reconstituted packets just as effective as new ones.
Mason jars to store cannabis plant material. Use a Boveda packet shut up inside the jar and store the jar in a cool dark place.
UV flashlight. You can find these online for $6 or $7. They are used for detecting pet urine stains, but if you shine this purple UV light over your cannabis stored plant material and any areas glow WHITE instead of purple (normal), this could mean your plant material is moldy and you would want to take a close up photo of it and blow it up on your computer screen or device and see if it has mold. If your cannabis plant material is moldy it needs to be discarded. (Take the plant jar into a totally dark room and shine the UV light around the jar. Mold is pretty easy to detect and usually infects the entire jar).
Aluminum Foil
4-5” Fine mesh strainer with a handle, small enough to set over a measuring cup. The strainer is mostly a brace to hold the nylon bag in place unless you want to strain twice.
After decarb and after infusing, one might think the plant material gets all kind of mushy. NOPE! It’s really prickly and twig-like and stiff and brittle. Even the tiny stems could nick you a good one!
So some of that can get strained out into your final medicine if you use too-big-of-holes-mesh to strain it.
You can definitely double strain it too. Once, just fast pouring your infused oil with plant directly through the fine mesh into one of the glass cups, and again through the nylon bag I talk about below.
25 micron nylon straining bag The 5x 5 size works the best. This company makes the BEST straining bags. They are used for another cannabis process called rosin pressing (which is not needed here or elsewhere) and the bags are sewn in a special process so not to split when you are pressing.
You want THIS nylon bag and NOT the multiple layers of cheesecloth you’ll see all over the internet. If you use the cheesecloth, no matter how many layers, some of that stiff plant material always seems to make it through the cloth into your medicine.
But the worst part of using cheesecloth to strain your medicine? Up to fully HALF of your final oil (and even the alcohol versions) medicine product ends up wicking itself up into the cheesecloth cloth as you’re trying to strain and final press it out! You’ll end up throwing away so much of your medicine this way because it does NOT squeeze back out!
So use these nylon bags. And you WANT the 25 MICRON size as the finest sieve. It will catch ALL the bits (unless you waiver and end up pouring some around the bag strainer– if you do, just grab another nylon bag and re-strain it again).
Even when you used your nitrile-gloved hands to press out the last drop, you’ll get nearly all your medicine back, beautifully strained.
HACK: With these particular brand nylon bags, I can cut down one side of it about 1.5″ to 2″ so I can fold down a bit of “collar” on it when I’m using it. The bag will not unravel past my cut. And it opens the bag top a bit more so I have more room to pour the entire mass of plant material through it contained.
Also HACK with these bags: You can WASH these over and over after use. Dump out the spent plant into your compost. The bag will have small bits and oil on it. Use a paper towel to pat out as much oil as possible so it doesn’t go down the drain (toss away the paper towel). And then with an unscented, natural kitchen detergent on your hands and the bag, just rub it a bunch, soap it up, rinse it under hot water– do this a couple-three times if you need to. Pat it dry with a clean towel and prop up somewhere to finish drying. The bags just seem to last forever this way.
Paper towels
Nitrile gloves You will want to keep your fingers and hands completely out of the final medicine. Indeed, even when it’s finished and you are consuming it off a spoon or to use some externally, you want to always use a clean utensil to scoop a bit out. Cannabis reacts with our skin immediately and you could change the nature of your medicine left in the jar if you start adding fingers.
Cannabis is such an efficient anti-inflammatory and to some extent anti-bacterial, that it starts changing some of its cannabinoids if you keep putting your fingers, skin in your final medicine. As well it reacts immediately with temperature– and even if your fingers are “cold”, it’s enough to change your cannabis medicine compounds.
I think some of the cannabinoids just get “spent” after interacting with skin and others, some or all of the THC no matter if it’s the .3% of a CBD plant or more that’s part of the marijuana cannabis plant, you could change into CBN, a major sedative as well your medicine could start getting stinky.
So do what you can to keep your fingers out of your medicine jar. Use nitrile or vinyl gloves to work with it.
Small funnel to use to pour your final infusion into 1-4 oz. jars, especially used when making very small batches.
SMALL Glass jar(s) with wide enough mouth to later dispense with a scoop or spoon, and small enough to store any extra away if your use is less frequent. I like using the 2 oz. or 4 oz. jars. One of my family likes the 8 oz. jars.
NOTE: These small/tiny jars will hold the finished medicine. The final step for The Recipe medicine is to put these jars, with still warm melted coconut oil medicine into the freezer for a quick freeze up. ALWAYS LEAVE ROOM at the top of these jars for a bit of expansion as they freeze up so they don’t break.
And those tiny Mason jars with an equally wide mouth-to-tall size also help with this.
Most people like to dispense the warm finished medicine into numerous jars only half-filling the tiny jars and leave them in the freezer until ready to use. This solves the room-at-the-top for freezing expansion as well as preserving the medicine for as long as possible.
And NO GADGETS like Magical Butter, Ardent Nova or Levo-II, as I’ve found them inconsistent except to consistently not work!
One more thing— another of the gadgets’ big advertising draw is they are supposed to keep the scent of making cannabis medicine discreet and really scent-less. Using these machines correctly, lids properly placed, I found they did reduce the scent considerably, but not completely.
Using the equipment that I have here in my opinion reduces the scent considerably and I think the decarb portion of the process probably releases the most odor. However, I have found the properly closed decarb box contains the scent. And the infusion portion of the process hardly releases any scent.
Just know that if you have to be 100%, no scent involved when making your medicine it won’t happen completely. It won’t happen using the gadgets. It won’t happen using the equipment here. But I think scent-wise, the gadgets and this version were about the same scent-producing-wise.
You can do things to greatly, greatly reduce the scent but there will still be a bit. And in my opinion, not enough for a neighbor to notice, but maybe a roommate.
