Edibles: Do they retain strain specific effects?

What's happening!

So I need to quit smoking due to lung health. I've already kicked cigarettes and am slowing making the switch over to edibles only. The thing is, there's certain strains that I really enjoy the effects of when smoked. Some island sweet skunk or jack herer during the day really gets me going and in the zone.. Edibles tend to just make me a couch potato (the ones I've bought atleast).

In your experience, do the edibles you make from your flowers retain strain specific effects? Or is an edible an edible?

That's a great question. Edibles usually get me really stoned and then really sleepy. I usually make them with lower quality bud and trim though.

You wont experience the same effects as smoking because a lot of the compounds that are responsible for strain specific effects get burnt off or evaporated during the decarboxylation process that is necessary to make edibles work in your digestive system.

You could try a natural decarb
Do a cold alcohol extraction of your cannabis and keep it in a cool dark place for 4 months
This keeps a lot of the compounds intact and may offer some of the effects you get from different strains
Honestly, I make tincture and reduce that into oil and simple syrup and get stoned but would never be able to tell one strain from anorher

This is my latest batch of tincture reducing on top of some syrup
In the upper right is more syrup with a binder in it to combine the cannabis oil with he simple syrup

Dankyspank2456 said:

What's happening!

So I need to quit smoking due to lung health. I've already kicked cigarettes and am slowing making the switch over to edibles only. The thing is, there's certain strains that I really enjoy the effects of when smoked. Some island sweet skunk or jack herer during the day really gets me going and in the zone.. Edibles tend to just make me a couch potato (the ones I've bought atleast).

In your experience, do the edibles you make from your flowers retain strain specific effects? Or is an edible an edible?

Click to expand...

I too quit smoking: about 12 months ago. Only edibles for me. This is an interesting topic.
Terpenes have different boiling/evaporation temps. In my experience, I've found that shorter, lower temp decarbs keep a mind effect. Longer decarbs and higher temps will break down the thc into cbn, inducing sleep.
Also, higher temps will boil off certain terpenoids.
Wish there was more info on this topic. Please share anything you find if you decide to research.

I think the answer is no

Terpenes are a big part of the equation and I would guess there are next to none left in most edibles after decarb and infusion. Furthermore, I read a while back (not 100% sure here) that terpenes don't really get processed by the liver. So when you eat them, there is no mechanism for them to get incorporated - unlike when its inhaled

I dont think so, at least not to the extent that you would experience with weed. Some edibles wind up more energetic/sleepy/trippy, not sure if that is a based around variety of the weed or something to do with the preparation (over decarb and make cbn), but I don't think you could determine strain specific traits.

Dankyspank2456 said:

What's happening!

So I need to quit smoking due to lung health. I've already kicked cigarettes and am slowing making the switch over to edibles only. The thing is, there's certain strains that I really enjoy the effects of when smoked. Some island sweet skunk or jack herer during the day really gets me going and in the zone.. Edibles tend to just make me a couch potato (the ones I've bought atleast).

In your experience, do the edibles you make from your flowers retain strain specific effects? Or is an edible an edible?

Click to expand...

This is something ive been working on for a while. The closest I got is pretty damn close. It's weed capsules.

I decarb my buds (in a nova fx), grind them to powder in a coffee grinder, mix with coconut oil and a little lecithin and fill size 00 gel caps. Then I took things a little further, I started using terpenes in the capsules. I just use 5 drops per 60 capsules or 1/12 th of a drop per capsule. Even at that small amount I think it makes a difference. I try to match the terpene to the variety, blue dream temps for blue dream buds or at least a sativa terpene for a sativa bud type. Same for indica.

The mix gets thick if you increase the ratio of weed to oil. About at 50mg + per capsule it gets too thick, and the caps get hard to fill.

Let's say you have 7 grams (after decarbing) of buds rated at 16% thc. Each gram should be 160mg, so times 7 grams would make 1120mg total. And let's say you want to make capsules at 40mg each. So you divide 1120mg by 40mg and get 28 capsules. Each size 00 capsule is .91ml, so 28 capsules times .91ml is 25.48ml.

So using a graduated beaker or measuring cup put in the powdered weed a little lecithin, and fill slowly to 25.48ml or round off to 25 or 26 ml. You want a total after mixing well of 25ml, so fill in this order, don't put the oil in first. Anymore will make weaker capsules. I add the terpenes just before capping. It takes a few minutes of stirring under gentle heat and then the oil saturates the weed powder and it becomes a slurry.

Because this slurry gets thick I use plastic pipettes and cut off the tip partway to make a bigger opening for sucking up the slurry to fill caps. That makes it easier to fill capsules.

The pipettes, terpenes, gel capsules, coconut oil, and lecithin can be bought from amazon. I use liquid lecithin in these because its easier.

I actually have a dozen varieties now to choose from now. And the effects are pretty much like vaping or smoking, although it takes 45 minutes or longer depending on your metabolism and if you just ate or not. The varietal differences really come through, blue dream acts like blue dream, nine pound hammer like nine pound hammer and so on. Gram for gram these caps are stronger and last longer than smoking an equivalent amount.

If 50mg isn't enough you can always jack up the dose with a decarbed concentrate.