Cannabis tincture is the perfect method of ingestion for those who are using weed for medical reasons. It is an extremely healthy way to use the magic herb and it gives the user effects much faster than edibles. It is easy to make at home, too! Read this article to find out everything about cannabis tincture.
Cannabis tincture is one of the most effective, powerful, and discreet ways to consume cannabis. Cannabis tincture is a highly concentrated THC liquid, usually made with alcohol. It is probably one of the best ways to ingest cannabis if you are a medical cannabis patient, as it is much healthier than smoking. It is absorbed by the body extremely rapidly and therefore provides effects rather quickly.
Therefore, one of the fastest ways to achieve the effects of cannabis is through a tincture, coming second to smoking. Even using edibles requires the user to wait up to 90 minutes to begin feeling effects, which usually leaves people confused as to whether or not they need to eat more. And those who are more health conscious are looking for healthier ways to use cannabis than in the form of smoking.
We’ve been using tinctures for decades
The method of steeping cannabis in alcohol and reducing it down to strong potency is not a new thing for human beings. In fact, tinctures used to be available in the US Pharmacopoeia as early as the 1930s, and have been used all over the world since then for medicinal purposes. With the legalization movement happening across the world, it is becoming more and more popular once again, although it still remains an underrated method of using weed.
How to use tinctures
This method of ingesting weed is particularly recommended to those using it for medical purposes because of its fast absorption rate and its health advantages. The effects will vary depending on the strain of cannabis that was used in the extraction process. However, if you are aware of a strain that suits your medical needs, you can easily make a potent tincture out of this strain.
It is recommended that the tincture is used under the tongue, as this is the place in the mouth where the alcohol can be absorbed the fastest. If you would like to avoid ingesting alcohol, then this article will also provide a method of making an alcohol-free tincture. An alcohol tincture is much more effective than an alcohol-free tincture, but for whatever reason a person cannot ingest alcohol, it is possible to make it with vegetable glycerine. However, this also reduces the shelf life of your tincture. The solution to this problem is to make a little less than you would make with your alcohol tincture.
The Method
What you’re going to need
- 1 ounce of weed
- Vodka (enough to fully cover your weed with vodka in a jar)
- Cheese cloths for filtering
- Glass jars for storing
- Small tincture bottles with eye droppers
Related post
- The first thing you must do is decarboxylate your weed. The way to do this is to put your weed on a baking tray and put it in the oven for about 20 minutes. You don’t want your buds to go black, but to darken in colour a little and turn crispy. This activates the THC in your cannabis, something that would usually happen while it is being smoked.
- Grind your cannabis down into small pieces, but definitely not down to a powder.
- Put your ground cannabis in one of the jars and completely cover it with vodka. Make sure it is sealed tightly. Shake it and then put it in the freezer.
- Once or twice a day, take the jar out of the freezer and shake it again.
- After about 5 days in the freezer and being shaken, all of the necessary ingredients from your cannabis should have dissolved in the alcohol. Remove the lid and use the cheese cloth to strain it into another jar or a pot. Be sure to squeeze the parts of cannabis left in the cheese cloth to ensure you squeeze out all of the liquid.
- Put the mixture into your tincture bottles, and it is ready to be used!
Related post
Alcohol-free tincture
You will need all the same things for this method, except that you will not need alcohol and instead you will use vegetable glycerine. You will also need your stove top and a pot for mixing everything.
Again, you need to decarboxylate your weed by putting it in the oven. You will need enough vegetable glycerine to fully submerge your buds.
- For this method you should grind your cannabis as finely as possible and put it in a glass jar.
- Pour the glycerine in, making sure the cannabis is submerged in the liquid and stir it.
- Put some water in a pot and allow it to simmer for a few minutes. Then put the jar in the simmering water, making sure that the water level is the same or a little bit more than the level of the contents of the jar.
- Let it cook for 6 hours, checking regularly and shaking the jar if necessary.
- Once this is done, use your cheese cloth to filter the contents of the pot into a jar or into one of the small tincture bottles.
Remember that with the alcohol-free method, there is a much shorter shelf life than those that are made with alcohol. So be aware that these products can go bad, but if they do you’ll know how to make them again!
I want to try to make alcohol based Cannabis tinctures. What is the shelf life?