Whether you are baking or buying it can be tricky to tell exactly how weak or strong to make your edibles. It’s not like smoking where you can just smoke as much or as little as you like. Even the way that edibles affect our bodies is completely different to if we were just smoking a joint. After going through the frankly intense experience of baking the last thing you want is for nothing to happen or everything to happen. Each can be as bad as the other as well as being a bit old waste of money. We want to have fun, so let’s make sure that our edibles give us the exact experience that we are looking for.
Get Ready Mentally
The very first thing you need to do is prepare yourself. Even if you smoke a fair bit, edibles are a very different experience. One of the main differences being the way in which your body processes the THC. Because you are digesting instead of smoking you must remember that it will take longer to hit than a joint. The biggest mistake beginners make with edibles is the old “huh I don’t feel anything, maybe I should take another one”. Then it’s an hour later, you’ve lost the ability to move and you’re wondering where your eyes have gone. Always give an edible plenty of space to work its magic.
What Are You Using?
The first thing we have to consider is what are we actually putting in the edibles? If you are using weed I definitely think you should have a smoke first and just find out how it hits. This way you can at least get an idea of the strength, even if it will hit your body differently when you eat it rather than smoke it. Also, the type of base you are using for your baking will change the effect. If you are using ground-up grass it may provide a different high to kief or a concentration. If you want a lower than average potency you could use “shake” which is essentially the leftover bits at the bottom of your container. These won’t be as powerful as the main buds you were smoking.
What Type of Fat?
The kind of fat you use will also alter the potency of your edibles. For example, usually, we use butter, animal fat, and coconut oil are all great carriers for THC. If you want to go a little softer on the high you can use other cooking oils instead such as olive oil. These won’t absorb as much of the THC from the carboxylated weed. If you are new to edibles you may want to go for an oil base instead of a fat base to ensure they aren’t too strong.
Monitoring Dosage
Once you have decided on all the various bits and pieces that build your edibles you need to think about your dosage. It is a good idea to try your base or carrier before you actually bake. If it’s butter maybe put a little on a cracker or if it’s oil maybe stir it into some juice. This will give you an idea of how powerful it is before you get to baking. Many people recommend going by teaspoons. Add a quarter of a teaspoon each time until you get the high you are looking for. This should let you know how much to use when you’re cooking. Don’t just go with an immediate gun-ho shove a bunch of butter into your brownie mix and hope for the best.
Chill Out
One thing that may mess up your reaction to edibles is being stressed out. It can be a bit worrying when you first take a nibble on a brownie. As I’ve mentioned the effect is completely different to smoking. Although edibles are often a good choice for those who want to try out weed but don’t want to smoke. If you are completely new to weed just relax, take your time, and see what happens. The tenser you are the less likely you are to enjoy your experience. Drink lots of water, have a non-weed snack, lie back and just let the high slowly build. Don’t do any stressful activities, maybe just watch a nice film or play a pretty video game.
Use Tools
If you are really unsure about your dosages there are actually online calculators available to help you figure out the strength of your doses. They let you put in the strength of your weed in THC percentage and it will tell you how many grams of cannabis to use. This is a great fail-safe if you want to make sure you have a good time and don’t overdo it. This is my favourite calculator and I definitely find it the easiest to use. The Veriheal calculator is definitely a good choice but if you just google edible dosage calculators. There are also hundreds of recipes online that will give you the exact measurements so you don’t have to worry about guessing when using a regular recipe.
Not Feeling It?
It’s ok if you don’t feel anything the first time, this just means your edibles may not be strong enough. That’s ok, honestly, it’s better to go too low rather than too high and have a negative first experience. The other possibility is that you messed up some aspect of the butter or oil-making process. Make sure you are properly decarboxylating your weed in the oven. If you don’t the THC won’t be released and you’ll just be eating some weed-smelling butter rather than anything that gives you a high. There is also the chance that you just don’t respond to digesting weed. There are a few people who can’t digest THC and won’t feel any effects from an edible. For you guys probably just stick to smoking, vaping, or any of the other many methods of ingesting weed.
Good luck and eat up!
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