Sometimes I like a little science with my dinner. Which is great, because when you bring cannabis into your cooking, you better be ready for a little good old fashioned organic chemistry. If we are looking for the psychoactive effects of the plant, like stress and pain relief, or a general 'high' feeling, we are talking about the cannabinoids of the plant. The most well known of these is THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. It is also the cannabinoid found in greatest concentration on the exterior of the plant and in the fibers of the leaves and stems.  What many people don't realize is that there are at least 60 other cannabinoids present in your common marijuana plant, whose effects on the brain are largely unknown. For more on that, check out my blog about medical studies vs. medical marijuana. Good stuff. But back to the chemistry lesson:

THC as it is produced by the plant is primarily made of tetrahydrocanabinol carboxylic acid (THC-COOH), which is difficult if not impossible for the human brain to process as anything useful. If you just ate an ounce of raw pot, you would definitely feel something, but it would mostly be the other various cannabinoids interacting with your brain. The process through which THC-COOH becomes the useful (and delightful) 11-hydroxy-THC is known as decarboxylation. This is a natural process that occurs gradually over time (months and months), but it can be sped up by heating the THC-COOH to at between 212 and 225 degrees Fahrenheit and holding it at temperature for at least 45 minutes. This can be done in an oven on a baking sheet, but I vastly prefer to use alcohol (everclear if possible) or oil in a double boiler. The boiling point of water is 212, so using a double boiler ensures that you don't get too far above your target temperature. THC is not water soluble, but dissolves readily in fats or alcohol. Here's a list of possible mediums to help with your decarboxylation and extraction:

-Cooking oils - Olive oil, canola, safflower, hemp oil. Any cooking oil is perfect.

-Cooking fats - Heavy whipping cream, half & half, whole milk, butter (clarified butter is best), ghee.

-MEATY Cooking fats - Lard, chicken fat, bacon grease. It sounds gross, but it tastes like heaven.

-Alcohol - The higher alcohol percentage, the better.* Everclear is preferable. Bacardi 151 is fine. I personally use a distilled grain moonshine made by a friend of mine. His still consistently gets alcohol contents upwards of 85% (170 proof), and it's locally made and organic.

-Butane - No, I am not recommending you consume butane. It's a hydrocarbon with an alcohol shaped structure that THC readily bonds with, and the butane completely evaporates at standard room temperature in an open container. I don't prefer this method, but I do accept it as non-toxic and effective.

*Do not, I repeat, DO NOT use any kind of denatured alcohol for any kind of consumable. 'Denatured' means 'Undrinkable'. This is achieved by adding poisons to the alcohol. I know there are a million recipes for iso hash out there, but from the perspective of someone who cares about tasty ingredients and not ingesting chemicals, the simple answer is to just say no to iso.

At this point I feel like I should point out that there is an upper bound to the temperature that you can simmer your cannabis at before you are breaking down the chemicals much farther than you want to, effectively rendering your cannabinoids inert. The general rule of thumb is to not go above 360, with 400 degrees Fahrenheit being the absolute line at which you are definitely destroying your cannabinoids. 400 is slightly higher than the temperature at which common vaporizers work, and at this temperature your cannabinoids are breaking up and escaping. There is no evidence that you are helping decarboxylation along by exceeding the 225 degree range, so please be gentle with your cannabis. Mary Jane loves you. Be kind to Mary Jane.

***For this article I relied heavily on the book 'The Art And Science Of Cooking With Cannabis' by Adam Gottleib