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This is the method I use to produce canna-butter from trash that would otherwise hit the compost heap.

 

Ingredients

 

cannabis trash... a couple of shopping bags full.

750g butter

 

Equipment

 

slow cooker

wooden spoon

3 large bowls (pref stainless steel)

sieve

potato ricer

1 small bowl

1 paper coffee filter

1 darning needle

 

I usually start this in the evening and let it simmer overnight.

 

First collect the trash

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Separate the leaf from the stems and chop roughly

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Put butter into slow cooker (low setting) with the same volume of hot water

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Once dissolved add the chopped trash

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Stir well until all the leaf is coated in the melted butter

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Add enough hot water to make the consistency of thick soup

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Turn slowcooker to high setting and leave until water begins to bubble, stir and turn down to low. Before you go to bed, stir and top up the water if necessary.

 

In the morning your trash will have darkened considerably

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Turn cooker off and as it cools collect the remaining equipment.

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Set the seive over one of the large bowls, fill the potato ricer about halfway with cooked trash and squeeze

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Empty ricer into a small container and set aside

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Repeat until you have skimmed close to all the trash out of the cooker, pour remaining water etc through the seive and collect in the bowl

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Set aside to cool and collect the greasy utensils

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Rinse with hot water, collecting all the runoff in another large bowl and add the trash you put aside earlier and stir

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Strain the mixture again through the ricer and seive and collect in the third bowl... if the trash still feels very greasy you may want to increase the heat of the water and strain for a third time.

 

Now the hard part... find enough room in the fridge to set out your bowls... try not to remove your housemate's snags and bacon if possible

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That concludes the first stage.. cooking and initial straining.

 

I'll post the next stage once the butter has solidified.

Edited by lou lou
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Yeah the potato ricer... makes squeezing hot butter oil off the trash easy peasy.

 

Okies stage two... the basic wash

 

Once the butter has solidified you can remove the bowls from the fridge.

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The second straining will only have a small layer of butter, I just use the sieve to skim the butter off the top...

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For the first straining I take a hot knife and run it round the edge of the bowl and lift out the butter slab

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The bottom of the slab will look grotty but don't worry about that for now

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Use the sieve to skim up the remaining butter

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Break the butter into chunks and add a couple of litres of hot water

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Stir until the butter dissolves and then place into a sink half full of cold water to chill

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Return to fridge until the butter oil solidifies.

 

I will usually wash the butter 3 times if I want to be able to eat it on toast, but if it is for cooking into muffins etc one wash will usually do.

 

The final stage is filtering... but I doubt I will get that far tonight.

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The home stretch...

 

With each wash the butter will get a little lighter in colour and there will be less gunge adhering to the bottom of the slab.

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This is the water after the second wash, by the third it was clear but I was starting to feel the effects of the sample I took after the second and forgot the camera.

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Once you have gone through as many washes as you want... mash the butter up with a fork, holding the bowl on an angle and tip off any remaining water. If the butter gets to soft you'll end up whipping air into it... try not to do this (like I did) because it makes it a bastard to filter.

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Now take the coffee filter and wet it with water, gently squeeze of any excess and line the sieve... place the sieve over a generously sized container.

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Take the darning needle and punch a few dozen holes into the filter, be careful not to tear the paper. Butter oil will slowly drip through the filter but if you don't help it along with the darning needle the butter will cool and thicken before it has all drained through the filter.

 

Sorry, got a little slack with the camera... was getting rather trashed on the samples by this point.

 

Transfer the butter from the stainless bowl to a plastic container that can go in the microwave. Remelt the butter in the microwave (check at 10 sec intervals) and then pour slowly into the coffee filter. The creamy top layer is from me beating too much air in with the fork.

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^ this isn't necessary to improve the taste, it's fine after 3 washes but it looks a little nicer if you filter off any remaining scum. I didn't end up filtering all of it... cbf.

 

After that all that's left to do is pour the butter into storage containers (that's if you didn't filter directly into a storage container) and whack it in the fridge.

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If you will be using the butter over the next few weeks, it's fine in the fridge. If you want to keep it longer either freeze or remelt and store refridgerated in a 5% salt solution.

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Thanks Ev, it does smell while cooking... not as much as stove top methods though because you loose very little steam from the slow cooker. I do sit it under the exhaust fan though and run the fan overnight. Mind you with a slow cooker you can always take it outside and run it off a power lead.

 

I think the most critical part is the washing. Try it next time you make butter... by whatever method, just add a couple of washes and I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the difference in taste.

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