How much cannabis should I add to this recipe?

Getting the right answers in your cannabis journey can be tricky. But with The Cannigma’s Ask the Expert, you can find questions from readers like you, answered by a real cannabis pharmacist.

Question:

I have a question about dosing. I see most of your recipes call for infused oil or cannabutter. I got a recipe for a chocolate bar off Pinterest that I wanted to try but don’t know how much decarbed cannabis flower to use in the recipe.

I settled on adding 1 tablespoon of decarbed weed – the recipe is for a chocolate bar:
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup quinoa
Mixed together and frozen.

Is there a guideline on how much to use in a recipe?

Answer:

When it comes to wondering how much cannabis to infuse into your food, you’re not alone! The question of how much weed to use in a recipe comes up regularly at The Cannigma, and the truth is it depends on your goals.

Are you trying to get sky high, or is this a midday healthy chocolate snack that you want as an energy boost? Assuming the latter for the sake of this example, you’d probably want about 10mg of THC in that edible.

Your recipe is straightforward, just chocolate and quinoa, so it seems you are simply going to mix ground decarbed herb to this melted chocolate and quinoa, which sounds like a quick and easy method (and don’t forget to decarb!).

How much weed should you add? Let’s work backwards.

First, decide how many servings you’re going to make: this recipe is about 2 cups total, so let’s say 20 servings, each with 10mg as per above.

Total dose: 20 pieces at 10mg each, means you need a total of 200mg of THC.

Next, we need to know how strong your cannabis is. If you have a COA and lab test, great. If not, you will just have to guess, but most weed today is probably about 15% to 20% THC on average.

If we say your decarbed weed is 15% THC (15g THC / 100g flower), you ‘ve got 150mg of THC for every 1 gram of decarbed herb.

Therefore to get 10mg in each of the 20 servings (200mg), you need to add 1.33 grams of decarbed weed to the recipe (200mg THC /150mg THC per gram = 1.33grams).

You mentioned using a tablespoon of cannabis, but unfortunately that’s not a useful unit to measure cannabis with, as a tablespoon of finely ground weed will weigh more than a tablespoon of loosely ground weed. Scales are the prefered method of measuring cannabis.

Since you’re adding the weed directly to your snack, this makes the calculation easier. In many recipes the cannabis is first infused into oil and then added to the food, adding a layer of math that can be daunting for some.

I hope you found this to be relatively straightforward and that it is helpful in the future.

Thanks for your question, and be sure to check out The Cannigma’s free cookbook for more cannabis fun in the kitchen.

Codi Peterson, PharmD
Scientific advisor, The Cannigma
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