In recent years, many consumers have been turning to cannabis for its pleasant sleep and active recovery effects. However, it’s not easy to find a CBN product in dispensaries because they are both new enough that demand has overwhelmed supply, as well as popular enough that there is still a high demand from customers.
That’s why we made this guide to provide an easy way of making your own CBD edibles at home with just some regular cannabis.
In this article, we are going to take a close look at the scientific research on CBD.
What We Know About CBN
Although CBN is primarily manufactured from dried cannabis flowers, creating this lesser-known cannabinoid requires THC to degrade over time.
Historically, cannabis consumers have reported that the longer it is aged, the more soothing and sedating its effects become. This has led to CBN’s reputation as “the sleepy cannabinoid.” But does the science support CBN’s potential relaxing effects?
A recent study on the effects of cannabis by Dr. Ethan Russo and other researchers has not yet revealed whether or not CBN is sedating alone – it may be that at certain concentrations, its relaxing properties are less pronounced.
Once cannabis has been aged, its effects can be much easier to bear. One of the reasons for this toned-down experience is that terpenes, like Myrcene–which are known to be calming in their own right- are more plentiful and active in aged cannabis as well.
Several cannabinoids and terpenes, in various combinations, have been found to offer relaxing effects. However, there has not been sufficient study on the individual impacts of CBDN specifically – or all these potential cannabinoid and terpene combinations. While anecdotal reports from experienced cannabis consumers do provide compelling evidence that some degree of relaxation may be achieved with noticeable
CBD products are available at dispensaries, which means you can safely experiment to test the effects for yourself. One of the drawbacks of using CBN oil is that it can take some time to find the right dosage. You have to experiment before you know what will work best for your body.
Making CBN Edibles at Home – a Step-by-Step Guide
To see if isolate would improve the calming effects of our Relax Cannabis Caramels, we made a batch with CBN for comparison. However, since we take pride in making whole plant edibles, we only added cannabis caramels to our canna-butter to achieve similar effects.
We’re so thrilled with the results, we wanted to share what we’ve learned in regards to CBN products. We want as many people as possible to have access to the information and test it out for themselves!
By following the steps below, you’ll create a batch of concentrated canna-butter with THC and CBN that you can then use to make cookies, cakes, spread on toast, drop-in coffee – anywhere you use regular butter!
What You’ll Need to Make CBN Canna-Butter:
- 1 pound of regular butter (or coconut oil for vegan CBN edibles!)
- 1 ounce of THC-dominant cannabis flower*
- a temperature-controlled oven
- a crockpot or similar slow-cooker
Cheesecloth or other materials which are used to strain
*we used cannabis with 10% THC for ease of calculations in our example – be sure to substitute the actual THC percentage shown on the lab results for your cannabis to most accurately estimate the amount of THC &CBN in your end canna-butter and resulting edibles. While it’s illegal to transport marijuana across state lines, this is a great chance for current cannabis consumers to replenish their supplies.
How to Make CBN Canna-Butter Step-by-Step:
Place or preheat your oven at 300 degrees F. Meanwhile, use a thermometer to check the temperature from various points in the oven and adjust accordingly as necessary.
Place your cannabis flower in a covered container and bake in the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 60 minutes. This will both activate your THC by converting it to Delta-9-THC as well as push conversion to CBN. Once your cannabis joints are described, heat your butter or coconut oil in the crockpot until it melts. To make canna oil, add decarbed cannabis to the oil in a pan and mix thoroughly. Add minimal amounts of water, making sure the cannabis flower is entirely submerged to avoid anything burning during the slow cooking process.
Cook your cannabis-infused butter mixture on low heat for 4 hours. Stir every 30 minutes to ensure the mixture is heating evenly and no solids or flowers are burning up in the bottom of the crockpot.
Once cooking is complete, line a fine strainer with cheesecloth to remove the plant material from your canna-butter. Allow the strained mixture to set completely in the refrigerator for at least six hours (or overnight) before harvesting your THC- and CBN-rich layer of solids.
For extra-purified canna-butter, gently re-melt the solid butter and strain again to minimize plant material in your final product before using.
Now you have CBN canna-butter at home! Now you’re ready to use the cannabutter to make your CBN edibles.
If you started with a cannabis flower containing 10% THC as we did, the final cannabutter will contain approximately 7mg of THC and 2mg of CBN per gram. If your starting cannabis flower is more potent, use the math in the video guide to adjust. Our expert Wayne provides a detailed explanation of the calculations we make to find your own CBN edible strength.
Once you’ve completed the infusion and straining process, you will have approximately 350 grams of canna-butter to work with. Figure out how much of this total amount will be needed for each serving in your recipe and then calculate the finished product’s THC or CBN concentration based on this amount. You can cut the buttered that is called for in this recipe with non-infused butter when baking to reduce the dosage.
I made water hash from two year old weed once and the hash came out hard like a rock. Im pretty sure it was mostly CBN by that point and it was shit to smoke.