When it comes to edibles, the purity of the cannabis inputs you use is very important! Inputs that haven’t been well-refined can contain fats, waxes, lipids, and other bad tasting plant material. And because edibles highlight the flavour profile of the extract used, a cleaner input means a better taste.

One of the nicest differences we’ve discovered between the Legacy market and the regulated market is our newly found access to clean and pre-tested inputs. There are some things we miss about operating underground, but we DON’T miss having to meet someone in a Tim Hortons parking lot for distillate, or finding out we were lied to about input potency, or having a “friend” replace the kg of CBD we bought from him with rock salt before completely disappearing. (All true stories!)

Coconut oil infusions put flavour at the forefront

When we first started making edibles, we used our slow cooker to infuse coconut oil with shake that we purchased from a local cannabis clinic. Ari would decarb the weed in our oven and then mix it with coconut oil in giant coffee cups. We placed the cups in a water bath in our slow cooker on high, and after a few hours, the greenish-brown, thick, and smelly oil was ready to use.

The coconut oil flavour helped to dictate the first products we made, and we focused on making things that would cover up any bad tastes in the crude oil, and highlight the oil’s cannabis flavour at the same time. Dairy-free brownies were our first product. People loved them and we still make the (infused AND uninfused) recipe at home.

We also used infused coconut oil to make other snack products, including Chex Mix (using Tabitha’s family recipe) and granola. We also made canna caps with the oil, which gave our customers the benefits of cannabis oil without having to taste its earthy flavours.

THC distillate makes dosing easier

When distillate first became available (at $40/gram!) dosing became much quicker, easier, and more efficient. A pure input like distillate is more refined than an infused oil, giving it a higher cannabinoid percentage. This means that producers can use less of the input to get their target cannabinoid ratio, ultimately leading to a cleaner taste. We still use distillate today in some of our products.

Because we no longer had to work with high volumes of coconut oil just to get our desired dosage, we were free to experiment with other products like gummies, lollipops, and caramel corn. Distillate is made using a supercritical CO2 process that extracts waxes and chlorophyll, along with cannabinoids, so it must be followed up by an ethanol extraction process called “winterization” that removes most, but not always all of those unwanted compounds. We quickly learned that while it was much easier to work with distillate, the quality of the distillate we used greatly affected the taste of the edibles we made. Some of the bitter taste could be offset by using the right flavour profiles, but we learned that ultimately, producers who cut corners and use cheap distillate pay for it in the taste and quality of their edibles. Quality in means quality out.

Using CBD isolate

Some of our customers told us that they preferred products with no THC, so once we were able to get CBD isolate, we began adding CBD products to our line. Our most popular CBD edibles had a sour flavour profile that helped offset the bitter taste of the pure cannabinoid isolate, or were caps that hid the flavour entirely.

Hash rosin edibles

Another type of edibles input is hash rosin. Hash rosin comes from pressed bubble hash, and can be considered a “full-spectrum” input. This is because unlike inputs such as distillate or isolate, it contains the all the cannabinoids from the plant and many of the terpenes too. Bubble hash is made using ice water and agitation, and its low temperature process preserves many of the terpenes present in the plant at the time it was harvested. Because no solvents (other than water) are used, the result is a clean and tasty product that’s free from butane, ethanol, or other things that can affect the taste and effects.

Once the bubble hash is made, it’s pressed into rosin at a temperature that’s kept as low as possible, and decarboxylated over a long period of time to keep the temperature low. Ari makes our Fritz’s gummies using traditional German confectionary methods that use low heat to ensure we get maximum terpene levels in our hash rosin gummies.

The result is a gummy that tastes a bit like weed, and whose effects are much different than other kinds of edibles. In fact, some people tell us that our hash rosin gummies feel twice as strong as our distillate gummies. Let us know what YOU think about our hash rosin gummies!