Homemade edibles have always been made the old-fashioned way - with marijuana flower or trim. The green tint and strong marijuana flavor in cannabis-infused butter are a result of this process.  But cannabis concentrates are the fastest-growing product sector on the cannabis market. Types of concentrates range from BHO to live resin. For some stoners, crafting an edible infusion is a right of passage – wax edibles.

Due to their large THC potency, cannabis concentrates are becoming a popular and effective ingredient in high-potency edibles.

Let’s get our heads in baking mode (pun intended) and look at what exactly wax edibles are.

Let’s Concentrate on the Edibles

Edibles rarely make it into the cannabis concentrate conversation. Much like dabs, edibles provide a long-lasting, potent high depending on the dose. The biggest difference between dabs and edibles is the onset time. 

If smoked/vaped, your high will kick in almost instantly. However, eat an edible and your high may take up to two hours to even reveal itself. But, edibles offer a strong, unique marijuana experience. 

Though they have an onset time between 30-90 minutes (depending on your metabolism), these tasty treats can last anywhere from 6-8 hours. Compared to smoking/dabbing lasting between 1-3 hours.  Infused drinks are known to hit much faster between 20-30 minutes. 

It does not take much of an edible to get a desired high. With this, comes a bit of caution. Start with low doses and be patient. Overeating edibles can cause a bad time, especially in those new to cannabis.

When the edible begins to digest, THC forms into a different byproduct in the liver making a chemical 2.5x stronger than regular THC. This chemical is known as Delta-9 THC.

More Potent Edibles? Is That Even Possible?

In 2013, it was reported that cannabis wax contains 80 percent THC with effects so hallucinogenic that consumers have been sent to the hospital from just one dab of the stuff.

Though not too common, you can make edibles with your marijuana concentrates. You can use concentrates instead of cannabutter/oil. Make sure to "decarb" your cannabis concentrates before infusing them. Decarbing is huge for converting THCA into THC. After the decarbing process, THC has its psychoactive effects which we all know and love.

Best Waxes For Edibles

Alright, if you're going to make wax edibles, here are some of the best concentrates to use for that.

Distillate

Known for its high potency and being decarboxylated, Distillate is the perfect flavorless and scentless concoction for a fat component of your chosen recipe.

RSO

Rick Simpson Oil (RSO) is great for edibles due to its ease of use. RSO requires no decarboxylation step and can be directly added to recipes. 

Sugar Wax

Any entourage-like benefits contained in cannabis oils are not typically present in distillate. More solid-like concentrates such as sauce, live resin, budder, and sugar wax have the potential to contain large amounts of THCA. Which becomes THC.

Concentrate On Your Menu

Most cannabis concentrates can be used to medicate your food, and the main variables of potency, flavor, perfume and viscosity can all be managed with relative ease.

For example, Rick Simpson Oil (RSO) is a full-spectrum extract which means it contains the botanical essence of the whole plant. CO2 and BHO extracts are mainly flavorless.

Certain cooking oils are more effective carriers for THC. For example, dairy fats are less stable than vegetable oil (like olive oil) and are less likely to melt in a way that ensures even dosing throughout. MCT oil is an excellent flavorless carrier but its low smoke point makes it less skillet-friendly than virgin coconut oil or canola. Examine your recipe to learn which oil or infusion method will be most effective.

Cooking With Wax

Alright, Chef...we know you can make some great banana pancakes, but when you introduce cannabis/concentrates to the kitchen, there are a few things to consider:

Decarboxylate Concentrates When Necessary

Before cooking, you’ll want to be sure that your concentrate is decarboxylated. This converts non-intoxicating THCA into the euphoric THC we all know and love.

Higher temperatures are more likely to eliminate valuable cannabinoids and other compounds, so decarbing low and slow is generally the best way to go.

To make cannabutter/oil
Warm butter up to around 200 degrees Fahrenheit and measure the temperature with a probe. Allowing the heat of the butter to heat up the wax, continue to stir until it is fully mixed. If the butter begins to harden too early, add warm water to the mix. Placing the bowl in the fridge, the butter and water will separate as the butter cools, making it easy to remove. 

Dosing

The main goal when consuming highly potent, wax edibles is to have as much fun as possible by taking things slow and low. Edibles are highly known to be difficult to dose.

Things to consider, some numbers for the scientists:

• The weight of your concentrate (in grams)

• The potency of the concentrate (% THC or CBD)

• The number of servings the cooked dish yields (i.e. “makes a dozen cookies”)

Benefits of Wax Edibles

It’s time to open your mind up to the potentials of weed — it’s more than just a joint or a bowl. 

• Higher Potency
  Cannabis concentrates are typically incredibly high in cannabinoid levels. Reaching 90% THC and CBD. They also provide terpenes.

• Reduced Herb Flavor
  Cannabis tends to have a bit of a grassy/earthy taste when used in edibles. Concentrates in edibles eliminate the issue by adding potency without plant material.

• Healthiest Option For Your Lungs
  Eating cannabis or using tinctures is always going to be better for your lungs than smoking it is. The fact is, smoking anything creates combustion, and the combustion creates harmful toxins and carcinogens which we then inhale into our lungs. On top of that, 88 percent of the combusted smoke gases from marijuana don't even contain cannabinoids.

In the end, edibles are also a health-conscious way to get high, protecting your lungs from toxins and carcinogens found in smoke.

If you’re interested in your body’s overall health, chances are you are exploring the health benefits of CBD.

With the option to add CBD into your daily diet, you may find relief of pain and anxiety, allowing you to better concentrate on your day’s tasks. 

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I don't even know where to begin with this review. I am that in LOVE with this unit.

This is beyond "so easy a Squirrel can do it". Heck, even a Sloth could handle it just as easily too. The set up, processing and even the clean up is simple, fast and easy to do. No worries about finding the clean-up chore to be such an ordeal that your brain switches to procrastination mode.

Pros:

• Easy to use - Temp and time presets is what I used for all of my tincture batches.
• Clean up takes under 5 minutes.
• Doesn't take up a lot of counter space.
• Lots of color choices.
• A ton of accessories you can buy to make edibles (which I did not purchase, yet)

Cons:

• Leaks a little while infusing and when you release the reservoir to clean.
• Marijuana smell is present, not as bad as it would be with other methods, but you can still smell it.
• Nothing to compress all the oil out of the flower.

Why You NEED This Machine:

I think we can all agree, while smoking herb has a lot of benefits, it also has some health risks too. Especially if you are like me and have COPD. With smoking the relief is instant and strain-specific. This isn't the case with most edibles, tablets or tinctures you buy pre-made.

Frankly when I started thinking about what products I wanted to review, I really had my doubts about tinctures. I had tried tinctures from several of my dispensaries and the results were too unpredictable. So I gave up and switched to dry-herb vaping instead.

Honestly I almost lost hope at doing any edibles at all.

I knew one of the biggest problems with dispensary-purchased tinctures is that they weren't typically strain-specific. For whatever reason most of them tasted absolutely horrible as well. There also seemed to be differences in the amount of time it would take for the effects to kick in per batch, probably due to the non-specific strains used.

With the Levo you are in control of what strains you put in. For me, the only time I might make tinctures that are not strain specific would be when using the stock of kief that I've been carefully saving. Honestly, I'm torn on whether to use my kief this way, totally conflicted. I love combining my flower, concentrate and kief in my DaVinci stainless steel .3g pods when I need extra pain relief. It's my lazy Squirrel "moonrocks" (technically I guess I should call them "moonpods").

After trying strain-specific tinctures I am completely and totally sold on the idea of using tinctures over smoke.

In the last 3 days I have used my vaporizer only once. It was only because I needed immediate relief verses 10-20 minutes of waiting for a tincture to kick in.

In A Nutshell:

The Levo, IMHO is a must have for any cannabis user.  Having strain-specific tinctures is extremely beneficial since different strains treat different problems. Different strains also have different onset times. If a strain is a creeper when smoked, it will most likely be a creeper in a tincture as well.

You can use different oils depending on your taste preference. You can even use butter if you want to bake edibles instead of making just tinctures. Just make sure if you are making tinctures, you don't buy the wrong oil.

I sent my son, Thing 1 out to the store to get coconut oil and he came back with organic raw coconut oil, which was solid. It will turn liquid if stored above 76°. What you need to buy if making tinctures is fractionated coconut oil. I prefer this oil because it doesn't have much taste. Other oils people recommend (but I haven't tried yet) are sunflower and hemp oil.

Personally, I think hemp oil would make it taste more suitable for a goat--but that's just me--while Sunflower would probably add pleasant taste to the tinctures. A nice roasted flavor that might help mask the weed taste.

I would also suggest getting some flavor extracts and play with your tincture taste. Just remember this will change the strength of your tinctures just a tad depending on how much flavoring you add to your mix. Which I add after the infusion process.

Tested Strains:

For this review I made two different tinctures. First I used Chocolatina because that is what our dispensary had in shake. Shake is cheaper than flower and I was afraid that I would honestly screw up my first batch. I also made sure to get a strain I wouldn't weep over screwing up. I am not a sativa lover so the fact the dispensary only had this strain available as shake was fine with me.

This strain is a bit of a creeper for me when I have smoked it in the past. It effected me the same way as a tincture too. Silly Squirrel here decided to take another dose instead of patiently waiting. Needless to say, it was an entertaining evening for all, well for me anyways.

Once I realized this made tinctures Squirrel-proof, I grabbed my beloved Pop Rocks strain and went to work. 3 hours later, liquid gold was ready for consuming.

Tincture Details:

I went ahead and procured some fractionated coconut oil. I also wanted my tinctures to be strong so I adjusted my recipe accordingly. The more oil you use the less THC in your dose.

I like doing batches of 5g. I believe the flower container can hold up to 10g. For 5g of flower I used 1/4 cup of Coconut oil.

First process is to decarb. You do not put your oil in the reservoir yet. This is a 30 minute process with an added 10 minute "preheat."

After you hear the beep, it's time to add the oil and switch to infuse. This is a 2-hour process. Keep a small bowl under the spout in case of oil leakage--which my unit had a little issue with. One 1/2 cup of oil (8 Tbsp) produces just over 6 Tbsp of tincture:

• My Chocolatina at 25% THC produced a Tincture with 630mg of THC (1Tbsp ≈ 104mg)
• 5g of Pop Rocks at 26% THC produced a Tincture with 655mg of THC. (1Tbsp ≈ 108mg)

To figure out your dosage you don't have to be good with math. All you need to do is download a wonderful app from Sugar Leaf Media called THC Calculator. This is available on Android and iPhone. I was honestly debating whether to share this app information or not. I really just wanted ya'll to assume that I am incredibly smart and good with math. But my conscience got the better of me.

Would I Change Anything:

Two things. I would add a weed press to squeeze all the oil out of the flower.

I had a hard time finding the hole to get the flexible reservoir "straw" inserted so the reservoir could snap into place. This though could honestly just be me getting old, IDK?

Let me end in saying this, the last 3 days my stomach has been the happiest, warmest tummy ever. I don't know if it's the combination of the coconut oil and THC that is helping to coat and soothe? But I have not had this level of stomach pain relief ever. 

The Levo Oil Cannabutter Machine, hands down, earns the very rare, very exceptional Wacky Racky seal of approval. 

*Photos used with permission by LEVO. Find more reviews at wackyracky.com

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