How to Decarb by Sous Vide

The precise nature of the sous vide method makes the decarboxylation process almost fool-proof. While it is a financial investment, the cost is justified if you are cooking with cannabis regularly, especially since immersion circulators can be purchased for around $100.

With an immersion circulator, you can dial in a lower, exact temperature which will preserve terpenes and flavour while producing almost no smell.

Tools

• Immersion circulator
• Container for immersion circulator (a large pot or plastic tub would work)
• Vacuum sealer or zip-top freezer bag
• Cannabis

Directions

1. Prepare your water bath by filling your container with hot tap water, then place the immersion circulator inside. Make sure to follow the manufacturer’s guidelines to ensure the right amount of water is in the container. Set the immersion circulator to 203 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Grind the cannabis finely. Since the temperature will be so precise, there is no need to worry about overheating the cannabis and destroying THC, terpenes, or flavour. You do, however, want to maximize surface area, so a finer grind is the best for this method.
3. In a vacuum sealer or, using the water displacement method* in a zip-top plastic bag, seal the cannabis as flat and as tight as possible to minimize air pockets and maximize surface area.
4. Place the sealed cannabis bag into the water bath for 90 minutes, then carefully remove and let it cool to room temperature for 15-20 minutes. Dry off the bag carefully, open it and place your decarboxylated cannabis into a container for future cooking.

*Water displacement method

1. Place the cannabis in the freezer bag and close it 80% of the way.
2. Gently lower the bag into a container full of water (you can use the water bath) and allow the water to force the air out of the bag as you continue to lower it.
3. Once the water level is just before the zipper, close the bag completely.

How Does Sous Vide Cooking Marijuana Work?

Seeing as sous vide means ‘under vacuum’, we can safely assume that the technique involves creating a vacuum of some sort. That means sealing the food that is to be cooked inside an airtight pouch and removing all of the air.

This sealed package is then dropped into a vat of water that is gently heated. This heat will be transferred to the package in a high efficient manner, thereby resulting in very consistent and reliable cooking and a delicious flavor.

Meanwhile, because the food is sealed inside the vacuum pack, this means that it will end up cooking inside its own juices and becoming infused any seasoning that has been added. This is where the marijuana edibles come in: this is the perfect choice for infusing oils and the like into your food.

Sous vide combines this process with longer cooking times and lower temperatures. This yields different results to other forms of cooking: giving you a different texture than you could accomplish any other way. Flavors tend to flourish and the process provides much more consistent results in a more precise and controlled environment.

Why Do People Sous Vide Marijuana?

Sous vide is quickly becoming popular and that’s for a great number of different reasons.

The main benefit of sous vide is that it allows you to cook at lower temperatures than you would do if you were cooking in an oven. You cannot ‘boil’ a steak of course, which means that the best way to cook it normally is on a pan or in an oven. Compared with water, metal and air are relatively poor conductors of heat however and that means that you need to cook the item at a much higher heat than it would ideally be cooked at.

Consider broiling or grilling a piece of steak for example. This would normally be set at a high temperature such as 204C or 260C respectively, which in turn means exposing the meat to very severe heat. Often this results in the outside of the steak becoming charred and the inside being left medium or rare.

This is something that many of us have simply come to accept, when in reality the perfect steak would maintain a consistent consistency all the way through! Spend just a few minutes too long at this heat and you can completely ruin your steak or even badly burn it. Then there is the matter of the burned pan etc.

But with sous vide, the water is transferring the heat to and through vacuum sealed foods around 10x more efficiently. Thus, you can set the temperature much lower (56C for a medium rare steak) and it’s not even possible to overcook the food. Now you can go about preparing your vegetables and doing other things!

Oh, and there’s also the fact that you can much more precisely control the temperature when cooking sous vide, meaning that you know exactly what temperature the inside of the sous vide bag will be and therefore precisely how long the meat will take and precisely what the meat will taste like when it’s done!

This is also a big deal when it comes to infusing canna-oil, as we’ll see in a moment!

At the same time, because the meat is vacuum sealed as it is being cooked, none of those crucial juices will be lost and instead they will be perfectly infused with the meat resulting in something that tastes incredible. Some of those juices also include the beneficial nutrients found in steak such as

So, the benefits of sous vide include:

• Foolproof results every time
• A truly gourmet taste that you can create from the comfort of your home
• ‘Hands off’ – gives you the freedom to do other things
• Improved nutritional value
• Saves time and money by tenderizing less expensive cuts of meat
• Saves energy by requiring lower heat
• Is less ‘time critical’
• Reduces washing up and prep time
• Reduces the use of oils that can add calories to your meals

A sous vide machine is a fantastic investment for anyone that loves cooking or who wants to eat more healthily.

And it’s even more perfect for preparing marijuana edibles…