How to Assess the Quality of Cannabis Shakes
Discover the key factors to consider when evaluating the quality of cannabis shakes for a superior experience.
Quick answer
Cannabis shake works for edibles. Shake is the loose leaf, small buds, and plant bits left at the bottom of a bag, and it carries the same cannabinoids as the larger buds it came from, just at a lower concentration. The catch is potency. Untested shake can run anywhere from about 5% to 15% THC, so you cannot dose it the way you dose tested flower. Decarboxylate it, infuse it into butter or oil, strain out the plant matter, and calculate each serving from a conservative potency estimate.
What counts as shake
Shake is a catch-all term. It can mean trim left over from a harvest, the crushed leaf at the bottom of a jar, or small popcorn buds. Trim and fan leaf carry far less THC than sugar leaf and popcorn bud. That range is the reason dosing shake takes a guess and a safety margin instead of a label.
Before you start
- Kitchen scale that reads in grams
- Oven thermometer, since oven dials drift
- Parchment paper and a baking sheet
- Unsalted butter or a neutral oil such as coconut or grapeseed
- Mason jar with a lid, or a double boiler
- Cheesecloth or a fine mesh strainer
- Calculator and labels for the finished batch
Step-by-step: shake to infused oil
- Weigh the shake on the scale and write the number down.
- Pick a conservative potency estimate, such as 10% THC for mixed shake or 5% if it looks leafy.
- Remove stems and seeds by hand.
- Heat the oven to 230 degrees F.
- Spread the shake in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 40 minutes to decarboxylate the THCA into THC.
- Cool the tray on the counter until it reaches room temperature.
- Melt 1 cup of butter or oil in a mason jar set in a pot of simmering water.
- Add 7 to 14 grams of the decarbed shake to the fat and stir.
- Hold the water bath between 160 and 180 degrees F for 2 to 4 hours.
- Stir the jar every 30 minutes.
- Line a strainer with cheesecloth and pour the mixture through it.
- Squeeze the cheesecloth to recover the fat it holds.
- Discard the spent plant material.
- Label the jar with the date and your estimated milligrams per tablespoon.
Dosing math that keeps you safe
Use this formula: grams of shake x 1000 x potency as a decimal x 0.75. The 0.75 accounts for losses during decarb and straining. A batch made with 14 grams of 10% shake gives about 1050 mg of THC. Cut into 100 small servings, that is roughly 10 mg each, which is a standard adult starting dose in regulated markets.
- Round your potency estimate down, not up.
- Test one serving and wait two hours before taking a second.
- Write the per-serving dose on the label so nobody has to guess later.
Fixing the taste
Shake holds more chlorophyll than bud, and chlorophyll tastes grassy and bitter. A water cure helps. Soak the decarbed shake in distilled water for 24 to 48 hours, changing the water every 8 hours, then dry it at 200 degrees F for 20 minutes before infusing. Adding 1 teaspoon of sunflower lecithin per cup of fat also improves absorption and mouthfeel.
Storage and shelf life
Keep infused butter in the fridge for up to 3 weeks or frozen for 6 months. Coconut oil keeps longer at room temperature than butter. Store the finished edibles themselves in an airtight container away from light, and keep them out of reach of kids and pets.
Common mistakes
- Skipping decarboxylation and eating raw shake
- Infusing at a hard boil, which burns off cannabinoids
- Assuming shake is as strong as top-shelf flower
- Failing to label the batch with its dose