my experience making Marijuana Beer

i wasn't quite sure where to put this one but i feel this falls in the category of processed cannabis products. I have not been on this forum in awhile though I owe much of what I have learned to this place, so I felt compelled to share my experience.

Years back as I little high bastard one of my first 'highdeas' was that perhaps someone could crossbreed hops and cannabis. It was not an unreasonable thought, as they are in the same family of plants. fast forward 3 years. I'm away at college and I have really been getting into my newest hobby, homebrewing.:cheers2:
about 2 months ago I had a flashback to this thought, and realized that this was a path worth trying. After doing some reading, mainly this article
http://www.onr.com/user/liberty/Marijuana/MBeer/MBeer.html

I decided that I could make this work better. these "underground" brewers infused their beer by putting the marijuana into the secondary and letting it sit in the already alcoholic wort. The key is that they are trying to extract it using a low concentrated alcohol over a long period of time, for all intents and purposes I believe this is an inefficient waste of buds,
so...
green dragon seemed to be the clear answer. Doing a proper extract first would enable me to use less buds than they did, for a better effect.:2thumbsup:
So I made my beer, using an altered recipe from my nearby homebrewing store.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/HoublomonstreTripelIPA.pdf
Alterations are as follows. addition of 3 oz of toasted hulled hemp seed to the wort at the last 5 minutes of the boil. I saved the last oz of cascade hops so that they could be used to dryhop the beer in the secondary.

I think it's best to add the green dragon at the very end of the process. This would be the priming step(last step before bottling, this is the final addition of sugar to the beer, the residual yeast in the wort will eat this sugar and create the carbonation that we all enjoy). Mix it with the priming solution(sugar and water) before adding it to the wort. Stir very carefully, any splashing can make a beer go stale= and that's a travesty. I also recommend you let this sit in the bottling bucket for a couple hours to make sure it travels throughout the beer.

Don't make the dragon way ahead of time, it just loses potency if you don't store it correctly. Some people like to throw it in a jar for a month, not necessary. Here's how to make green dragon in 30 min without the chance of blowing up.
You got a large pot of water. in that pot you have 2 spoons making a V in the middle. the corner of the V is the base of their handles. this way you can set a jar on them, with 2 corners on the spoons heads, and with the other side balancing on the handles(be careful). The spoons are meant to keep a distance from the base of the pot an the jar so bubbles do not form underneath the jar and tip it over. Everclear boils around 170 to 180 F. water boils around 212F. Because there is a jar in the water it won't get much hotter than 200. Boiling water is prime for boiling dragon without the risk of exploding.

!Note! Do Not Add A Jar Of Dragon To Boiling Water. Jar will Shatter If The Temp Difference Between The Two Fluids Is Too Great!Always Heat Them Up Together!!!!

So after 20 to 30 min, you can strain it, do it again if you please, but you wont get much the second time. Then it can go back into the jar an into the pot so it can boil down to a reasonable amount. You don't want to be adding too much alcohol to the Wort, the more you put in, the longer it will take the yeast to prime the beer, If it gets to a certain % the yeast will die. I recommend around 3 to 4 oz of fluid. Be sure that when you add it to the priming solution, add an oz of everclear(or volkov) to the empty jar and swirl it around the edges. It should turn green fairly quickly as their is quite a bit of dried extract in it. Go ahead and add that to the beer.

All in all, I used 1 Oz of the best headyz I could find. With a batch of 54 beers, I figure that is a bit more than half a gram per beer. Which in my test trials seemed to be a decent amount. It could always use more though. Don't add the dragon too early, Once the alcohol content becomes diluted it loses potency quickly. Thats why I believe it should be the last thing you do.
Among my friends they are the 'green label hempseed IPAs'. They taste wonderful and they have a small head. Buzz is light and controllable with 1. With 2 I find myself very faded. All in all it was an experimental success, and I'm happy that I could be one of the first to write about my own trials with the process. Well I've run out of things to talk about so...

cheers everyone:cheers2:

 

On a side note, it seems to be a popular belief that you don't want the grassy taste to be imparted on your beer. This is why the "underground brewers" soaked their buds in water to remove the flavors from the buds.
I think this is nonsense. The grassy flavor that came through in my beer was in the background and really went well with the flavors produced in my IPA.

 

You just answered all my dreams.

Is this for sale? The product, not the method. I want to buy the finished product.

 

Dude, this is awesome! You should sell it to dispensaries! Man, you may have a new product on your hands sounds awesome!

 

Get a patent as soon as you can.

 

I prefer this to remain as more of a faq for any homebrewers out there. There's not really a secret to the process that can't be figured out with some good ole fashioned thought. It is certainly not the most effficient way to consume marijuana, but it does have a wonderful novelty value to it.

Inputs such as work, time, and all the bottles had to be factored in with the cost of the buds. So while I did try to sell this among friends, I quickly realized how broke all my friends are, and only a number of them were willing to purchase it. So the majority of the batch had become my private reserve. Therefore it will take quite some time before I can afford to make another batch if I ever do

 

Seriously bro, you are on to something this is great!

 

I agree. id buy weed beer. sounds Delicious.

 

I'll be expecting a bottled bud beer at my door in a month. Now get to brewing then come to Humboldt to sell it all! Beer and weed are both really big time here, you could make a killing!

 

Alright, I've got two stupid questions
Firstly, did you use sativa or indica? and which specific strain? Second, was the beer brown or green?

 

Doesn't thc need to be activated by heat?

 

Sativa, brown

Not necessarily, the process of Decarboxilization is where you dry out bud at a low heat in order to activate most of the inactive THC. This bud was so well dried that this step was not necessary. However , it would be an important step to do if your buds are not well cured.

 

I'm a home brewer, this sounds interesting.