Decarboxylation, colloquially speaking, activates all the good stuff in cannabis.

Please see this disclaimer about the contents of this blog post

Technically it’s more scientific than that.

However, when we talk about it in the context of cannabis, it’s what converts the acidic form of cannabinoids to the active form that we generally think of when talking about cannabis.

Generally speaking, cannabis plants produce cannabinoids in an acidic form - THCA, CBDA, CBGA, THCVA - you get the idea. For whatever cannabinoid you’re after, it’s generally found in a form naturally in a plant that’s “inactive”.

This means that just eating raw cannabis is generally NOT going to get you high because the THC in the plant isn’t active yet. It’s still in its acidic form - THCA.

Yes THCA and THC are functionally the same thing when talking about THC content because all THC content in a flow is potential.

To remove the ‘A’ from the cannabinoid, you generally introduce heat. This is why combusting cannabis gets you high. It’s also why a DHV that doesn’t combust ALSO gets you high. It’s a required step to getting the most out of your plant when making edibles.

The acidic forms of these also have their own benefits but generally you want them activated.

There are lots of charts around on the internet about how long and what temp to decarb your cannabis. It’s also different for each cannabinoid as well. In practice, for amateur purposes, you can use one decarb cycle and activate almost all of what you want to activate. Again, the non-acidic forms have value as well so it’s not critical you get max conversion.

How I decarb

I decarb all my flower using an air fryer using oven safe ball mason jars. The benefits to this approach for me are:

  • portability. I don’t decarb in my house as a courtesy to my partner and rest of my household
  • consistent and predictable performance. Ovens have hot and cold spots, for instance.
  • glass jars designed for the process. Always use good rings and seals.

I experiment now and then but I generally go “low and slow” - 240F for 40-60 minutes depending on the amount of material.

I place the jar on its side with hand pulled cannabis inside. I don’t grind because it’s harder to filter out plant material at the end.

Every 20 minutes, I take the jar out, shake it a little and put it back in.

I do this for a few reasons:

  • ensure even heating
  • allows me to adjust the decarb time if I think it needs longer

At the end of the run I just let everything cool down as is for about an hour in the air fryer after it shuts off. There are a few reasons for this:

  • safety. The mason jar is going to be hot and I don’t want it to risk cracking by sudden temperature shifts like a colder counter top.
  • terpenes are volatile but they’re also part of the medicine we want. Letting the jars cool down after allows those volatile evaporated terpenes to condense back on to the flower (for lack of a better phrase).
  • odor. If you open the jar immediately, in addition to loosing all those terpenes, you’re going to create a REALLY big smell.

At this point, you’ve essentially “canned” your cannabis. When you do finally get around to opening it, you’re going to find that the jar has likely vacuum sealed itself.

Be careful opening the jar at this point regardless of temp. The sudden rush of air when you pop the seal can cause your material to go everywhere most likely OUTSIDE of the jar

Emily Kyle has a good post about decarbing that’s worth reading as well