Step by step guide for making green dragon cannabis beverage

Hello everyone, in this guide I will be teaching you my own personal method to making a bottle (not tincture) of green dragon. After going through countless bottles of liquor and ounces upon ounces of dank bud, I think I have finally perfected the process.

Step 1: Choose your alcohol... The top two choices for liquor are Bacardi 151 and Everclear, but anything above 120 proof will suffice. (The higher the alcohol content, the more efficient the THC extraction process will be).

Step 2: Grind your bud... I find the best bud-alcohol ratio is around 1 gram of mid-high quality bud for every 25ml of alcohol. If you are using stems, trimmings, or shwagg, up the ratio accordingly. Your gonna want to grind your cannabis as fine as possible, although, the average hand operated weed grinder will suffice.

Step 3: Decarb... This is a highly debated issue when making green dragon, if your weed is VERY well cured, you may be able to get by without doing this step because THCa (non-psychoactive) naturally becomes THC (psychoactive) over time. I do however recommend a decarb process whenever possible. To explain as simply as possible, the decarb process is essentially heating up cannabis for an extended period of time at a temperature far below combustion because the majority of THC in cannabis is kept in the form THCa which has some medical benefits, but does not produce a "high." You want to convert this THCa into THC, this is done naturally during smoking because cannabis is heated up to such high temperatures at combustion, but fails to take place when using alcohol as an extractor. To actually do this decarb, simply put your ground up marijuana on a tin foil covered baking pan, and pop it in the oven at 230 degrees F for 40 minutes. The temperature and time for this decarb process is HIGHLY debated, but I based this temperature and time off a scientific study done by SC labs, and by the fact that β-Caryophyllene which is an essential oil of cannabis is degraded at temperatures above 246.2F. This means that yes, I am going against the famous "325 for 5 minutes" you'll get as a reccomended decarb method from a lot of other people.

Step 4: Funnel ground up cannabis into your alcoholic beverage of choice

Step 5: Let sit for a minimum of 3 weeks (8 weeks if you did not decarb) in a dark place like your average kitchen cabinet. You don't want any sunlight hitting as this will degrade the THC.

Step 6: Strain out all plant material... Using a coffee filter is a very popular method, but their are many ways of doing this

Step 7: DRINK UP! A single shot should be enough to get you BAKED. You will not feel the effects of the alcohol unless you are an extreme lightweight, just the stoney goodness...

If you have any additional questions or tips of your own, please feel free to comment!

Can't edit the post as too much time has passed, but I forgot to add that to improve the taste, try water curing the buds before grinding them up.

hey kagecog, what do you think about boiling off some of the alcohol at the end of the process using a double boiler? i usually follow the same steps you mentioned (except i don't have the patience to wait 3 weeks... more like 3 days). but then i boil the tincture down to about 30% of its original volume by putting the open mason jar with tincture in a pot of simmering water for about 45 minutes. i've heard some reports that boiling may reduce potency, but in my experience it doesn't seem to -- just gets rid of the alcohol smell and flavor.