I dont understand, if you dont have the PLANT MATTER IN THE WATER when you put the butter in, HOW ARE YOU GETTING THE THC INTO IT??????????
The Plant matter has to "roil" around and the molecules have to boil through the plan matter to bond to them.
Basically, you guys are MAKING BUTTER FROM BONG WATER when you do it any other way than having plant matter/water/butter going at the same time.
THC does not bond to water in any commonly measurable degree, and certainly not enough to make that water potent enough to make butter from.
We can debate on HOW LONG you think it should undergo this simmering bath and and how high a temp, but the fact is without the PLant matter contacting the butter and the molecular bond happening there, you have really no THC in your butter.
I have eaten MANY of my friends brownies and various confections, some of which never "worked" NO MATTER HOW MUCH THE MAKER WANTED THEM TOO. Many times, they did what I see above. Not having the plant matter and butter in at the same time, or they OVERCOOKED the mess and made the butter DARK green and milk solid burned nasty. You have to learn the taste of it, like bad wine or burned garlic. Yuck - waste of good THC.
You may think your getting good results, but your not if your doing it that way. Your butter will be green, because the plants have release Chlorophyll which is the green pigment, which IS WATER SOLUBLE. THC is NOT - too any commonly measurable degree - basically in finite amounts - water soluble and the amount is negligible, as in BONG WATER...
So anyway, keep all three ingredients going, salted and unsalted does not matter, and for god sake dont cook it too long or burn your mil solids!!
Use european butter if your in the states, the final product is twice as flavorful and silky!! You overseas fellas have us covered on that! The butter I use is kerrygold and is PRODUCT OF IRELAND!!