Lots of development in the edibles amidst a hectic personal life.
First, I figured out how to make drinks. While still being “safe”/“legal” with the FDA. And that is… grain alcohol . We all know ethanol dissolved distillate like no other. When combined with a homogenizer, there’s not many better options for complete homogeny.
So why then does no one recommend it when making edibles?? If you’re cooking the edible the miniscule amount will burn off leaving just the thc (at least, that’s how the chemical reaction SHOUD work). Not too sure. But I am making drinks, which isn’t like pouring wine on steak. I have to worry about laws regarding alcohol content in beverages. But if Kombucha has alcohol, why can’t my drink?
Kombucha usually has around 0.3-05% alcohol. That last number is important. It is the line between non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages. It is the determining factor between under 21 or needing a plethora of licensing to not only manufacture but sell such a drink. I think people are afraid of this. How can you possibly have such precision to not have even .1% over the legal limit allowed, is probably a question you are asking. I asked the same thing. The truth is, I have no clue. Kombucha is still allowed and I don’t believe for a second that these people are perfectly fermenting these drinks to be at or below .5% EVERY time.
So, I know the limit allowed. I know that it is being tested and probably broken all the time. So how do I take 151 proof ethanol, and put it in a 12 oz beverage without breaking that law. it’s tough
My first dilemma was volume of the mixture/emulsification in the first place.1:1 is pretty tough with the emulsifiers I had to use (no need for Tween because alcohol is a preservative in itself. But I did use xanthan gum to help mix things better and partially prevent separation once it touches cold water. Along with some other things). And then there’s the volume itself, the actual amount of liquid being used. I’ll use easy easy numbers to help.
10g of disty to 15ml EtOH (151 EC). With about 10ml of emulsion material.
This means we have 75.5% of alcohol in about 35ml.
And for average sake, 9,500mg of thc. So 9,500mg/35ml = 271.42mg/ml simplified to 272 (I don’t like to round down. Rather round up to be safer than sorry.)
If we want each drink to be 100mg thc that means we a need 0.367ml drop per 12oz bottle.
At 75.5% ABV in 0.367ml gives us an alcohol content of 0.277ml.
0.277ml of alcohol into 12oz of liquid gives us a total of .078% ABV/12oz
100mg THC and 0.08% ABV per bottle… WOW
I mean, can it be beaten? Sure. But if you’re looking to sell your product and don’t care if your customers need to shake your bottle (because I promise you they do not care they need to shake a bottle if it tastes good) then I don’t really see a more efficient way.
Now if you want to be on the “bleeding edge of cannabis” and go nano, then it’s gonna be a challenge. And you’re gonna have a metric ton of nasty surfactants that probably will be found to poison people and cause cancer or something in 15 years. For me, I couldn’t afford the R&D or the time so I went this route till I can.
And before you say “NO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES AND THC”. I’m no lawyer but I’m pretty sure this is like saying drinking kombucha and driving is illegal because it is alcohol in it.
EDIT: I didn’t search the forum because I’m not asking a question but it seems like people have done this? Technically? Not specifically in a drink it seems and people hate explaining math in depth on here so hopefully this will help someone in the future haha.
I also read about people not liking the scalability of certain methods so here’s how it scales. It uses a line. Very similar to the way coke makes their products. Each bottle is filled with a certain amount of syrup (the thc/EtOH) then carbonated water (to make this easier just premix and pasteurize) and then capped. This is super easy to automate. Counterpressure filler for sterilization and boom, auto drinks.