Easy Chocolate made with FECO

LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
lusidghost said:
Tempering with other chocolate was one thing I didn't try. I may have heated it beyond 95 degrees too. Thanks, it's been a few years since my attempts, and this may be the motivation to finally figure it out.

I've been making chocolate e-liquid for around 8 years now, and I've been making cocoa every night this winter. I'm a chocolate fiend. I was actually looking up chocolate strains last night on here. I'm still unsure if any of them actually smell like cocoa. As I learned with the e-liquid, it's hard to get the taste down because a big part of chocolate is the melting buttery sensation that can't really be replicated through breath.
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I have some of these coming:
www.victoryseeds.nl

Chocodope

Sex: feminizedGenotype: SativaCross: O.G. ChocodopeThai X Cannalope HazeIndoor flowering period: 9-10 weeksOutdoor harvest time: Late September, early OctoberIndoor yield: 550 g/m2Outdoor yield: 600 g/plantHeight: MediumT: 19%C: MediumChocodope is a feminized photoperiod strain, that is also availab
www.victoryseeds.nl www.victoryseeds.nl

But I'm not enough of a connoisseur to get much flavor differentiation out of cannabis beyond just larger smell/flavor profiles. I also have about 60% olfactory capacity since my sinuses were way fucked up for a long time and a series of operations to renovate and remodel the inside of my skull to sort it all out happened too.

This is what I ended up following (the 3rd method), and it really did work great. When I was demolding the over-fill and stuff was really crisp and cracking off the molds.

www.seriouseats.com

The Best Way to Temper Chocolate | The Food Lab

Tempering chocolate is a technique that requires a good deal of precision, but some methods for doing it are easier than others. Read on to discover how to temper chocolate using both traditional and updated techniques, including with a sous vide circulator or with a food processor and hair...
www.seriouseats.com www.seriouseats.com

For years I've been taking 40mg of CBD before bed, and now just a small amount of THC infused whatever does the trick.
 
LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
So, it's been about a week and all is good. I've gone from 1/2 a square to 2 squares to see how things function. I can feel mild affects at half to one piece and 2 pieces are stronger but not 'can't walk straight' strong. All in all it's a pretty easy and effective way to do things. Definitely going to batch out some more "golden dragon"/FECO and make a bunch of bars.

This first run was 3 'bars' worth for 7g of cannabis (not trim, but flower), so I'll probably do the same again but as 2 bars worth instead of three.

I'm chopping 4 plants this weekend, so I'll probably just use up nearly all of my October harvest. and just re-fill my jars with the new stuff. I'm going to drop a few seeds this weekend too, but instead of the indica-leaning autos I've done for a few rounds I'm going to unadvisedly do a couple photo Durban Poisons.
 
LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
Back at it again!

The three bars of chocolate I made back at the end of February are about 75% gone, and I'm going to do another round.

Since then, I've been checking at the local (bigger) supermarket (shout out to Wegmans!) for any 'good chocolate' on sale. I jumped on a few Lindt bars that were clearanced at $3 a piece for 10.6oz...and I had a bunch of the nice French Guittard on hand from the last round.

I also had batched out 5 somewhat identical rounds of FECO from golden dragon style alcohol extract with about 7ish grams of flower per batch. As usual, I let that air evaporate down, to get rid of the alcohol but also particularly any water (there's some from the alcohol, even at 196P/98% and again in the actual flower itself since its never actually fully dried. After all moisture is gone and all I have is the sticky residue/oil, I re-dissolve it in a measured tablespoon of the alcohol again. All 5 batches I put in a small dark glass jar (like an oversized vanilla extract or bitters jar).

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Measured to just over 16oz, since 3 molds are 5oz each and some remains in the bag.

-Heating again to 115f to melt. Once there, pulled and squished for a good while...I did gouge the plastic bag a bit, so I ended up double bagging so no chocolate would escape or water get in (that ruins chocolate) and I could further 'kneed' the melted chocolate. Spent more time mixing. I felt like the last batch wasn't quite as uniform as I'd like. I'd find that two of the same sized pieces sometimes would have different strengths in use, so more time/attention to the mixing portion of things.

-Drop waterbath temp down to 81 to cool the chocolate for tempering...now we're back up to 90f degrees. We'll stay here for a couple hours to let the chocolate temper. I'll pull it out of the bath a couple times and squeegee it around the bag to further mix and make the chocolate/FECO consistent throughout.
 
LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
Back at it... More chocolate soon to be made.

I've done some refinements to my extraction. This time I did it colder (down somewhere south of -10 to -20f. 7g x2, done in two 5 minute washes (same alcohol, washing two batches of 7g). End result is a nice deep yellow with no green. Should taste pretty clean for the chocolate. This will be done into 4x 5oz bars, each bar splitting into 24 squares, so I think we're looking at something like 96 portions of ~20mg THC.

This time I'll run the chocolate in a double boiler rather than sous vide. I think i can end up with a more consistent potency throughout by doing that.

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LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
Anyone have thoughts on if I should be using lecithin when I do this? I haven't previously, and I'm wondering if using it does anything with an alcohol thc carrying agent...anyone know if you get a better homogenous mix or not with it?
 
shredder4

shredder4

Well-Known Member
One of the advantages of using lecithin is that it makes large thc molecules smaller for easier absorption.

Alcohol does that as well. But when the alcohol is evaporated then I'm thinking lecithin would be helpful.

All my feco was made with alcohol as a tincture then reduced to oil, and I do add lecithin when using feco in anything. Unless, like I mentioned, if I use chocolate that has lecithin in it already.
 
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LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
shredder4 said:
One of the advantages of using lecithin is that it makes large thc molecules smaller for easier absorption.

Alcohol does that as well. But when the alcohol is evaporated then I'm thinking lecithin would be helpful.

All my feco was made with alcohol as a tincture then reduced to oil, and I do add lecithin when using feco in anything. Unless, like I mentioned, if I use chocolate that has lecithin and it already.
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Thank you. I just checked, and the chocolate I have does have lecithin...but I may supplement. I did Amazon up some liquid sunflower (Now brand) lecithin yesterday...I figured I'd need it for gummies anyway and that the liquid is probably easier to work with.

The only thing with the chocolate that I was worried about was the potential for it to change the end product. I really like the stuff I've made so far, and one of the benefits is that once it hardens, it seems pretty 'shelf stable' so I don't have to keep it in the fridge.

The couple things I didn't like about the sous vide method are that the chocolate didn't seem to temper right and did 'bloom' a bit after a few weeks, and also I didn't feel like it was consistent across the batch...some pieces take you for more of a ride than others. This time I'm going to do it on the stovetop and put work into the tempering/mixing.

I also picked up the ingredients to make gummies, so the lecithin will definitely be useful there. I don't have molds yet but will order some in shortly.
 
shredder4

shredder4

Well-Known Member
LeastExpectedGrower said:
The couple things I didn't like about the sous vide method are that the chocolate didn't seem to temper right and did 'bloom' a bit after a few weeks, and also I didn't feel like it was consistent across the batch...some pieces take you for more of a ride than others. This time I'm going to do it on the stovetop and put work into the tempering/mixing.
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When I make loaded chocolate I use a double boiler and monitor the heat. And stir, stir, stir and at the end I throw in some cocobutter to "seed" the chocolate to aid its tempering.

When make small chocolates in a gummie mold I usually use almond butter and keep each dose about 17-20 mg.

It's a lesser grade of chocolate (no coco butter) but cheap and easy to make. And storing in the fridge is alright. My patients like them and request them more than the higher quality stuff.
 
LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
Back for a new batch...some twists here, this time.

Some may know from other posts that I've refined to a QWET process with 2x first washes with 7g of flower. In this case it's 2x 7g of Durban Poison. While I tend to wait until the alcohol completely evaporates out, this time for reasons (below) I didn't dry it all the way down. Why? Well, I found that something in my process has gotten better...and between the careful extraction at low temps and/or using the crock pot to evaporate off the extra alcohol meant that the oil stopped precipitating out of solution, which I surmise means that there's no water left only THC/alcohol. That's important for chocolate because it'll seize up melted chocolate to have ANY amount of water put into it.

Anyway, I ended up evaporating down to about a teaspoon.

-The chocolate was 21.2oz of Lindt dark chocolate. 5oz of that was separated out and chopped for temper-seed chocolate. The rest was also chopped, but put into my double boiler.

-half a teaspoon of liquid sunflower lecithin was added, but note that the chocolate already has some lecithin onboard.

-Chocolate was melted up to a temp of 122f degrees, constantly stirred. Once it was mostly melted the lecithin & QWET went into the pot too.

-Once the chocolate hit 122, I pulled it off the boiler and started stirring...and kept stirring without stopping throughout. At this point I added the 'chunked' seed chocolate, and yes, kept stirring until that melted. It does two things, help bring the temp down and help the chocolate crystals form properly for the tempering.

-About 45 minutes of stirring and checking the temp until I hit 190F. From there, kept stirring until we got to 188 (another 15 minutes or so). At that point, it's into the molds, which I don't do great at, but hell, I try...

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^^^Molds ready to go. ^^^

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^^^Seed chocolate chopped, the rest of the chocolate was also chopped like this.^^^

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^^^Melted chocolate at 122F degrees, pulled off the double boiler and ready for the seed to be added.^^^

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^^^Constant stirring and regular temp check to make sure all is good. Note the cloth, which helps keep the pot dry so no errant water gets near the chocolate. All the implements were totally 100% dry and no water was anywhere near the process.

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^^^Into the molds. Yeah, kind of messy from behind. By this time I just sort of wanted things done. ;) But also, these molds aren't great, really shallow, which makes filling and/or smoothing hard.

The end result is 96 squares (plus some bits of over-low that won't get tossed), those should have a potency somewhere in the range of 15-20mg per piece.
 
shredder4

shredder4

Well-Known Member
LeastExpectedGrower said:
Back for a new batch...some twists here, this time.

Some may know from other posts that I've refined to a QWET process with 2x first washes with 7g of flower. In this case it's 2x 7g of Durban Poison. While I tend to wait until the alcohol completely evaporates out, this time for reasons (below) I didn't dry it all the way down. Why? Well, I found that something in my process has gotten better...and between the careful extraction at low temps and/or using the crock pot to evaporate off the extra alcohol meant that the oil stopped precipitating out of solution, which I surmise means that there's no water left only THC/alcohol. That's important for chocolate because it'll seize up melted chocolate to have ANY amount of water put into it.

Anyway, I ended up evaporating down to about a teaspoon.

-The chocolate was 21.2oz of Lindt dark chocolate. 5oz of that was separated out and chopped for temper-seed chocolate. The rest was also chopped, but put into my double boiler.

-half a teaspoon of liquid sunflower lecithin was added, but note that the chocolate already has some lecithin onboard.

-Chocolate was melted up to a temp of 122f degrees, constantly stirred. Once it was mostly melted the lecithin & QWET went into the pot too.

-Once the chocolate hit 122, I pulled it off the boiler and started stirring...and kept stirring without stopping throughout. At this point I added the 'chunked' seed chocolate, and yes, kept stirring until that melted. It does two things, help bring the temp down and help the chocolate crystals form properly for the tempering.

-About 45 minutes of stirring and checking the temp until I hit 190F. From there, kept stirring until we got to 188 (another 15 minutes or so). At that point, it's into the molds, which I don't do great at, but hell, I try...

View attachment 5174437
^^^Molds ready to go. ^^^

View attachment 5174438
^^^Seed chocolate chopped, the rest of the chocolate was also chopped like this.^^^

View attachment 5174439

^^^Melted chocolate at 122F degrees, pulled off the double boiler and ready for the seed to be added.^^^

View attachment 5174440

^^^Constant stirring and regular temp check to make sure all is good. Note the cloth, which helps keep the pot dry so no errant water gets near the chocolate. All the implements were totally 100% dry and no water was anywhere near the process.

View attachment 5174443

^^^Into the molds. Yeah, kind of messy from behind. By this time I just sort of wanted things done. ;) But also, these molds aren't great, really shallow, which makes filling and/or smoothing hard.

The end result is 96 squares (plus some bits of over-low that won't get tossed), those should have a potency somewhere in the range of 15-20mg per piece.
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I use a plastic spatula that is actually for spreading bondo from an auto parts store to scrape off chocolate from the top of small molds. They're flat and wide and work fairly well, especially if I include nuts in the chocolate. Nuts in chocolate can be difficult to spread in small molds. But I love nuts in chocolate.

Chocolate bar molds being bigger are much easier to fill.

I sometimes make dark chocolate cherry bars. I include cherry oil in the chocolate and put dried cherries in each chocolate bar mold section.

I've also used sweet orange oil and almonds (both ground and whole almonds, not both in the same batch though) in chocolate bars.

I've used rice crispies with loaded chocolate as well.

Once you get the basics down it's easy to spread out from there.
 
LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
shredder4 said:
I use a plastic spatula that is actually for spreading bondo from an auto parts store to scrape off chocolate from the top of small molds. They're flat and wide and work fairly well, especially if I include nuts in the chocolate. Nuts in chocolate can be difficult to spread in small molds. But I love nuts in chocolate.

Chocolate bar molds being bigger are much easier to fill.

I sometimes make dark chocolate cherry bars. I include cherry oil in the chocolate and put dried cherries in each chocolate bar mold section.

I've also used sweet orange oil and almonds (both ground and whole almonds, not both in the same batch though) in chocolate bars.

I've used rice crispies with loaded chocolate as well.

Once you get the basics down it's easy to spread out from there.
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Yeah, part of that will have to be me getting better molds. These ones each hold 5oz of chocolate and filled they're only about 1/4" thick or less. My very first batch had freeze dried raspberry bits in it, but yeah, I'll get into making ones with flavors. Cherry is probably pretty easy for me as is things like candied orange peel or apricot, candied ginger, etc.

I need to be better about leveling, scraping off the excess and being able to reuse that to continue to fill molds. But that probably comes with time and experience.

Next up on the docket will be a couple batches of gummies. I have tiny little 1ml bears and I have 3ml rounds. I'm going to do slightly different recipes for them so that the little ones will be ~10mg and the rounds will be ~20mg.
 
C

conor c

Well-Known Member
shredder4 said:
We make quite a few chocolates. Anywhere from 17mg mj leaves to 200+mg chocolate bars. I use silicone molds for bars, leaves, and peanut butter cup type molds. They're popular with my patients.

I bought the mj leaf molds for gummies, but we like the chocolates much better.

My last batch was 6, 140mg dark chocolate cherry bars.

I added dried Bing cherries to the partially filled molds, and some cherry oil to the chocolate. They turned out great.

We've also added sweet orange oil to dark chocolate and that was nice.

And of course nuts, ground nuts, toasted coconut, rice crispies, and oreos to white chocolate (cookies and cream knock off).

Oh, before i forget, sometime try chocolate covered potato chips or bugle corn chips. Just be careful cause it's really easy to eat too much, lol.
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Well i find a little in milk chocolate is good but also makes it kick in a little faster too vs without theres a brand of milk choclate over here i use that has orange oil already in it i put it down to cannabis being oil /fat soluble then again i could be wrong what do you think do you find it kicking in any faster with orange oil or any other fruit oils added or nah ?
 
shredder4

shredder4

Well-Known Member
conor c said:
Well i find a little in milk chocolate is good but also makes it kick in a little faster too vs without theres a brand of milk choclate over here i use that has orange oil already in it i put it down to cannabis being oil /fat soluble then again i could be wrong what do you think do you find it kicking in any faster with orange oil or any other fruit oils added or nah ?
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A lot of essential oils have terpenes. Orange oil has limonene. Limonene is a terpene related to uplifting and energetic effects. So my guess it's that terpene effect your noticing.
 
C

conor c

Well-Known Member
shredder4 said:
A lot of essential oils have terpenes. Orange oil has limonene. Limonene is a terpene related to uplifting and energetic effects. So my guess it's that terpene effect your noticing.
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I thought maybe that but i tried it with several strains at different times and still found it slightly faster so it must be a common terp if it is that i noticing one would think who knows lol cheers for your opinion anyway man
 
LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
Quick update...after making the chocolate mid-week, I headed out of town for a few days...so I didn't have much time to test how things came out vs. my assumptions of strength with a pair of 1st washes at 7g each. Night one I ate half a square of chocolate (assuming the end strength would be about ~9mg per square). Didn't have any 'feels' from it, but also didn't have any trouble sleeping. Very well could have been ~4-5mg for half.

The following night, since I was feeling pretty secure that they weren't strong enough to blow the doors off, I had a single square which I could feel mildly and definitely had absolutely no trouble falling asleep or staying there. Made it home last night & ate two squares just to see...and I definitely could feel it but it wasn't so strong that I was glued to the couch or bed. I'd guess I estimated strength solidly at 8-9mg per square. I know that seems low, but I don't have a huge built up tolerance and Mrs. LEG has no tolerance so she'll also be comfortable.

I also think that the strain type (Durban Poison, much more sativa centered) has a different feel from the hybrids (Tangerine Dream, Blueberry & Northern Lights) I'd been using before. With the edibles I've made from those, it was a fight to keep my eyes open. That's not an issue with this stuff, but it also wasn't necessarily 'speedy' either.
 
LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
So, the chocolate is goood. Just the right potency for one piece at night. But I've moved on to gummies...these may end up being too strong...my calculations on how many a somewhat standard recipe would make was a little off, and I was figuring at 240 and ended up at 165... But at least I have a gummy bear army.

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