In recent years, a new trend has swept the culinary world and made its way into kitchens around the world: yes, we’re talking about the air fryer. At first, many people viewed it with apprehension… What do you mean you can fry without oil and only with air? What kind of sorcery is this? However, over time, more and more people saw with their own eyes that yes, the air fryer works, and it brings many benefits. One of them, perhaps the least known, is that you can also use the air fryer to decarboxylate cannabis.
Wait a minute, decarboxylate? What’s that? What does it have to do with pot? Fear not: in this article, we’ll explain why it’s essential to decarboxylate your weed to cook with it, and how you can conveniently do it with the air fryer.
The Magic of Decarboxylation
If you’ve ever cooked with weed, you already know what we’re talking about. If not, you might know that it’s not possible to eat raw cannabis directly (well, it is possible, but it’s not effective). To feel the effects that make pot so coveted, you first have to heat it.
Why? Because THC is actually almost nonexistent in the cannabis plant: rather, we find THCA, its chemical precursor, among other cannabinoids. When we apply heat to THCA, it turns into THC: that’s why a joint is lit, not eaten. THCA has its own benefits, but it doesn’t provide the psychotropic effects of THC, which must be “activated.”
This is where decarboxylation comes in: basically, this process occurs when weed is exposed to heat, light, or simply time. To cook, then, we heat cannabis to activate the desired cannabinoids. But careful! Heating is not the same as burning. …
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Author: Marian Venini / High Times
