The Ardent community is filled with cannabis and hemp lovers of all kinds! Along with smokers, edible aficionados, and topical warriors, we have a robust group of dry herb vape consumers.
As crafty folks who love easy DIY, naturally many were curious about what to do with your leftover material once it’s been vaped. This material is called ABV, short for “already been vaped.”
So, what can you do with your leftover AVB? Keep reading to find out how to transform your AVB into a potent cannaoil or cannabutter. And if you're looking for something already infused and ready to go, check out Ardent's new Done-For-You Cannabutter that comes complete with 600mg THC and 600mg CBD per jar.
What is Dry Herb Vaping?
Dry herb vaping is a super common consumption method that’s been even more popularized over the past few years as more vaporizers hit the market. The cannabis or hemp material is placed inside a chamber where it’s heated to temperatures high enough to vaporize the material but not hot enough to light it on fire. The vapor is then pulled through a mouthpiece, and inhaled, avoiding combustion entirely. The material leftover in the chamber, the "already been vaped" ABV, is actually still valuable for making edible and topical solutions inside the Ardent FX, Mini or Nova.
How Much THC is Left In ABV?
The amount of THC and other cannabinoids that is left in ABV depends on a few factors, mostly importantly how many hits you take of the vaporizer before taking out the ABV. Our lab partner, MCR Labs, tested the potency of ABV over the course of 40 pulls in a dry herb vaporizer, with fascinating results. As more pulls were taken from the vaporizer, the more the available potential THC percentage declined. You can see in the graph below that after about 15 draws from the vaporizer, there was about 65% of the initial THC potential remaining, and after 30 draws there was about 20% potential THC still remaining.
Something interesting and important to note is that CBN is also being created here. You can see by 30 draws, there's about 0.5% of CBN present, or about 5 mg per gram of ABV.
At around 20% of the starting available THC left after vaping, that would be about 40 grams of potential THC per gram if you were vaping cannabis that had 23% THCa to start. Even if your flower was a bit lower like 15% THCa, you could still potentially have over 25mg of potential THC per gram of ABV per gram that could be used for edibles. topicals or some beauty or wellness therapies. We'll talk about the best way to do that next!
Does ABV Need to be Decarbed?
First, why do we keep saying "potential THC?" It's because, as you probably know, THC in the flower actually exists in an acid form of THCa. (If this information is new to you, please check out our decarboxylation guide to get deeper into decarb and why it is critical to understanding cannabis and how it works). When the cannabis is vaporized, some of the THCa is converted to THC through the heat of the vaporizer, but much if it is not. Also, as you saw above, the heat of the vaporizer also turns some of the THC to CBN.
Looking at the results below, you can see in the experiment, after 30 pulls in the vaporizer, about 60% of the remaining THCa had been converted to THC. So even after a full round of vaping, ABV is not fully decarboxylated. Because it is already decarboxylated to 60%, you can place it in the Ardent FX or Ardent Mini for half a decarb cycle in order to activate the remainder before infusing into your butter or oil.
Creating products with ABV can lead to potent edibles if you infuse the ABV into a small amount of butter or oil. If you don't have a lot of ABV or want to make edibles that are more potent than you can achieve using leftovers, we recommend a process called infusion boosting, which we’ll explain further below.
What is Infusion Boosting?
Infusion Boosting is a term we coined here at Ardent to describe the process of re-infusing a previously infused oil, butter, milk, cream, or alcohol. The process of infusion boosting adds additional potency, or allows you to give your infusion medium a new ratio of cannabinoids.
In the case of ABV, since it has already been vaped and a lot of the available cannabonoids have already been removed, depending on how spent or under-activated the material is, results may vary. In order to make your infusion stronger, you can try the Infusion Boosting method. You can either infuse your butter, oil, milk, cream, or alcohol with the ABV and test it out (adjusting the potency afterwards) or decarb some fresh plant material to infuse at the same time as your ABV to make a more potent infusion from the start.
How to Make ABV Cannaoil:
- Decarb any fresh plant material you want to include in your infusion (aside from the ABV, which you can decarb for half a cycle to fully decarboxylate) This step can be skipped if you plan to just use ABV in your infusion.
- Once the decarb cycle is complete, add any decarbed flower and the ABV to the Sleeve or Vessel inside the device.
- Pour the oil of your choosing over the plant material, fully submerging it. Choose between olive oil, coconut oil, grapeseed oil, canola oil, sesame oil, and many other options with edible or topical uses. If using the Ardent Nova, run it for a cycle. If using the Ardent FX or Mini, choose the Infuse setting.
- Strain out the leftover material using the Ardent Frainer, Infusion Press, or a standard kitchen strainer or cheesecloth.
- Store your cannaoil in an airtight container, such as the Infusion Mold or Vessel.
How to Make ABV Cannabutter:
- Decarb any fresh plant material you want to include in your infusion (aside from the ABV, which you can decarb for half a cycle to fully decarboxylate).
- Once the decarb cycle is complete, add any decarbed flower you're using and the ABV to the Sleeve or Vessel inside the device.
- Place the butter or ghee of your choosing over the plant material, fully submerging it. If using the Ardent Nova, run it for a cycle. If using the Ardent FX or Mini, choose the Infuse setting.
- Strain out the leftover material using the Ardent Frainer, Infusion Press, or a standard kitchen strainer or cheesecloth.
- Store your cannabutter or ghee in an airtight container, such as the Infusion Mold or Vessel, in the fridge.
You can also Infusion Boost using kief or concentrate! With so many people discovering the power of CBG for energy, focus and preventative wellness, are so excited to show you this easy hack for taking Ardent's Done-For-You Cannabutter that already comes complete with 600mg THC and 600mg CBD, and using our top-shelf super potent but non-intoxicating CBGa Kief to add 600mg of CBG to the butter for an amazing multi-cannabinoid experience that is so delicious and effective!
Here's to the power of naturally occurring cannabinoids and using the power of lab-grade technology to unlock the full power of the plant for everyone. Cheers!
