DIY CBD-Infused Honey

One of my favorite aspects of growing food and herbs is the culinary magic that happens after the harvest. From steeping a blend of freshly-picked herbs in the summertime for “sun tea”, to pickling beets and fermenting cabbage for delicious homemade kraut, to making elderberry syrup in the early fall for winter wellness, there’s just something so special about taking what you’ve grown with love and intention and making something amazing with it. Naturally, DIY gifts are my go-to, and this one was too good not to share.

This past holiday, I wanted to make something divine using our house-grown CBD hemp flower. As licensed hemp growers, we churn out several harvests a year and sell our product in our stores. It’s a lovely, boutique-quality flower grown indoors without the use of pesticides and using only organic practices. We had saved up a pretty large amount of trim and smaller buds that weren’t marketable but still packed a powerful punch.

I wanted my friends and family who aren’t comfortable with smoking or vaping to try our CBD hemp flower, and after throwing around a few recipe ideas, I decided to go with an infused honey (because who doesn’t love honey?!). Plus, I had already dabbled in making a salve and wanted to do something edible this time. In fact, I ended up also infusing olive oil with the CBD hemp flower and gifting that as well, which made a delightful salad dressing base. I learned so much during this process and was very pleased with how it turned out.

I made a large batch to satisfy my entire recipient list, but a single batch will only require 3.5 grams of flower and will yield about 12oz of honey. I also infused mine with additional herbs to give each batch a unique flavor (more info on this below!). I’ll be sharing just the plain base recipe but know there’s room to get creative.

The final product resembles a creamy, whipped honey that is amazing in tea, coffee, on an English muffin, in a smoothie, or anywhere else you like to put honey! The piney terpene flavor came through nicely without being overpowering (and no dirt or earth flavor). I purchased 1oz glass hexagonal honey jars and gifted sets of 4 – adorable! CBD honey is completely non-psychoactive and because it’s a source of terpenes, antioxidants, prebiotics, vitamins, and minerals, it offers many health benefits for minimizing inflammation, stress, digestive issues, soothing a sore throat, and much more.

What you’ll need to gather:

• 3.5 grams of CBD hemp flower
• 11 ounces of unprocessed, local honey
• ½ cup virgin coconut oil
• a mason jar with lid (a pint is large enough)
• small cooking pot
• thermometer (for water bath) – optional
• a baking sheet and foil
• oven
• metal strainer and cheesecloth
• blender
• a clean container with a lid for storing your finished product

 The process:

1. First preheat your oven to 220*F
2. Next, break up (or gently grind) your flower into small pieces. This will increase surface exposure and help ensure you’ll get a full extraction.
3. Then, you’ll decarboxylate the flower. This is a process of heating the flower to the extent that the cannabinoids get activated. To do this, lay the flower out on the baking sheet lined with foil and put it in the pre-heated oven for 45 minutes. Now, I read that this might not be necessary since the flower will get heated in the coconut oil but it wasn’t clear so I performed the decarb first. There are several neat, all-in-one compact appliances such as the Levo or Magical Butter that will do that process for you with the push of a button, but I didn’t have one so I used ordinary kitchen appliances.
4. Next, put the decarbed flower and the ½ cup of coconut oil into a mason jar. Seal the lid and then gently set the jar in the pot on the stove. Add water (but do not cover the jar with water).
5. Turn on the burner and bring the water up to boil. Leave the jar in the hot water for about 2 hours (maintaining about 225*F using your thermometer).
6. After 2 hours remove the jar from the water and carefully remove the lid. Set the strainer lined with cheesecloth over a bowl and pour the oil/herb mixture over the cheesecloth. Gather up the cheesecloth and squeeze the herbs to extract any more oil.
7. Add the infused oil to the 11 ounces of honey then pour the oil and honey mixture into the blender and blend.
8. Last, pour infused and blended honey into a storage container.

As mentioned, I made mine with additional herbs that I added to the coconut oil/CBD flower jar during the infusion process. These varieties included:

• lavender – mint – sage
• rose – cardamom
• cacao – cinnamon – ginger – turmeric – mushroom blend
• orange – vanilla

A final note: I initially followed a recipe that called for infusing the CBD flower directly in the honey by way of heating the honey infusion in a double boiler. The problem is that honey loses its health benefits when heated above 100*F and, not only that, but cannabinoids bind to fat so infusing with oil is necessary for extraction. So, while adding dried herbs like lavender to honey to enhance the floral aroma works just fine, it doesn’t work as well with CBD unless there’s fat to bind to. The coconut oil also gives the honey a lovely creaminess that I really enjoy.

Please stop by any of our locations and pick up some CBD flower and give this recipe a try then let us know how you liked it!