Slow-Roasted Carnitas with Infused Lime Crema

Real carnitas is a confit — pork shoulder simmered low and slow in lard until the meat gives up all resistance, then crisped under screaming heat until the edges shatter. Four pounds of shoulder, orange and lime, cinnamon and bay, three hours at 325°F, then a broiler blast that browns every shred. That entire journey is an inferno as far as THC is concerned: a three-hour heat soak well past the ~250°F degradation threshold, followed by direct radiant broiler heat. There is no version of this cook that preserves a dose — any THC dosed into the braise would come out as a rumor, and the rendering fat carries it out unevenly besides. So the pork cooks completely clean and undosed, the way tradition demands. The dose lives where the temperature can be controlled to the degree: the lime crema. Cold crema, cold dosed olive oil, whisked together with lime juice and zest off the heat — the oil never sees a flame, never sees warmth above room temperature. Every taco gets a measured tablespoon, and every tablespoon carries the same math. The pork is the tradition. The crema is the dose.

🥩 The Science: The Braise and the Broiler Can't Carry the Dose

This blog has a standing rule, and carnitas is its most unforgiving test: anything that cooks above ~250°F for a sustained time cooks undosed. The reasons, specific to this dish:

The braise is a three-hour heat soak. 2.5–3 hours at 325°F. THC degrades meaningfully above roughly 250°F with sustained exposure — the pork bathes past that line for longer than most baking projects. Whatever you dosed into the braise would not survive to the plate.
The broiler is direct radiant heat. 5–8 minutes under a broiler is surface contact with intense, uneven heat — the kind of exposure that degrades THC unpredictably across the shreds. The outer crisps would lose dose while the inner shreds kept it; you'd be serving a lottery, not a meal.
The rendering fat carries dose out unevenly. As the shoulder renders, its own fat leaves the meat. Dosed fat blended into the braise would render away from the pork at different rates, at different places, through different pieces — there is no homogenizing a confit.
The crema is the ideal carrier. A cold emulsion you build by hand at room temperature — zero heat exposure, ever. Thirty milliliters of dosed olive oil whisked into cold crema distributes to perfect uniformity, and the dosing unit is a tablespoon you spoon onto each taco. Measurable going in, exact coming out.

🧈 The Infusion: Dosed Olive Oil for the Crema

A mild, clean-tasting olive oil — you want a carrier, not a flavor fight. Pick a mild "light" olive oil, not a peppery extra-virgin that would bulldoze the lime.

Decarb: 7g ground flower, sealed mason jar, 240°F (115°C) for 40 minutes. Cool before opening.
Method: Warm 1 cup (240ml) mild olive oil to 160–180°F. Add the decarbed flower, hold low for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Strain through cheesecloth, squeeze gently, jar it.
Dosing math: 7g at 20% THC = 7000mg × 0.20 = 1400mg THCA × 0.877 = ~1228mg THC × 0.75 efficiency ≈ ~921mg per ~225ml → ~4.1mg per ml.
Yield: ~225ml. Storage: Cool dark place 4 weeks, fridge 8 weeks. Label: strain, date, mg/ml.

🍖 The Recipe: Slow-Roasted Carnitas (8–10 servings, ~20 tacos)

All undosed — this pork carries zero THC, by design and by rule:

4-lb pork shoulder (Boston butt), cut into 3-inch chunks
Salt — kosher, and be generous; salt overnight if you can plan ahead
1 cup lard (or enough to come halfway up the pork in your Dutch oven)
1 orange, quartered
1 lime, quartered
1 onion, halved
6 garlic cloves, smashed
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
1 tsp dried oregano
Warm corn tortillas, diced onion, cilantro, and the dosed lime crema — for serving

Method:

Salt the pork: Season the chunks aggressively with kosher salt. Overnight in the fridge if you can; at minimum an hour at room temperature while the oven heats. Salted ahead, the seasoning works all the way in.
The braise (undosed): Heat the oven to 325°F. Nestle the pork into a Dutch oven, add the lard — it should come halfway up the chunks — then the orange, lime, onion, garlic, cinnamon, bay, and oregano. Cover and braise 2.5–3 hours, until a chunk collapses at the touch of a fork. Low, slow, submerged, traditional — and completely clean.
Shred: Lift the pork out of the fat with a slotted spoon. Shred into bite-sized pieces — not fine strands; you want craggy shreds with texture that will crisp.
Crisp the edges (undosed): Spread the shreds in a single layer on a sheet pan. Broil 5–8 minutes, undisturbed, until the edges turn deeply browned and crackly. Flip once if you want, or don't — the uneven crisp is the whole point. This is where the dish gets its name. The broiler touches nothing but clean pork.

🥑 The Dosed Lime Crema (the entire dose of the dish)

120ml Mexican crema (or sour cream thinned with a splash of milk)
30ml dosed olive oil — ~123mg THC for the whole batch
Juice and zest of 1 lime
Pinch of salt

Method:

Cold whisk — this is the dosing step: Pour the crema into a bowl. Add the 30ml dosed olive oil, the lime juice and zest, and the salt. Whisk until smooth and evenly combined. The oil never warms above room temperature. No stove, no warm pan, no shortcut with the microwave. Cold, measured, exact.
Serve cold: Spoon over warm carnitas on warm tortillas. The contrast — hot crispy pork, cold bright crema — is the dish.

📐 Dosing Math

Dosed olive oil in the crema: 30ml × 4.1mg/ml ≈ ~123mg THC across ~150ml crema (~10 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon on a taco → ~12mg THC per taco
2 tablespoons → ~25mg per serving
Tell your guests the per-tablespoon number. Print it, say it, mean it.
The pork carries zero. The crema carries everything. The lime wedges and cilantro are innocent in all of this.

🧬 Terpene Pairing

Primary terpenes: Limonene (the orange, the lime, the zest — the primary bridge that ties this whole dish together) + caryophyllene (the cinnamon stick, the black pepper warmth you should reach for at the table) + myrcene (the earthy, round base of pork fat and slow cooking)
How to use it: The citrus is the obvious star — choose a strain with a strong limonene presence and the pairing practically writes itself. The carnitas are doing half the terpene work for you before the oil even enters the picture.
What to avoid: Heavy pine or fuel profiles — they fight the citrus. A gassy strain over lime crema is two flavors arguing in the same bite.

🌱 Strain Suggestions

Tangie (Sativa, ~20% THC) — Limonene, myrcene. The citrus obvious answer — check the COA, but this is the strain the dish was waiting for.
Wedding Cake (Indica, ~22% THC) — Limonene, caryophyllene. Sweet-spiced depth that settles into the warm pork fat.
Do-Si-Dos (Indica, ~22% THC) — Limonene, caryophyllene, pinene. Warm and grounded with enough citrus to keep up with the lime.
Blue Dream (Hybrid, ~19% THC) — Myrcene, pinene. The crowd-pleaser — gentler on the THC math and easygoing over citrus.

📏 Dosage

Per taco (1 tbsp crema): ~12mg THC — two tacos with a tablespoon each ≈ ~25mg
Onset: 60–90 minutes — the pork fat speeds absorption slightly compared to a lean meal, so the window runs a little faster than usual; do not let that tempt a second taco early
The crema rule: Always cold, always measured. Keep a bowl of undosed crema on the table too, clearly labeled, for the cautious and the designated drivers of the evening. A confused guest reaching for the wrong bowl is the failure mode — make it impossible.

Start with one serving. Wait 90 minutes before even thinking about a second. For adults 21+ only. Consume responsibly and in accordance with local laws.

🥩 Chef Smoke's Carnitas Rule: "The braise is a furnace and the broiler is a spotlight — neither one carries a dose. Confit the pork clean, the way it's been done forever: lard, orange, cinnamon, three hours, a blast of heat at the end. Then build the dose by hand, at room temperature, whisked into cold crema with a tablespoon as your measuring stick. Heat you can measure is heat you can trust. The pork is the tradition. The crema is the dose."

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