Every soup on this blog starts with stock, and stock is the one place you must never dose the pot. A stockpot simmers for hours, gets ladled unevenly, gets refilled, gets topped up, and gets served to whoever happens to be hungry — including the person who never asked for a dose. A dosed pot is a pot nobody can count. So this post teaches the only safe way to make an infused stock dish: make the stock clean, make it well, and put the dose in the bowl, at the table, by the measured half-teaspoon.
🔥 Decarboxylation: Wake the Flower Up First
Raw flower will not do the job — the THC is still wearing its acid jacket as THCA, and heat is what takes it off. So before anything gets infused, the flower gets activated:
- Decarb: 3.5g flower, broken up by hand (never ground to dust), spread on a parchment-lined sheet pan, covered tightly with foil, baked at 240°F for 40 minutes. Cool completely before opening the foil — the good stuff is in the trapped vapor, and you want it in the jar, not in the kitchen air.
- Why 240°F for 40 minutes: This is the house standard — hot enough to convert THCA to THC reliably, gentle enough to keep the terpene character from boiling off.
🧈 The Infusion: The House Small-Batch Butter
- Method: Melt 1/2 cup unsalted butter with the decarbed 3.5g flower in a small saucepan or double boiler, hold at 160–180°F for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Strain through cheesecloth, squeeze gently, and jar.
- Base: Unsalted butter. Temp: 160–180°F. Time: 2 hours. Yield: About 1/2 cup of dosed butter.
- Dosing math: 3.5g at 20% THC = 3500mg × 0.20 = 700mg THCA × 0.877 = ~614mg THC × 0.75 efficiency ≈ ~460mg THC per 1/2 cup → ~58mg per tablespoon, ~19mg per teaspoon, ~10mg per half-teaspoon.
- Storage: Fridge 4 weeks, freezer 6 months. Label the jar: strain, date, mg per teaspoon. Keep it far away from the undosed butter.
🍲 The Technique: A Clean Stock, Dosed Bowl by Bowl
For the stock (clean — this is the whole point):
- 1 whole chicken carcass or 2 lbs backs and wings, 1 onion (halved), 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, 1 head garlic (halved), a bay leaf, a few peppercorns, a handful of parsley stems
- Cold water to cover, salt only at the end
Method:
- Simmer clean, for hours, with nothing dosed in it. Cover the chicken and vegetables with cold water, bring barely to a simmer, and hold it there — never a rolling boil — for 3–4 hours, skimming the scum. Strain, season, and chill. This stock is now the base for every soup you make this week, and it is safe for every person at the table, dosed or not.
- Why the pot stays clean — the three reasons. First, heat: a pot that simmers for hours degrades cannabinoids unevenly, so the number you calculated is not the number in the bowl. Second, ladling: the fat — and the dose rides the fat — floats, so the first bowl gets more than the last. Third, people: a stockpot feeds whoever is hungry, including guests, kids' portions, and tomorrow's leftovers. A dose that cannot be counted per person is not a dose; it is a gamble.
- Dose the bowl, off the boil. Ladle the hot soup into a bowl, let it settle off the boil, and whisk in exactly 1/2 teaspoon of dosed butter per bowl (~10mg). The butter melts into the hot broth, the broth's own fat carries it evenly through that one bowl, and that bowl — and only that bowl — is dosed.
- Count out loud, every bowl. Say the number before the spoon goes in: ~10mg per bowl. A clean bowl gets plain butter or nothing at all, from a separate dish, before the dosed butter comes out. Never dose from the jar over the pot. Never dose a pot you will reheat tomorrow, because tomorrow's reheat is a second, uncounted dose.
📐 Dosing Math
- Dosed butter: 1/2 teaspoon per bowl ≈ ~10mg THC
- A quarter teaspoon → ~5mg — the gentle starting point
- Four bowls → 2 teaspoons total, but measured bowl by bowl, never poured into the pot
- The half-teaspoon is the scale. Soup is the easiest dish to over-dose and the hardest to fix — so the pot stays clean and the bowl carries the count.
🧬 Terpene Pairing
- Primary terpenes: Myrcene (savory, soup-friendly warmth), pinene (herbal, lifts a long-simmered stock), caryophyllene (gentle pepper that suits a chicken broth)
- How to use it: A stock is a background flavor, so the strain should be one too — savory and herbal, not loud. The broth leads; the strain follows.
- What to avoid: Sweet, fruity, or diesel strains in a soup butter — they turn a clean chicken stock into a confusing bowl.
🌱 Strain Suggestions
- Blue Dream (Hybrid, ~19% THC) — Myrcene, pinene. Gentle herbal warmth — the all-purpose soup companion.
- Jack Herer (Sativa-dominant, ~19% THC) — Pinene, limonene. Herbal clarity that lifts a rich stock.
- ACDC (Sativa-dominant, ~1% THC / ~14% CBD) — Myrcene, pinene. Mostly CBD calm — for a bowl that should soothe, not soar.
📏 Dosage
- Per bowl: ~10mg THC — a full, honest serving; respect it
- Quarter teaspoon: ~5mg — where a first-timer starts
- Onset: 60–90 minutes — the broth's fat carries it steadily
- The gentle rule: The pot feeds everyone; the bowl feeds one person. Dose the bowl, count it out loud, and never let the pot learn the number.
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 Stock Rule: "A stockpot is a commons — it feeds the table, the guests, and tomorrow's lunch. A dose is a private contract, one person, one bowl, one number. Keep the pot clean, dose the bowl, and the soup stays honest for everybody at the table."
© Gourmet Edibles 2026. All rights reserved. Published by Compact Underground • Educational content only. Always follow local laws and consume responsibly.