CannaCap math for dummies (me) help

[OlderNOTwiser]

My first attempt at making cannacaps this past Autumn went okay I guess. As in all things cannabis I'm still in the learning stage. I had some 2.5% cbd (aka hemp) flower given to me. I tried and kind of succeeded at making caps. I can figure the potency and amount of grams to use for that potency. What I can NEVER get my head around is how much coconut oil to use to fill the 100 caps just right. I misplaced or destroyed the notes from that day but I know the caps were about 2.3 mg per cap. Which would mean about 4 per "dose".

Yesterday I tried again. This time I had cured bud from my own grow at 22% cbd per the breeder. I assume I wasn't growing it perfect and harvested about ten days early so I'm using 20% for my calculations even though it may be a tad high still. Anyway, using the formula of Potency = 10(Grams x Strength)/Number of doses. This put me at 10(12 x 20)/60 as all I got was 60 caps. This works to 40 mg cbd per cap! Or does it?

Using 00 capsules @ 735 mg capacity (unsure if it is both parts or the larger end only). This should mean if I used 73.5 grams of oil it should pack up right to the brim. I got about 60 caps. Obviously the balance was still soaked up in the herb. I donned my gloves and wrung the crap out of it but it didn't change much. Since I had the 100 caps in the machine I went ahead and crammed the gooey mess into the remaining caps best as I could. The unresolved question is what potency are these caps? If I used 100 caps as my end product it gets me down around 24mg per cap. I was shooting for 20 so that was in the range.

So did I guess right on the 73 g of oil should fill 100 caps? Do I really have caps twice as potent as I wanted and if so what are the repercussions of that? Or do I have the lower guesstimate around 24? Any wild ass guess on how much oil to add to compensate for retention in the weed?

When I cleaned up I tried for thc caps. Similar issues. Again oil about 73 g. However the flower is lower in thc so I used a bit more. It came from bagseed grow and I can only guess it is about 17%. If I use that guess I get ~ 27 per 100 caps but up to 68 when I used 40 caps...which is about where I ended up. A lot of oil retained in the goop. Since I had all 100 caps loaded I again crammed the goop in as many caps as I could. Like above...do I really have caps with ~ 50 mg thc each? Or do I have them at ~ 25 mg and the goop caps are an unknown? And what do you do with all of that coconut oil and weed goop?

[Eliot Pryor]

Well I am no math whiz but right away I can see you are mixing dry weight with liquid weights. Maybe ?

[DW2]

Howdy OlderNOTwiser, I have been making my own canna caps for about two years now. I found the 'dosing dilemma' (how much per cap, etc.)to be a problem as well. I came to a 'non scientific' method to resolve this. I measured (an approximation) of the amount of bud that I would use to get two to three 'hits' from my pipe. I then got a chart that listed the volumes of the various sizes of the capsules available, and settled on the size '0' capsule. This has worked well for me.

[OlderNOTwiser]

Are you making caps with ground herb or a carrier oil?

[DW2]

I have been baking and grinding the bud (and trim, separately) and putting that into the caps, no oils used. I make separate caps with the trim for relief (arthritis) during the day time, so I can get things done without the stronger 'buzz'. I use the bud caps for stronger levels of relief and at bed time.

[OlderNOTwiser]

The grandson is away this weekend so I get to play alchemist. I have the same weed base as before. (I'm thinking it is likely not 17% as previously guessed. More like 12?) I'm going to measure the herb to fill the caps, decarb, cool, and put in a blender dedicated to this. Looking for fine powder to get in the caps. We'll see. Likely do 50 caps each of high CBD and 50 of whatever it is I've been smoking since October.

[OlderNOTwiser]

DW2 when you make up your caps do you just use a grinder prior to capping or do you use a blender or similar to get finer powder?

[SoOrbudgal]

I have never done this making caps but i'm going to get into it. Thanks all for this info. BTW I use a coffee bean grinder and I have a manual twisty grinder. I use the coffee one to grind pulse quick no holding it down for more than 3seconds doobies and when I make the kief balls I scrape inside of lid but i'm going to start using that for caps. It's fine fine do I still need to bake it?

[DW2]

OlderNOTwiser, I tried a mini food processor, but it did not get everything to an even size. I bought an 'Alpine' corn grinder from Amazon and after a bit of 'tweaking' it has worked well, although, some of the small veins in the leaf still come out as 'sticks'. The grinder is not made to produce a fine powdery grind (like a flour mill). but a courser grind like corn meal.

[Farmall]

I have also questioned dosing. I have used every internet calculator I can find and the variable still comes down to knowing the % of THC or CBD. This leaves a hole in the math and I’m not using any average numbers such as ‘ home grown has 10%’ or stuff like that. Ask anyone here... who doesn’t try to reach extreme quality end results to maximize their potency. Despite putting so much into the harvest, can anyone say definitively what the plant contains?


When I stuff caps with plain old ground... I use a pulsed food processor blade and I can see the net result which is not pulverized but more like any oregano spice from a jar

[SoOrbudgal]

But do I still need to decarb it in the oven? The really fine keif?

[DW2]

If You are going to take it internally, then it all needs to be decarbed first, either before or after the grinding.