The machine is a set it and forget it type deal. It does take a long time, however it doesn't require you to do anything but decarb and add ingredients. The company themselves recommend only buying from them, they have counterfeit/knockoff units on ebay and amazon and won't cover warranty unless its a direct buy. She uses 1oz decarbed, 1lb unsalted butter, and 2Tbsp Lecithin. The unit says 1/4-1/2oz of botanicals per cup, 2-5 cups unsalted butter, 1 Tbsp lecithin per cup. (2cups min. - 5cups max cap). Since she is just getting into edibles, she finds a regular recipe she likes and substitute the original ingredient with the infused one. So if it calls for Butter add infused butter, if it calls for cooking oil and infused oil (coconut, olive, avocado, sunflower, grapeseed, peanut, and more). Another good thing about the unit is that tincture can be made in hrs instead of months. She uses it as an adder to recipes were there isn't really a substitute for an ingredient. Since I'm growing now, we will have a lot more resources to try new things. I will keep posted as we use it.