How to Make Dagga Oil at Home

Dagga oil is one of the best ways to extract, consume and/or store weed, and while it can be difficult and take some time, it’s pros definitely outweigh the cons.

This guide will detail a recipe to make dagga oil at home (also known as full extract cannabis oil or feco, using tools and ingredients you can buy at your local supermarket, hardware store or cooking store.

Please note that this recipe should not be taken lightly, and involves using hot surfaces around very flammable substances. You need to take utmost caution and read it a number of times, making sure you understand where it could go wrong, and what you need to do to prevent that.

Well, now that’s all done with, let’s get into the thick of it.

What is hash / cannabis / dagga oil?

Dagga oil is one of the more simple forms of cannabis extract which usually, like this recipe, uses high-percentage alcohol to absorb THC, CBD and other cannabinoids from plant matter. This alcohol solution is then drained and evaporated to leave a distillate thick, tar-like oil which is completely comprised of extracted cannabinoids.

Unlike CBD Oil, this method means that this tincture can get you very high. You can usually get 3-4 grams of oil from an ounce (28g) of bud. This means that the dagga oil is extremely potent, and often a grain-sized bead of it, when eaten, is more than enough to get you high.

While this kind of extract will most certainly get you high, it also contains a lot of essential chemicals and nutrients (ie. THCA, CBN, CBC etc.) from the plant which hold great medicinal and therapeutic properties.

Thus, this oil is arguably one of the best ways to consume cannabis, thanks to its healthy route-of-administration (eating it), as well as its great profile of nutrients and properties. If you wish, however, you could still spread it on a joint paper, bowl or pipe to add a little kick to your smoke.

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Ingredients for Making Cannabis Oil

Before worrying about ingredients and apparatus, make sure you’re making the dagga oil in a well-ventilated, outdoor area with good airflow. You’re going to be evaporating alcohol from the mixture which is extremely flammable and around items such as a rice cooker or hotplate, these fumes could become dangerous.

This recipe will take 3-4 hours to complete, and you need to be prepared to spend that full-time period tending to the mixture reducing on the heat.

Here’s a list of apparatus and ingredients you’ll need for making the oil.

• 8-12g of the finest Marijuana buds you can find ground finely*
• 1l of Ethyl Alcohol (Such as Everclear or extract solvent)**
• 2x Stainless steel pots (big enough to hold the plant matter and alcohol
• A big wooden stirring spoon or stick
• Large syringes
• Plastic funnels
• Desk fan
• Stainless Steel Measuring cup
• Stainless steel rice cooker
• Paper coffee filters
• 2x Large plastic bottles
• Coffee warmer or hotplate

*This amount of dagga should produce around 1-1.5g of oil. We used buds in our own recipe, to make the oil as potent as possible, although you can also use trim, or a mix of trim and buds for a more mild oil as you wish. If substituting trim for weed, use about a cup of trim for every 1-2g of buds you substitute.

**Adjust your amount of solvent for your changes in plant matter – you definitely won’t use 1l for 10g but it’s always good to have extra on hand.

All utensils made of stainless steel should be used as recommended. Stainless steel will prevent your oil from sticking to it the way it might to ceramic or glass surfaces.

If you don’t have a rice cooker, a crock pot or double-boiler can be used to the same effect, simply do your research and adjust the recipe accordingly. The two most important factors to preserve are the cooking temperatures, and the dissipation of solvent fumes while cooking.

How to make Dagga Oil: Recipe

Let’s dive straight into the recipe. Make sure you read every step properly and remember to have fun. Also, consider making notes of your experience as you go so that you can tailor the recipe to better suit your needs in the future.

Step One: Creating your Dagga/Alcohol Solution

Begin your process by putting your dagga into one of the stainless steel pots, and dampen your plant matter with a little alcohol. Use your wooden spoon or stirrer to crush this mixture up, almost like you would with a mortar and pestle. Keep crushing for 5 minutes depending on the size of your batch.

Next, add more alcohol until your plant matter is submerged, repeating the stirring/crushing process for a further 5 minutes. This helps the THC and CBD containing trichomes fall off the plant into the alcohol. This is called washing your plant.

Step Two: The Second Wash

Covering the mouth of your pot with a lid or plank, pour your solution out into the second pot, making sure as much plant matter as possible remains in the first pot. You’re going to repeat the process, covering this washed plant matter again with alcohol, and crushing and stirring for 5 minutes.

Again, cover the mouth of the pot and add this solution to the second pot containing your first wash.

The first wash will remove ⅔ to ¾ of the trichomes from the plant, and the second wash should cover the rest. If you’re doing a third wash, it’s best to separate that solution for external use only, just as a precaution.

Step Three: Filter Out any remaining Plant Matter

Let your solution sit in the pot for a few minutes while you get your rice cooker set up in a well-ventilated area, with your fan pointing at it to help faster dissipate any dangerous fumes. Make sure your fan is pointed at any vents that appear on the bottom of your rice cooker, to help keep the fumes away from any source of heat.

Place a coffee filter inside your funnel, and the funnel into one of the plastic bottles. Pour your solution through this filter and into the bottle, making sure you get it all in there, and set your pot down. Replace the coffee filter with a new one, place the funnel into your other bottle, and again strain the solution. Repeat this until any visible plant matter is removed from the solution.

At this stage, your solution should be some shade of yellow, orange or brown. This means the alcohol now contains all the delicious and beneficial goodness found in dagga, from THC to CBN to CBC and even CBG. While you may not have heard of all of these, they all perform important parts of marijuana’s range of effects, and work best in synergy.

Step Four: Let’s get cooking

Now that we’ve got a rice cooker ready to go, as well as an unrefined cannabis extract in alcohol, we’re just about ready for the fun part of the process.

Fill your cooker with the solution, no higher than ¾ of the way up the side of the pot. Turn your rice cooker onto the highest setting to boil off the alcohol from the solution. Make sure your fan and ventilation are helping the fumes disperse well.

We want to both separate the alcohol from the cannabis, as well as decarboxylate the cannabis, making it orally active. We’re looking for an ideal temperature of 82℃ for evaporating the alcohol, and 105℃ for decarb.

Step Five: Adding more solution while cooking

As the level of your solution drops while evaporating, add any leftover solution to the pot, not exceeding ¾ of the way full. Keep repeating this process until all of your solution is being refined, and keep it cooking at a consistent temperature for the best results.

Once the solution has reduced to standing at around 4 cm deep, slowly add around a dozen drops of water to the mix. This will help the last bit of solvent to evaporate, as well as make sure the cannabis is properly separated from the alcohol.

When the oil is nearly ready, it’ll start to crackle (the sound of bubbles in a very, very thick liquid), and steam will begin emitting from the oil. At this point, the rice cooker should have reached near the end of its cycle. Once all of the above has happened, and the oil is a thick, bubbling tar-like substance, switch off the rice cooker and let the oil cool for a few minutes.

Step Six: Refining your Solution

At this point, we’re going to make sure our refined oil product has evaporated as much as possible. Swish your rice cooker around to get all the solution off the sides of the pot, and pour it into your measuring cup.

Place the stainless steel measuring cup on the coffee warmer or hotplate (on a low temperature), watching it bubble. This may take a few hours, depending on the volume of your mixture and how well you completed the previous steps.

Once the mixture has stopped bubbling, you’ll know everything has evaporated, leaving only your reduced cannabis tincture.

Step Seven: Bottling your Dagga Oil and Dealing with Leftovers

Once the mixture has cooled a little (but not too much), use your large syringes to suck up the oil mixture, until the syringes are full. Try get rid of any air bubbles the way they do in movies – point the syringe at the sky and slowly squeeze out any air, tapping to loosen bubbles. This is now your finished, packaged cannabis oil, ready for consumption.

There will be little bits of residue left in your measuring cup and rice cooker. It’s recommended to either scrape these up with something edible like gummies or bread. Making yourself some little edibles (but be careful how much of these you eat at a time – they pack quite a punch), or mix the residue with tobacco to create a smokable version of your oil.

Alternately, you can simply wash the pots out with alcohol, or leave the residue there for further batches.

Step Eight: Use & Long-Term Storage

For long term storage, it’s best to simply freeze the syringes as they are. Alternately, you can store them anywhere dark, cool and dry. Heat, air and light will all slowly degrade the potency of your dagga oil. However, adhering to these guidelines will help your oil retain its maximum potency for months, years, and maybe even decades.

Dagga Oil Benefits: Medicinal, Recreational and Practical

One of the great benefits of this syrupy nectar is that it’s not only an easy and fun way to consume cannabis medically or recreationally, but it’s also a great ingredient to have around the kitchen for cooking with.

The oil possesses all the usual medical benefits of a THC / CBD extract, some of which include:

• Being great for sleep and insomnia
• Fantastic pain relief
• Helpful for many with anxiety or stress
• Anticonvulsant and anti-seizure

While most commonly taken orally (to attain as many as of the benefits of the plant as possible), this oil can also be smoked. You can squeeze a line of it along a rolling paper and roll a joint with it, place a few drops on top of a bong or bowl, vape it or even smoke it out of a dab rig.

This oil is also a great way to cook with marijuana as it’s already decarbed, meaning it’s orally active straight from the tube – with no further preparation required. Once you know the strength of the oil from trying it out, you can also easily dose when cooking for multiple people.

One of the easiest ways to cook with it would be to mix it with a small tablespoon of melted coconut oil (or whichever oil-based substance you enjoy cooking with) and simply add it to whatever you’re making.

Here are some fun food ideas to try with this dagga oil:

• Weedy Grilled Cheese Sandwich
• Infused Caesar Salad (Add it to the dressing)
• Classic Weed Brownies (you can either add it to the brownie mixture, or the icing)
• Pizza (best added to olive oil and generously spritzed on top)
• Weed Hot Chocolate

You should now be more than well-prepared to make your own oil at home in a pretty simple manner, as well as having a couple ideas about how best to use it. Feel free to experiment with this recipe and share your results with us – we’d love to hear about how it went for you.

Remember to always take precaution, we’d love to be there with you in person to guide you through this process, but unfortunately we can only be there through this guide. So, read it carefully and make sure you’re always putting safety first.