The final step in the growing process of growing marijuana is to trim, dry, and cure the buds that you have grown yourself. What you are left with are cannabis leaves, stems, and roots. The scraps are not deemed waste, and with careful use, they will provide you with many benefits. If you’re wondering what to do with weed stems and other leftovers, keep reading, and we’ll show you some creative ideas.
Generally, weed stems are thought of as trash, but once you remove the leaves and buds, you don’t need to throw them away. Smokers have found alternative uses for marijuana stems instead of discarding them. Many home gardeners know that weed stems make delicious tea. However, they can also be used in other ways.
Let’s get into some scrappy cooking!
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List of Ways to Use Weed Stems
After harvesting your crop, it feels so wasteful to just throw out the leftover stems, leaves, and roots.
The lack of trichomes and other cannabinoids makes marijuana stems ineffective as a source of THC. You may find some residue containing THC if your pot stems come from inside buds or feel sticky. If you have any other garden by-products, such as trim, leaves, or popcorn nuggets, you can combine them for increased potency.
Stems can be used in ways other than squeezing out every last drop of THC. When you do not want to waste your stems, you should consider these options before throwing away the bones from your nugs.
1. Make Tea
That’s right, you can make tea with weed stems. Make sure you decarboxylate the stems before using them.
Decarboxylation is not a complicated process – it’s almost the same as making regular tea. All you have to do is heat up the stems on a stove for a few minutes. You can do this until it starts smelling and flip it over.
The key is to heat it up without burning it. You’ll know based on the smell. Once you’ve decarboxylated your stems, put them in the equivalent of 3 mugs worth of water and let them sit there for 10-20 minutes.
Remove the stems if they are too large, and strain out the tea. Done! You now have a beautiful, warm cup of tea made from weed stems.
To add to the taste, you can also mix it in with standard ingredients like lemon, ginger, honey, or anything you prefer to add to your tea. You’ll enjoy the benefits of marijuana while consuming a tasty tea.
2. Make a Tincture
To extract as many cannabinoids and botanical molecules as possible from weed stems, you should make a tincture using alcohol. You should use 100-proof alcohol (or higher.) Better yet, buy 95-plus percent ethanol from a laboratory supply company.
You will need to use gentle heat to decarboxylate the stems, then shred them into small pieces that fit into the mason jar. Don’t grind your tincture since it will end up with a lot of sediment, even filtered.
Fill the jar with the alcohol and cover it tightly. Steep the weed stems in the alcohol for a few days to a few weeks, depending on how strong you want the tincture to be. Add some trimmings or buds if you want a stronger tincture.
3. Make an Infusion
If you’d prefer to avoid the alcohol of a weed tincture, you can instead infuse butter, coconut oil, or another oil with marijuana stems. Fat will bind with the cannabinoids in your stems, whereas alcohol will only extract a limited number of botanicals.
To make your infusion, decarb the stems just as you would for a tincture. Stems, as well as any other cannabis you may have, should be simmered gently for two or more hours. When the butter or oil is cooled, you can add it to your favorite recipes. The infused coconut oil can also be used as a base for topicals.
4. Compost for Nutrition
The weed stems can be composted if you don’t want to go to the trouble of wringing out all the THC. Plant material in your own pot garden can become a valuable source of nutrients for cannabis or other plants. The compost bin will break down faster if larger stems are chopped up before adding them. As the compost ages, turn it periodically to help it along. Infested plants or plant parts should go into the trash rather than the compost bin.
5. Make Your Own Weed Oil
For oil production, a great number of leaves have to be collected. Once you have enough, press them to gain a rich oil that can be used in a multitude of products or distributed on its own.
6. Make Cannabutter Using Sugar Leaves
The process of making cannabis butter may sound complicated, but it is very simple. We promise you’ll be rewarded for your patience and extra time.
Cannabutter can be made from cannabis flowers, sugar leaves, and other marijuana trimmings. Though fan leaves are also okay, their THC and CBD content is much lower than that of other parts of the plant. That does not mean they cannot be used, however.
In this process, you’ll need to keep the temperature level and be careful not to burn it.
- In a saucepan over medium heat, bring the water to a boil;
- Put it on low heat once it begins boiling, add the first ½ of the butter (4 oz), and wait for it to melt before adding the second;
- Put the decarboxylated cannabis in the boiling water with the butter and stir gently;
- Mix everything together and let it simmer for three to four hours, covered. Stir frequently, around every 20 minutes. When the infusion is thick and glossy, it is ready;
- Then, strain it over a glass bowl using two cheesecloths or a strainer. Let it sit for about 10 minutes so the infusion strains. Use a cheesecloth, but don’t press too much; you’ll lose more butter volume;
Allow it to cool down to room temperature before putting it in the refrigerator overnight. As a result of the cold temperature, the butter will separate from the water, remaining at the top of the container.
Lastly, place the marijuana butter in a separate container and refrigerate for up to a week. If you are not planning on using it immediately, you can store it in the freezer for up to six months.
7. Smoke Them
While it may not be the tastiest option, you can smoke your weed stems, particularly the smaller ones. There will probably be a harsh taste to the smoke, and it will probably even taste like straight plant material, but if you smoke enough, you might catch a high.
In some cases, you might not feel anything if you already possess a high tolerance level. There’s a good chance that you will catch a high if you’re a lightweight THC user, though. You can use this as a distraction while you wait for the plug to come through if anything else.
The best thing to do is grind them well. For them to burn well, they must also be dry. You should probably start mixing stems into your flower or shake as early as you can, in case you find yourself smoking stems in the near future. This will help them last longer. Even though it’ll mostly just be filler, you’ll still get more hits out of your joints and bongs when you re-up.
8. Make a Hemp Wick
Stems are stiff, so you can use them for creative things like making a Hemp Wick. A hemp wick is an alternative to a lighter and a match, and many stoners prefer to smoke their weed with a hemp wick.
This is the hard part: You’ll need to strip the strands from your stems and twist them together. Keep doing it until they form a string. Once you have a string, you need to dip them in beeswax, which will stiffen it further and make it slow-burning.
That’s it. You’ve now made a hemp wick that you can use to smoke your weed. The key advantage here is that your weed will burn slower, so you’ll enjoy smoking for longer. This is because it burns at a lower temperature. This is one of my personal favorite ways to use weed stems.
9. Make Stem Hash
Stem Hash is that strong, chunky substance that you probably saw at your local dispensary. You can use Stem Hash in your bong, edibles, or joints once it’s broken up. It is a bit hard making it, though, so get ready.
Start by throwing your stems in a baggie and throw them in a refrigerator for freezing. Leave it there for a couple of hours up to a day, depending on how long it takes for them to freeze.
Once they’re frozen, remove the bag from the fridge, and start shaking it as hard as you can. Do this for a couple of minutes until the trichomes from the stems break off and stick to the inside of the bag. These are the bits you need to make Stem Hash.
Use a spoon or your fingers to scrape them off the edges of the bag, and then throw them on a countertop where you can work. Press them together using your fingers or a hammer to form the hash.
Stem Hash won’t be as potent as the regular hash you’re used to, but it gives utility to your leftover stems, so you can make something cool out of them.
10. Make Balms or Lotions
Leftover stems can be used for things you’d never imagine, like premium balms or lotions. These topical products will have the most beautiful color, which is usually green-yellowish.
Weed topical products like balms are used to treat medical conditions – mostly skin-related or inflammatory. Similar to making tea, you’ll have to start by decarboxylating the stems (translated: Heating them up).
You’ll need actual oil like coconut oil to infuse them in there and mix them together. Once they’re merged, you can finalize the product by mixing it with beeswax.
Take this a step further and get those beautiful lotion boxes to place your product and make it look appealing. This is an awesome way to make use of leftovers and even make a profit.
11. Make Weed-Infused Alcohol
If you can make tea with the stems, why not make alcohol with them? Your existing alcohol can be converted to cannabis-infused alcohol in just a few days. Stems can infuse vodka, whiskey, cocktails, and basically all your favorite drinks.
As always, you have to decarboxylate before you begin the process of infusing your drinks. You then basically submerge these stems inside the bottle (or jar) and leave them in a dark, cold basement for several days. Not that different from making wine.
Make sure it’s fully sealed off and that no air or bacteria can penetrate inside the alcohol. The effects are superior if the basement is fully darkened. Finish it off by straining the alcohol and removing the stems.
You’ll notice that it tastes different from your original drink, and it WILL hit differently. We mostly recommend this for cocktails and small drinks that you’re not inclined to overdo; you’re mixing weed and alcohol, after all.
There are also different ways to go about this and many recipes, so read more about infusing alcohol with stems below.
12. Make Hempaper
Want to try something ultra creative? Make Hempaper (paper made out of weed). Now, this paper won’t be anything spectacular, but it can give you a new hobby or a thing to do. If you run a weed dispensary or related business, you can brag about having paper made out of weed.
This is one of the few methods that don’t require decarboxylation. You actually have to throw the stems in water and wait for them to become soft after a few days. Once you notice that they’ve gotten soft, separate out the fibers using a blender.
Do this manually for each fiber. Get some kind of flat surface container where you can pour this pulp mixture you’ve created. Give it time to dry. Once it’s dry, you have paper that you can write and draw on.
You can use it in your business to design greeting cards, customer letters, and other creative things.
13. Make a Soothing Balm
The following steps will guide you through the steps of removing, cleaning, and drying your cannabis roots before making your own balm. Grind the roots into a fine powder after they have dried (you can use a food processor or a grater for this).
Powders can be mixed with any type of oil or fat. Coconut oil is our recommendation – one to two balls of root powder, four cups of oil, and two cups of water. You can cook the mixture for 12 to 18 hours in a water bath or a saucepan over low heat. Beeswax can also be added when the balm is finished to harden it.
You can use your balm to treat skin conditions such as acne and blisters. If you suffer from headaches, you can rub your temples to relieve tension, sinus congestion, and cold symptoms. Even sore joints feel better with it!
More on How Leftover Cannabis Stems, Roots, and Leafs Can Be Used
The trichomes on leftover leaves make them more potent and provide them with more CBD and THC. Even though they are not as potent as their bud siblings, they can still be used to make hash, tea, or topical oils.
- Juice them up
- Make Cannabutter with them
- Make cookies and cakes
- Prepare tinctures
- Make FECO (Full Extract Canna Oil)
- Make smoothies
- Sauté as if they were spinach
- Try them deep-fried
- Infuse coconut oil with them
- Mix them with alcohol
- Compost it or make it into mulch for your garden
The possibilities are endless.
Fan leaves should never, however, be thrown away because you don’t want to throw away valuable benefits.
Wrap Up:
- Never waste cannabis leftovers like leaves, stems, and roots. These can be molded into dozens of different products.
- Alternative uses for marijuana stems include smoking them, making tinctures or infusions, and using them as compost for plant nutrition.
- Note that smoking weed stems may produce a harsh taste and minimal effects, particularly for stoners with high tolerance.
- Tinctures can be made by decarboxylating stems and steeping them in alcohol, while infusions can be made with butter or coconut oil.
- Cannabis leaves, particularly sugar leaves, contain essential nutrients and can be used in recipes such as smoothies, salads, or pesto. They can also be juiced or used as a base for topicals.
Putting your trim to good use is easy, and look at all the different products you can make from something you may have previously thrown away!