Salted Or Unsalted

[welj31]

Anyone know for sure..... why most cana butter instructions call for un salted butter?

 

And depending on the answer are there times when salted is better for the app?

 

Thanks

[Budz-4-U]

I know the THC adheres, sticks, to oil. In this case, butter. Never heard of salt altering that chemistry...... so far.

 

Need a Chem major in here !!

[Mememe]

Guessing that the salt fills in some molecular gaps that would hold cannabinoids if the salt wasn't there. Salted butter would most likely reach its saturation point sooner. Unsalted butter may allow the butter to hold more active ingredients because of more molecular "gaps". Just a theroy though.

[str8dank]

i dont know the technical reason just that an overwhelming number of educated cooks say it is more effective at exacting.

[Grow Thread]

some chemist will probably come and blow me out of the water......... but i just assumed the reason why they call for unsalted butter is because "most" cannabutter is used for baking and that normally calls for unsalted..... brownies, cookies, ect.

 

i do not know this to be fact, but i have been told it doesnt matter if you use salted or unsalted.

[+Dizledot]

some chemist will probably come and blow me out of the water......... but i just assumed the reason why they call for unsalted butter is because "most" cannabutter is used for baking and that normally calls for unsalted..... brownies, cookies, ect.

 

i do not know this to be fact, but i have been told it doesnt matter if you use salted or unsalted.

 

Salt does the same thing in pastry that it does in cooking - It enhances flavor! It rounds out flavor, and it makes everything seem to come together. It also makes you thirst for more. Salt also has a chemical role. In dough and pastry it enhances texture as well. A brioche made without salt will be tough and dense with a hard crust. Puff pastry will taste flat and greasy and will not color. Salt has an unusual effect on fat, as well. When you eat sweet butter on bread in your mouth you feel some kind of fat, or an oiliness on the palate. The opposite with salted butter, you don't get that same sensation.

 

Salt has several functions in baked goods:</FONT>

 

It contributes to overall flavor.

 

In bread, it controls the fermentation rate of yeast.

 

It has a strengthening effect on the gluten protein in the dough.

 

Now as far as making MM butter, I honestly have no clue! Never noticed one to be better than the other.

 

Dizz

 

[welj31]

WOW...... I guess I need a chem class or something. Thanks for some very interesting ideas and facts. I see yet another skill set needed in the movement........after all we all got to eat right?

[op2kal]

I've used both to make the butter. Noticed a difference? Nope... The biggest reason it calls for unsalted butter is because most everything you make with it for baking calls for unsalted butter.

 

I used fieschmans butter made with olive oil and sea salt this last time, and it came out great. But I usually use the unsalted just out of preference, salt can be added but never taken away.

[medicineman420]

THC is a fat soluble molecule when making cannabutter it is highly important to have the highest buttterfat content as possible ie Clarified butter, clarified is butter with almost all of its water and milk solids removed, leaving almost-pure butterfat. Clarified butter is made by heating butter to its melting point (do not boil) and then allowing it to cool off; after settling, the remaining components separate by density. At the top, whey proteins form a skin which is removed, and the resulting butterfat is then poured off from the mixture of water and casein proteins that settle to the bottom. Butterfat is the golden color pour this into a container and refrigerate over night the butterfat will form a solid while the water stays a liquid remove clarified butter and proceed to make cannabutter w it. Purest form of cannabutter their is... I like to mix mine with honey and put it on toast in the morning.. 1 tsp will have you zoned... 1 tbs will have you pirate eyed and grinning for hours.

[Hempcheff]

As a lifelong chef/cook/dishwasher/insert kitchen role here, id say the biggest reason, and one that holds true in all cooking, is that salted butter is used when little or no other salt will be used in a recipe. unsalted butter is more "pure" butter, the salt actually has an effect on the rest of the ingredients (as in baking=chemistry), acting as a dehydrator so to speak on a molecular level, and also is used in recipes where salt is added later, or other salty ingredients are used.

 

Try a batch of box cookies using each type of butter, youll notice a difference. although most recipes using chocolate will benefit from the salt, as it enhances the flavor of chocolate.

 

in addition, unsalted means lower sodium for HBP concerns.

[timbuckto]

THC is a fat soluble molecule when making cannabutter it is highly important to have the highest buttterfat content as possible ie Clarified butter, clarified is butter with almost all of its water and milk solids removed, leaving almost-pure butterfat. Clarified butter is made by heating butter to its melting point (do not boil) and then allowing it to cool off; after settling, the remaining components separate by density. At the top, whey proteins form a skin which is removed, and the resulting butterfat is then poured off from the mixture of water and casein proteins that settle to the bottom. Butterfat is the golden color pour this into a container and refrigerate over night the butterfat will form a solid while the water stays a liquid remove clarified butter and proceed to make cannabutter w it. Purest form of cannabutter their is... I like to mix mine with honey and put it on toast in the morning.. 1 tsp will have you zoned... 1 tbs will have you pirate eyed and grinning for hours.

LMAO @ "Pirate eyed and grinning for hours"...Har Har Har!!

[Hempcheff]

Im afraid the fat content doesnt change if you clarify butter my friend, and renders the butterfat a liquid at room temp. European made butters, or butters made by European standards have about 5% more fat as a rule than butters made here in the us, 85% and 80% respectively. While the clarified butter will remain solid if kept refridgerated, it is rendered unusable for baking as the solids play an important role when butter is needed. as a side note, while clarified butter is great for saute' and other high temp methods for cooking due to the change (higher) in its smoking point, after being processed with cannabis, the smoking point is actually about the same as normal, un-clarified butter.

 

 

THC is a fat soluble molecule when making cannabutter it is highly important to have the highest buttterfat content as possible ie Clarified butter, clarified is butter with almost all of its water and milk solids removed, leaving almost-pure butterfat. Clarified butter is made by heating butter to its melting point (do not boil) and then allowing it to cool off; after settling, the remaining components separate by density. At the top, whey proteins form a skin which is removed, and the resulting butterfat is then poured off from the mixture of water and casein proteins that settle to the bottom. Butterfat is the golden color pour this into a container and refrigerate over night the butterfat will form a solid while the water stays a liquid remove clarified butter and proceed to make cannabutter w it. Purest form of cannabutter their is... I like to mix mine with honey and put it on toast in the morning.. 1 tsp will have you zoned... 1 tbs will have you pirate eyed and grinning for hours.

[+itssortalegal10]

I suppose that it would probably be more important whether it is salted or unsalted when it comes to what you would be using the butter for..However I use it to make butter for chocolate chip cookies so I use unslated...I notice that the salted butter tends to taste saltier than it did when i use salted butter then cook the meds into it. Its not overpowering or anything but its definitely a noticeable change.

 

Another thing I do is stir it as it cools. Some people don't. I ran out of the containers I normally stored the butter in and those were made of tin. I use a glass bowl to allow it to cool and noticed a white sediment that would always show up at the bottom of the bowl. It occured to me that this may be the good stuff settling at the bottom, much like when you make hash with the blender/ice water method. So i started stirring up the butter and have also notice a better "high" and taste to the cookies. You get a pea soup green color to the butter rather than the normal dark green.

 

Not really sure if my logic is correct there but I am still learning and thought I would share maybe someone else could do what i did and see what they think...

 

Later,

Joe

[Alpha492]

As a lifelong chef/cook/dishwasher/insert kitchen role here, id say the biggest reason, and one that holds true in all cooking, is that salted butter is used when little or no other salt will be used in a recipe.

 

I'm in my second year of studying physics so I have a bit of Chemistry background (not claiming I'm anywhere near an expert) but I can't think of any reason related to chemistry why salt may be detrimental to THC. Cooking has also been a hobby of mine for a very long time and I would have to say ^this^ sounds like your best answer. Salt has can have a pretty overpowering flavor and in a recipe not calling for a salty flavor you probably want to minimize the amount you add. I do agree with other who have said it can round flavors though, adding salt to sweet flavors can be a dicey situation though.

[welj31]

Update

 

Well we made brownies from scrach Used Salted Butter And they were GREAT.

 

I did however use a large ratio and did an extraction on trim before adding to butter.

 

Thanks Guys

[Grow Thread]

thanks for affirming my thoughts

[welj31]

thanks for affirming my thoughts

We affrimed it 24 times Unless you count only being able to eat 1/2 at a time

[Grow Thread]

Unless you count only being able to eat 1/2 at a time

 

hahahah

[WillyWonka]

I just figured this out very recently when I left a batch of cannabutter overnight in the crockpot (something I have done before) and when I woke up in the morning, it had obviously overcooked. The smell was different, the color was darker, and the volume of my butter had reduced from 2 cups to 1.5 cups. I couldnt wrap my head around what happened; I make alot of cannabutter, I make it the same every time, and it turns out the same every time. It was kind of devastating because I was expecting to wake up and bake a new recipe I had been working with and instead I wake up to failed* cannabutter (*in my perfectionist work ethic outlook) 'What have I done?!' I cried out. Well, after a very frustrating 2 days trying to figure out this riddle, the answer presented itself to me when I was taking out the trash. I look down and see that the butter I used was Plugra SALTED. I've never used that before, I only use the unsalted. And thats when time slowed down and my brain was actually connecting the dots. I would explain it with my own words, but I found the answer on www.sciencebase.com to be much more eloquent:

 

"How does adding salt to water affect its boiling point? You will find several clues and key words below.

 

But, first check out this great science project you can download now that includes A Pinch of Salt which will help you answer that question.

 

The fact that dissolving a salt in a liquid, such as water, affects its boiling point comes under the general heading of colligative properties in chemistry. In fact, it’s a generic phenomenon dissolve one substance (the solute) in another (the solvent) and you will raise its boiling point.

 

Colligative properties determine how a solvent will behave once it becomes a solution, as it were. The degree of change depends on the amount of solute dissolved in the bulk liquid, not the type of solute.

 

So, here’s a rough explanation of what’s going on. If a substance has a lower vapour pressure than the liquid (it’s relatively non-volatile in other words) then dissolving that substance in the liquid, common salt (NaCl) in water (H2O), for instance, will lower the overall vapour pressure of the resulting solution compared with the pure liquid. A lower vapour pressure means that the solution has to be heated more than the pure liquid to make its molecules vaporise. It is an effect of the dilution of the solvent in the presence of a solute.

 

Put another way, if a solute is dissolved in a solvent, then the number of solvent molecules at the surface of the solution is less than for pure solvent. The surface molecules can thus be considered “diluted” by the less volatile particles of solute. The rate of exchange between solvent in the solution and in the air above the solution is lower (vapour pressure of the solvent is reduced). A lower vapour pressure means that a higher temperature is necessary to boil the water in the solution, hence boiling-point elevation."

 

In my words: when I left the salted butter, ground cannabis, and water overnight in the crockpot it reached a temperature higher than what I am used to. It boiled off more water (which I use as a heat buffer because I know it wont go over 212F) in a shorter amount of time, and when the all the water had boiled off, my temperature buffer disappeared and the mixture was able to reach a high enough temperature to boil off a portion of the butter thereby reducing the overall amount of butter from 2 cups to 1.5 cups.

 

I have since repeated the salted butter routine, but chose to do it during the day when I could stand over it and stir it when necessary and add more water when needed. It turned out great.

 

Just my personal experience................

[treehugger]

Although considered just a flavorant these days, salt's presence in butter was originally as a preservative and still effects that purpose. (check expiration dates on fresh salted/unsalted butter!) Today's unsalted butter's use is mostly for sweets, icing, and candy's. Baked goods can go either way...

[StonedPlanet]

wont the water absorb the salts though?

[ThiiisBiiitch]

On 1/21/2011 at 12:27 PM, WillyWonka said:

I just figured this out very recently when I left a batch of cannabutter overnight in the crockpot (something I have done before) and when I woke up in the morning, it had obviously overcooked. The smell was different, the color was darker, and the volume of my butter had reduced from 2 cups to 1.5 cups. I couldnt wrap my head around what happened; I make alot of cannabutter, I make it the same every time, and it turns out the same every time. It was kind of devastating because I was expecting to wake up and bake a new recipe I had been working with and instead I wake up to failed* cannabutter (*in my perfectionist work ethic outlook) 'What have I done?!' I cried out. Well, after a very frustrating 2 days trying to figure out this riddle, the answer presented itself to me when I was taking out the trash. I look down and see that the butter I used was Plugra SALTED. I've never used that before, I only use the unsalted. And thats when time slowed down and my brain was actually connecting the dots. I would explain it with my own words, but I found the answer on www.sciencebase.com to be much more eloquent:

 

"How does adding salt to water affect its boiling point? You will find several clues and key words below.

 

But, first check out this great science project you can download now that includes A Pinch of Salt which will help you answer that question.

 

The fact that dissolving a salt in a liquid, such as water, affects its boiling point comes under the general heading of colligative properties in chemistry. In fact, it’s a generic phenomenon dissolve one substance (the solute) in another (the solvent) and you will raise its boiling point.

 

Colligative properties determine how a solvent will behave once it becomes a solution, as it were. The degree of change depends on the amount of solute dissolved in the bulk liquid, not the type of solute.

 

So, here’s a rough explanation of what’s going on. If a substance has a lower vapour pressure than the liquid (it’s relatively non-volatile in other words) then dissolving that substance in the liquid, common salt (NaCl) in water (H2O), for instance, will lower the overall vapour pressure of the resulting solution compared with the pure liquid. A lower vapour pressure means that the solution has to be heated more than the pure liquid to make its molecules vaporise. It is an effect of the dilution of the solvent in the presence of a solute.

 

Put another way, if a solute is dissolved in a solvent, then the number of solvent molecules at the surface of the solution is less than for pure solvent. The surface molecules can thus be considered “diluted” by the less volatile particles of solute. The rate of exchange between solvent in the solution and in the air above the solution is lower (vapour pressure of the solvent is reduced). A lower vapour pressure means that a higher temperature is necessary to boil the water in the solution, hence boiling-point elevation."

 

In my words: when I left the salted butter, ground cannabis, and water overnight in the crockpot it reached a temperature higher than what I am used to. It boiled off more water (which I use as a heat buffer because I know it wont go over 212F) in a shorter amount of time, and when the all the water had boiled off, my temperature buffer disappeared and the mixture was able to reach a high enough temperature to boil off a portion of the butter thereby reducing the overall amount of butter from 2 cups to 1.5 cups.

 

I have since repeated the salted butter routine, but chose to do it during the day when I could stand over it and stir it when necessary and add more water when needed. It turned out great.

 

Just my personal experience................

Omfg this was me this morning. I felt this in my soul the second i read it, i used 4 sticks unsalted & 1 salted. . . Looks like sludge & smelled like CRAP. Now idk if i should even bother wasting the cheese cloth to strain it! Thanks for letting me know I wasn't alone in this defeat !

[Restorium2]

12 hours ago, ThiiisBiiitch said:

Omfg this was me this morning. I felt this in my soul the second i read it, i used 4 sticks unsalted & 1 salted. . . Looks like sludge & smelled like CRAP. Now idk if i should even bother wasting the cheese cloth to strain it! Thanks for letting me know I wasn't alone in this defeat !

Not a defeat at all. Just strain it a few times through the cheese cloth and you have something to work with. Put it in the fridge and wait for the butter to solidify on top. Use the butter to cook with. Make baked goods. Adjust your baking temp down to 300. Be careful when you try it out. Might be strong. 

[Clifford Anderson]

Unsalted canna butter can be used for savoury or sweet recipes, salt can be added but is difficult to remove