How to Make Cannabis Sugar – Quick & Easy Guide

Are you looking for an alternative to cannabis oil? Making cannabis sugar is a great way to infuse your own edibles! Discover how to make a simple, delicious, and versatile cannabis sugar using a cannabis tincture and sugar for a basic staple recipe that can be used to make a wide variety of other tasty infused cannabis products like baked goods, candies, and more. 

Why You Will Love This Recipe

Most of my recipe inspiration comes from my Edibles with Emily community, and somewhere in the early days, I saw someone making cannabis sugar. 

I fell in love with cannabis sugar because once it’s made, it can serve as a staple recipe for infusing all other recipes easily. 

I also love the versatility. Once it is made, you can use it in so many different recipes like brownies, chocolate chip cookies, cocktails, or even a scoop in your morning coffee or tea.

Plus, if you need higher doses and are looking to increase the potency of your cannabis recipes, great news! 

You can use both a cannabis-infused oil AND marijuana sugar together for a double dose of CBD or THC.

In this guide, I will share my guide designed to help you learn how to make delicious cannabis-infused sugar, my notes and expert tips, and fully answered FAQs so you feel confident getting started immediately. 

What You’ll Need

The Step-by-Step Process

• Step 1 – Add the sugar to a glass baking dish.
• Step 2 – Pour the tincture over the sugar.
• Step 3 – Stir the wet ingredients well. 
• Step 4 – Place in a safe area for drying. Cover with breathable fabric.

• Step 5 – Allow the mixture to air dry for 48-72 hours or until completely dry. Stir every few hours.
• Step 6 – You will know it is ready when it is completely dry and resembles traditional sugar.
• Step 7 – Store in an airtight container.
• Step 8 – Enjoy.

Note: complete step-by-step printable instructions are located in the recipe card below.

Storage Instructions

Once your own cannabis-infused sugar is made, you want to ensure you keep it as dry as possible, just like you would store other dry ingredients.

Storing it in an airtight mason jar or even a ziplock bag will work if it’s sealed properly.

The Sugar-Making Process

Unfortunately, cannabis enthusiasts know this is not a quick recipe; there are a few things you need to do before you can get started making infused sugar. 

Here’s what you need to do first:

Decarboxylate the Cannabis Flower

Making cannabis edibles involves a bit of science, and there are tried and true processes to follow to get the best quality final product.

Dried cannabis flowers do not naturally contain high amounts of THC or CBD.

Instead, they contain high amounts of THCA and CBDA, an acidic but non-intoxicating form of the cannabinoids. 

Make a Tincture

After the process of decarboxylation comes the process of using alcohol as a solvent to extract the active cannabinoids THC and CBD from the plant matter.

This is the process of making a cannabis tincture and is essentially the same extraction process as making vanilla extract. 

You will want to use a high-proof, food-grade alcohol like the options listed here.

You can make many types of cannabis tinctures at home, a traditional long-soak Green dragon tincture or the more modern cold alcohol infusions known as the Golden dragon QWET tincture method.

Evaporate All Of The Alcohol

This recipe’s outcome is based on the complete evaporation of all alcohol in the tincture. 

Evaporating the alcohol will leave behind just the extracted cannabis oils bound to the sugar crystals.

It’s important to note that there are many different ways to evaporate the alcohol; some are more safe than others.

Please note: it can become dangerous if you decide to use high temperatures or an open flame, so be cautious because alcohol is extremely flammable! 

While it may be tempting to use heat to evaporate the alcohol, I think the best way is to let nature take its course and let the alcohol evaporate off naturally, even if the process takes longer. 

Use The Right Dish

Remember, with this recipe, the more surface area exposed to the air, the faster the alcohol will evaporate. 

This means you want a bigger container with a shallow amount of sugar when filled. 

I have used a glass 9×13 inch (3 quart) baking dish in the past and thought it worked perfectly.

I’ve seen suggestions to put foil or parchment paper on a baking sheet but found this was way too messy, especially when stirring the sugar frequently.

Choose a Breathable Cover

You want as much airflow as possible to the sugar, so you do not want to put a solid top or a lid on the pan while the sugar is drying, or else the alcohol will not be able to evaporate.

But you will likely want to cover the sugar while drying to prevent contamination, so I suggest a coffee filter or thin cheesecloth over the top.

Find a Safe Drying Space

You will need to leave the glass baking dish out to dry for several days, so you will need a safe drying space where the sugar can rest.

An empty pantry shelf or even on top of the refrigerator works. Ultimately, we chose to keep ours in the oven because we have little ones at home. 

This wasn’t ideal because the airflow wasn’t great, but it worked well for keeping it safe and out of the way. 

One thing to note is that we put a prominent note on our oven to ensure we did NOT turn it on while the sugar was inside. 

Again, alcohol = flammable. Please use caution!

Stir Your Sugar Often

The more often you can stir your weed sugar, the more you will be exposing the alcohol to the air for it to evaporate. 

We used a small silicone spatula to stir the sugar and tried to stir it as often as possible, every few hours, at least 4-5 times daily.

If you do not stir the sugar enough, it will harden together and create a hard chunk of sugar.

If this happens, you can use the food processor or a ziplock bag and a rolling pin to break it back up into granules again.

Use A Fan To Speed Up The Process

One option to get the alcohol to evaporate faster is to place a fan over the sugar and allow it to run while stirring the sugar consistently. 

This helps move the air and the sugar around, allowing for quicker evaporation.

If you do not have a fan, placing your wet sugar container on a baking tray next to an open window may help with the airflow. 

How to Make More Potent Sugar

Everybody always wants the most potent end product, but there are a few things to remember when determining the potency of your sugar.

First, the strength of your cannabis sugar will depend on the strength of the cannabis flower you used to make your alcohol tincture.

Using shake, leaves, and stems will result in a weaker concentration of cannabinoids, while using high-quality cannabis buds will result in a higher concentration of cannabinoids.

Volume matters here, too.

The final concentration will depend on how much herb you use in your tincture.

Frequently Asked Questions