How to Make Cannabis Gummies

Cannabis gummies are a classic edible with timeless appeal and make up the majority of cannabis edible sales. They are also quite easy to make once you gather the ingredients and get used to the process.

Whether you are making infused gummies for sale or personal use, it's essential to get the ingredients and ratios right and to store your gummies correctly. Ready to discover a great new cannabis product? Let's get cooking!

How to Make Cannabis Gummies

Cannabis gummies need four key ingredients:

1. A gelling agent. This is typically pectin for vegan gummies and unflavored gelatin for animal-based gummies. Lecithin is often used as an emulsifier. You can create your own base or use a pre-prepared gummy mixture.
2. A cannabis extract. This is usually a cannabis-infused oil but can also be a concentrate such as rosin. Cannabis oil, infused coconut oil, avocado oil, and MCT oil are popular choices if you go the infused oil route. Remember to decarboxylate the rosin, rosin chips, or cannabis plant material for infusion first if you want your gummies to be psychoactive.
3. Flavorings and colorings. Gummies are usually flavored and colored to make them more appealing. You can flavor your gummies with flavored gelatin (jello), food flavorings, fruit juice, sugar, or a sugar substitute. Food dye or a vegetable-based equivalent can be used to add color. Our recipe uses a pre-mixed Melt-to-Make™ pectin gummy base, which comes with natural colorings and flavorings.
4. A dusting or coating material. Once the gummies are set and dried, you can dust them with sanding sugar, sugar mixed with citric acid (for a sour flavor), cornflour, or carnauba wax to prevent them from sticking together.

For our recipe for How to Make Vegan Rosin Gummies, you will need:

• A Melt-to-Make™ pectin gummy kit, which comes with Part A, Part B, and sanding sugar
• A jar of decarboxylated rosin
• A silicone mold, ideally placed on top of a baking dish or tray to keep it flat
• A spatula
• A scraping tool
• A small saucepan with a lid
• A large scale
• A small scale
• A Brix meter
• The Melt-to-Make pectin calculator (available online)

Method:

1. Navigate to the Melt-to-Make website and go to Downloadable Calculators. Download the pectin version.
   
   • Enter the batch size. This is the total weight of your gummy mixture. You will need to know how many grams of mixture your tray holds.
   • Input the potency (THC%) of your rosin or infused oil.
   • Enter the goal potency of each gummy. 10mg THC per edible is the limit in Colorado and several other states.
   • If using the same bear mold we used in the video, the weight of each gummy is 6.5g.
   • Once all of the fields are filled in, the calculator will tell you how much of Part A and Part B to add.
2. Pour and weigh Part A of your mix and add it to the saucepan.
3. Pour and weigh Part B in a small container and set it aside.
   
4. Heat Part A to a slow boil until it reaches a Brix level of 75 to 77.
5. Add your extracts and mix for 5 minutes.
6. Once it reaches 78 to 80 Brix, add Part B and stir. You may like to use a whisk at this stage to ensure a consistent texture.
7. Pour the mixture into the mold quickly.
8. Put the mold in the fridge or freezer for around 30 minutes until the gummies harden.
9. Take the gummies out of the mold and place them on a drying rack. Dry them for 24 to 48 hours at 35% humidity until they reach your desired texture.
10. Once dried, coat the gummies with sanding sugar or carnauba wax.

You can use this recipe to make homemade cannabis gummies or infused gummies for sale in dispensaries. Alternatively, you can make your own base mix from scratch using pectin or gelatin and lecithin, decarbed cannabis oil or rosin, sugar, water, and the flavorings and colorings of your choice.

Commercial Depositors

If you are making cannabis gummies commercially, edible making equipment is a wonderful asset to have. The Truffly Made depositors that we stock at Lowtemp fill your silicone molds 8 gummies at a time with heavy-duty metal pistons that deliver a preset metered dose. There are manual, semi-automatic, and automatic options depending on how hands-on you want to be.

Compared to filling your gummy molds by hand with a syringe, eye dropper, or squeeze bottle, a depositor is much quicker for producing consistent edibles—including gummies, chocolates, caramels, and hard candies—at scale. It not only has the greatest dosing accuracy but also reduces waste, labor, and mess.

Tips for Making Edible Gummies Successfully

Here are a few of our top tips for making cannabis gummies:

Decarboxylate Your Cannabis First

Decarboxylating cannabis or rosin converts the "raw" THCA and CBDA into THC and CBD. Without this step, your cannabis gummies will have the nutritional benefits of the cannabis plant but they won't be psychoactive.

Add the Right Amount of Gelling Agent

Whether you use gelatin or pectin, it's essential to use the right amount. Too much and your gummies will be stiff and rubbery. Too little and they won't set. The Mix-and-Melt formulas are already measured out to give you the perfect amount of firmness. If you are making homemade gummies from scratch, experiment until you find the textural “sweet spot.” 

Let the Gummies Dry Before Storing

Drying your infused gummies is an important step that must be completed ahead of storage. This step allows the gummies to form a thick skin or "pellicle" that (hopefully) prevents them from weeping and sticking together. Letting them dry properly also prevents mold growth.

The amount of time your gummies will need to dry depends on your goal texture. Once they are dry, you can coat them in sanding sugar, cornstarch, or carnauba wax.

Store the Gummies With Care

Dried and coated infused gummies should be stored in an airtight container (either glass or food-grade plastic) in a cool, dry place out of direct sunlight.

• Label the container with the ingredients, date made, potency (use an edibles calculator if you didn't use the Make-and-Melt calculator at the start), and a friendly warning that the gummies contain cannabis.
• Keep the container in a high-up place, preferably locked, to prevent children or pets from finding and eating the gummies.

How Many Gummies Should You Eat?

A standard dose for THC gummies is 10mg. We advise new consumers to start at 2.5mg and see how they feel before consuming more. As cannabis edibles can take 30 minutes to 2 hours to metabolize and produce psychoactive effects, it's best to wait a few hours between doses.

Bon Appetit!

Making your own infused gummies is more accessible than it used to be thanks to innovations like the Melt-to-Make gummy bases and commercial depositor machines. There is also a wide range of colors and flavors you can add to your gummies to personalize them and make them appealing to consumers.

If you plan to produce gummies for sale, make sure that you start with high-quality cannabis material or a high-quality extract like rosin. Then, run some experiments to see what the ideal drying time is and which flavors and colors have the most consumer appeal. Soon, you could be expanding your product line with a range of delicious gummies in different flavors, and all much more easily than you imagined.