Stop guessing your edible dosage. Use our free Cannabutter Potency Calculator to find out exactly how much THC is in your butter per batch, tablespoon, and teaspoon.
Cannabutter Potency Calculator: How Strong is My Infusion?
Making cannabis edibles at home is incredibly rewarding, but the most common question every home cook asks is: “How strong is my cannabutter?” Dosing homemade edibles is often the hardest part of the process. If you guess the potency, you risk making a batch of brownies that does absolutely nothing—or worse, a batch that leaves you uncomfortably high for 12 hours.
Our Cannabutter Potency Calculator takes the guesswork out of your kitchen. By entering the amount of weed you used, the THC percentage of your flower, and your infusion method, you can instantly estimate the exact milligrams (mg) of THC per tablespoon.
Cannabutter Potency Calculator
Estimate how strong your infused butter or oil is in mg per tablespoon, teaspoon, and ml.
- 1–2.5 mg: very mild, good for beginners
- 2.5–5 mg: light effect, most casual users
- 5–10 mg: moderate, experienced users
- 10+ mg: strong; not recommended for beginners
Effects can take 1–2 hours to fully appear. Always consume responsibly.
Why You Must Calculate Cannabutter Potency
When you buy edibles at a dispensary, the packaging tells you exactly what you are getting (e.g., 10mg of THC per gummy). When cooking at home, even small differences in your flower’s strength or the amount of butter you use can dramatically change the final THC content.
Understanding your cannabutter potency allows you to:
- Control serving sizes accurately.
- Create consistent batches every single time.
- Adjust regular cooking recipes to accommodate cannabis without ruining the flavor.
- Reduce the risk of overconsumption (often called “greening out”).
How Strong is My Cannabutter? (The Math Explained)
If you want to understand how the calculator above works, the math behind finding the strength of your cannabutter requires a few steps.
Step 1: Find Total Potential THC First, we convert the weight of your cannabis flower into milligrams (1 gram = 1,000 milligrams). Then, we multiply that by the THC percentage of the strain.
- Example: You have 7 grams of weed (7,000mg) testing at 20% THC.
- Math: 7,000mg x 0.20 = 1,400mg of total potential THC.
Step 2: Account for Decarboxylation & Infusion Loss You never capture 100% of the THC. Some is lost during decarboxylation (the heating process that activates the THC), and some is left behind in the plant material when you strain the butter. A safe estimate for a good home cook is 75% efficiency.
- Math: 1,400mg x 0.75 = 1,050mg of actual THC in your batch.
Step 3: Divide by Your Butter Volume Let’s say you infused that weed into 1 cup of butter (which equals 16 tablespoons).
- Math: 1,050mg ÷ 16 tablespoons = 65.6mg of THC per tablespoon.
Understanding Infusion Efficiency
When using the calculator, you will see an “Efficiency” setting. Not all THC makes it into your final fat. Factors like temperature control, the fat content of your butter/oil, and your straining method affect how much THC is retained.
- 60% Efficiency: Typical for a quick stovetop infusion or if you forgot to properly decarboxylate your weed beforehand.
- 75% Efficiency: The standard for most home cooks using a crockpot, double-boiler, or dedicated infuser machine (like a Magical Butter machine). Use this setting if you are unsure.
- 85%+ Efficiency: Achieved using highly precise laboratory equipment or when infusing with concentrates (like distillate or RSO) instead of raw flower.
Pro Tip: This calculator works perfectly for oils, too! Coconut oil, olive oil, and MCT oil absorb cannabinoids at roughly the same rate as dairy butter.
How to Dose Cannabutter for Baking (With Examples)
Once the calculator tells you how many milligrams of THC are in a single tablespoon of your cannabutter, modifying recipes becomes incredibly easy.
Let’s imagine your calculator results say your cannabutter contains 30mg of THC per tablespoon.
You want to bake a batch of standard chocolate chip cookies. The recipe calls for ½ cup of butter (which is 8 tablespoons total).
- If you use only your cannabutter for the recipe: 8 tbsp x 30mg = 240mg of total THC in the cookie dough.
- If the recipe makes 24 cookies, divide the total THC (240mg) by the yield (24).
- Result: Each cookie will contain 10mg of THC.
What if you want weaker cookies? If 10mg per cookie is too strong, simply cut your cannabutter with regular butter! Use 4 tablespoons of cannabutter and 4 tablespoons of normal butter. Your total dough will now have 120mg of THC, making each cookie a perfectly mild 5mg dose.
Cannabutter Dosing Chart for Beginners
If you or your friends are new to homemade edibles, always start low and go slow. Edibles are processed through the liver, making them feel significantly stronger and last much longer than smoking flower.
- 2.5mg – 5mg THC (Microdose): Perfect for first-time users, mild anxiety relief, and general relaxation without feeling heavily intoxicated.
- 5mg – 15mg THC (Standard Dose): Ideal for recreational users. Noticeable euphoria, body relaxation, and symptom relief.
- 15mg – 30mg THC (Strong Dose): Best for experienced consumers and medical patients. May cause couch-lock or intense psychoactive effects.
- 50mg+ THC (Heavy Dose): Strictly for high-tolerance users or patients dealing with severe chronic pain. Not recommended for beginners under any circumstances.
Always remember: You can always eat another cookie in an hour, but you cannot un-eat a cookie! Wait at least 90 minutes to 2 hours to feel the full effects before consuming more.
Frequently Asked Questions
This calculator provides a highly educated estimate, not a verified lab result. Real potency will always vary slightly depending on your cannabis quality, moisture content, and heat control. However, using this math is infinitely safer and more reliable than guessing.
Yes. If you are infusing your butter with wax, shatter, or distillate instead of flower, simply enter the weight of the concentrate in grams (e.g., 1 gram) and its THC percentage (e.g., 85%). Since concentrates don’t leave behind plant material, you can safely bump the efficiency slider up to 85% or 90%.
Yes! Raw cannabis flower contains THCa, which is non-psychoactive. It must be exposed to heat to convert into THC. If you skip the decarboxylation step before making your butter, your edibles will have almost no psychoactive effects, regardless of what the calculator says.
Dispensary edibles are often made with pure THC distillate, which provides a very “flat,” one-dimensional high. Homemade cannabutter is usually a “full-spectrum” extraction. This means it contains the plant’s original terpenes, CBD, CBN, and other minor cannabinoids, which work together to create a heavier, more complex effect known as the Entourage Effect.