I Could be completely wrong but I was wondering if this was possible. You can make an alcohol through fermentation from just about any plant can't you? And then you could distill that alcohol into a liquor. Well what would happen if you got a bunch of fresh weed and fermented it, then distilled it? Would you be able to make a liquor with a cannabis base? This was just a theory I had in chem class one day.
My intuition tells me that high resin content would inhibit the fermentation. Perhaps if one started with the low resin parts for fermentation and optionally added buds and whatever else towards the end of the process... but the other problem is that THC isn't soluble enough in low alcholol solutions, there might be some cannabidiol in the end product to give a light stoney effect. Care should be taken though if one attempts this because of possible nasty bacterial fermentation products. If there is a little mold the consequences are not as bad as bacteria.
well, it wouldnt really work. cannabis doesnt have nearly enough sugars in it to ferment, and even if it was high in sugars only certain types of sugars tend to be fermentable (which is was koji must be added to rice before the sugars will be fermentable) basically the way it works is this: there are these tiny little fungal organisms called yeasts, and there are lots of different types of yeasts. yeasts go and eat sugar all day long, and their main waste products are carbon dioxide (which leads to carbonation in proper circumstances) and alcohol. eventually the alcohol kills the yeast and you can't ferment any longer, or the sugar supply runs out and you can't ferment any longer. there are also some bacteria that will cause similar fermentation, as in belgian lambic beers, but we dont need to get into that right now, as they still feed off the same sugars. now the main ingredients in beer are water, yeast, malt (usually barley malt), and hops. the water and malt are boiled together to make a sweet, syrupy liquid, and the hops are added to add bitterness and even out the sweetness of the malt. this is called wort. the wort is chilled to a temperature which is safe for the yeast to live in, and the yeast is added. now that live yeast is present, the wort is now considered beer. the process of boiling hops for bitterness rather than aroma is a long one. hops must be boiled at least 30-45 minutes at high temperatures for the bitter resinous substances to become water soluble and work their way into the brew. the hops vine is the closest botanical relative to the cannabis plant, oddly enough, and with both plants the only part good for use is the resinous buds.... now, i am a homebrewer, but not very experienced. my father and uncle are both experience homebrewers, though. my dad tells stories of a beer my uncle once brewed with cannabis in it. he said it didnt taste too good, but that it was certainly effective. this was quite interesting to me, because as we all know THC and other active cannabinoids are NOT very water soluble at all, and making pot tea and such is NOT likely to work without STRONG alcoholic content or heavy fat content (certain dairy products)...but, it was allegedly quite potent. now the way i theorize this could work is that as the hop and cannabis plants are very closely related, and the flowers share certain similar properties, theres a good chance that similar to the substances in hops which are not usually water soluble, its entirely possible that if you simply were to boil it long enough at the right temperature you MAY be able to dissolve the THC into the water based fluid. once the THC is dissolved, you have the potential to use it to make an alcoholic beverage. the pot itself would not ferment, but it could be present along with fermentable sugars and yeast. i'm still not 100% convinced that the pot beer worked, as i've read a number of reports of homebrewers trying to do just this very thing and failing; that said i dont know the procedures used by either my uncle or the other brewers. but my father claims it worked well, and has no good reason to lie about it, so i'll give him the benefit of the doubt. an alternative to the labor intensive process of brewing a cannabinated beer which wouldnt taste good anyway, would be to make a cannabis liqueur. using the highest proof liquor available, macerate a large quantity of high quality cannabis for at least a month before using. 151 or stronger is pretty much your best bet, everclear (grain alcohol) is ideal. this will, of course, be far to alcoholic for most folks to drink straight but could be either consumed in mixed drinks or diluted and sweetened with simple syrup to the strength of normal vodka or even lower, and made palatable enough to sip, even if not shooting it. but no, you can't ferment any plant. you need it to contain a good amount of sugars, and at that they need to be certain sugars. you can't just ferment pot, but you could certainly add pot to a fermented product, it just may or may not necessarily come out well.
bacterial fermentation is perfectly fine and healthy, at least in beermaking. it just will have a different taste entirely (hops arent too important here)....now in almost EVERY beer style bacteria is treated as a terrible thing, because it will adversely affect how it tastes and smells. but certain beers, particularly belgian beers, will use 100% spontaneous fermentation, leaving the fermentors open to all wild yeasts and bacteria present in the area. some really wonderful beers are made this way, and have a STRONG bacterial aroma and sour flavor...many are also flavored with fruit, and have far less bacterial character to them. i definitely would recommend trying Boon Oude Gueuze Marriage Parfait sometime if you could get it. failing that, i believe merchant du vin distributes in all of the US, and they are the distributors of the belgian lindman's company, who sells a good selection of fruit lambics. i definitely recommend the kriek (cherry) and framboise (raspberry) as well as the pomme (apple) but have not yet tried any others. i'm anxious to try the peche (peach) and cassis (blackcurrant) next. they're pricey, but a nice treat for a dessert beer, and a smashing success with the ladies! the unflavored lambics like gueuze, however, are much drier and most wont like them
