Shake It Up: Home THC and CBD Tests from Plantchek

February 16, 2022

Plantchek's THC and CBD testing kits — Plantchek’s THC and CBD testing kits

Now you can determine how much THC or CBD is in your cannabis. While consumers in adult-use legal states get that information with each purchase, those of us who are not (in the case of New York, we're waiting for regulations to be announced and licensing to begin), we could use a little help. That's where Plantchek comes in.

The product line includes two separate kits: one to test THC and the other for CBD. It's like a little home science lab in a box. Inside the THC package are an extraction tube, extraction fluid, two pipettes and six assay tubes.

Step 1

Heat 0.5 g of ground cannabis flower in an oven for five minutes.

Step 2

Using the large pipette, transfer 15 ml of fluid to the extractrion tube.

Step 3

Place 0.1 g of heated cannabis in the extraction tube. Close and shake for one minute. Let sit for another minute.

Step 4

Using the small pipette, transfer 1 ml of the cannabis extraction fluid to each of the two assay tubes (red and yellow caps). Shake for five seconds.

Step 5

Within a minute or two and the fluid color will start changing. The red cappped tube should turn a shade of red. The yellow capped tube should turn a shade of yellow. Compare the colors to the chart in the booklet (see below). Potency rangess from 0%-25%.

I've done these tests several times. Both times the extraction fluids were in the 14%-18% range. It's definitely not an exact measure, but it's close enough.

Company founder Philippe Lucas explains: "Having two colors we find improves accuracy, since one of the reagents (yellow) shows more definition at the high end of the scale, while the other (red) shows more definition at the low end. It's also like conducting two tests in one, where averaging results can lead to greater overall accuracy."

The CBD kit follows the same steps, but uses a test strip. It produced no result when I tried it. There's clearly less than 1% CBD in my unregulated THC flower.

"That reagent is super-sensitive and reacts to even small amounts of CBD, so anything above 1% would cause a color change," Lucas explains. "If you're flower was below that, I wouldn't expect any change."

I recommend these kits. They're fun for the whole canna-family.