I used to make Rick Simpson oil for my late wife when she was suffering from cancer. I put in roaches and used vape residue, and I ended up with black tar. We initially used an eyedropper to put a drop under her tongue, but it was vile and nasty. Then she suggested I put the oil into gel caps, and that's what we did for 3 years.
I've also made cannabutter and oil for cooking. The real solution here is ultimately some sort of filtering, but it will be slow if straining through any kind of filter.
I use a
Magical Butter machine for oil, butter and tinctures. It is very convenient if you have the right quantity to make up. (For instance, minimum 2 cups, maximum 5 cups of oil, butter or tincture. 2 cups of oil is 3 typical batches of brownies, meaning the smallest amount is $$$ unless growing your own.
Having done all three, if you are going to put your edibles into gel caps anyway, skip the butter and go right to RSO via tincture. Basically distill your weed into Everclear, then evaporate off the Everclear to leave RSO. Next, because RSO is incredibly tarry and thick (unless hot), you should dilute it 50/50 with Wesson oil (or some sort of cooking oil). That makes it dilute enough to use a syringe (no needle) to draw up the oil and dispense it into the gel caps.
Here was my process. I started with commercially-bought buds, and I typically got a 1:7 yield. (7 grams of bud in, 1 gram of RSO out).
1. Weed and 5 cups of Everclear goes into
Magical Butter machine
2. machine runs for 4 hours at 160F infusing THC into the alcohol
3. strain the weed from the alcohol as best you can using fine paper filters. Coffee filters if you have nothing else. Ultimately you end up with Green Dragon tincture (if no vape residue or roaches) or black dragon if using the cr*p.
4. Pour the tincture into a mason jar
5. Fill a rice cooker with water, set it to the longest setting and put the mason jar (uncovered) into the water. In my rice cooker, the lid doesn't close, but it rest on the top of the jar keeping it in place. As soon as the jar is hot enough, you will see bubbles in the alcohol as it boils off. NOTE: DO THIS IN A WELL-VENTILATED AREA. I do it on my porch or in my garage.
6. Run the rice cooker until the alcohol is boiled off (about 6 hours for me).
7. Mix in vegetable oil in a 50/50 ratio to make the tarry residue into more of an oily residue
8. Suck up the oil into a syringe
9. Use the syringe to measure a known number of drops into each gel cap. (I drilled holes in a block of wood to hold 12 gel caps at a time for me to put drops into.)
10. Cap the gel caps and put them into a ziplock bag. LABEL the bag with the date and the number of drops in each capsule. The date helps identify the batch, which helps knowing how strong that batch was,
When filling the gel caps, you can do some with 3 drops, some with 5, some with 7, etc. This, and the date, will let the consumer know how strong the doses are once they have sampled them. If 7 drops are too strong, and 3 drops are too weak, use the 5 drop caps. If 7 is too week, combine two 5 drops, etc.
11. Store in the refrigerator
This gets to be quite a tedious task to fill dozens of gel caps one drop at a time. Easily in the hour range. Use a good light. I had patience as I was doing the only thing I thought might help my wife who was suffering from pancreatic cancer.