Hey CanGro! The plants in your pic look beautiful! You are a lucky duck! I need to move to a hipper community before I can grow (5 years here!)

Decarboxylation is always a must before cooking! This converts non-active THCA to active THC. This process happens naturally with proper drying and curing and storage in glass jars. It is more important when cooking with fresh erb or lower-quality erb, but I always decarb just to make sure I'm getting the most out of my cooking.

For decarboxylating, I prefer 120 C (250 F) for 25 minutes because it preserves some of the tasty terpenes, but since I am lazy and impatient, I usually go with 145 C (190 F) for 7 minutes. According to the decarboxylation graph from the Journal of Chromatography that is around here somewhere, either is fine.

I have never measured the ratio of ground bud to melted coconut oil, but I make sure the ground herb is completely soaked and saturated in the oil. I guess I usually use about 3-4 tablespoons of oil per gram.

I usually don't bother to strain the oil after cooking. I just add peanut butter to the oil and eat with a spoon. Because I don't strain, I can taste a faint bit of weed. I don't mind it. Plus it is good fiber I think. If you decide to cook with the oil, make sure to keep the temperatures fairly low. If you strain your oil, you can probably go a little higher with your cooking temperatures, but I wouldn't advise anything much more than 300 F or you might start to lose some cannabinoids.