If you spend a little time clicking around this website of mine, you’ll notice that most of the content is relatively neutral in tone or downright positive. The world is already a plenty negative place, so, generally speaking, it’s probably best not to push it any further in that direction.
However, my recent experience using a LĒVO C has proven so frustrating that at $249, I wanted to share the issues I ran into and, ultimately, why I wouldn’t recommend this particular device if you’re looking into making your own edibles in bulk.
Table of Contents
There Are Less Expensive Paths to the Same Destination
If you’re seeking the Valhalla that is a solid edible high, then take comfort in knowing there are multiple paths that will all ultimately lead to this final destination. Some paths are slightly longer, some are shorter, some are more expensive, and some are even surprisingly intense!
The point is if you fuck with edibles, you’ll pretty easily find a way to satiate your new fascination.
Whether it be value-priced full-spectrum, RSO-infused 100mg single gummies like Gummy Buds or home-made PAX ABV chocolate chunk brownies; you’ll find a way. (I BELIEVE IN YOU!)
Suppose you’ve got a good-paying job or a rich family or spouse. In that case, there are also companies that make edible cooking-specific appliances and accessories designs specifically to make the process of DIY edibles easier.
There are a few big players in this field, including obviously LĒVO but also the Ardent FX, the Magical Butter Machine, and the Easy Butter Maker as well.
Each brand has a slightly different take on how they help assist you in decarboxylating and infusing to make the perfect edibles, but I’ve only tried LĒVO of these, so that’s all I can really comment on at this time.
The Ardent FX sells for $299.00, while the Magical Butter Machine is $224.99, and the Easy Butter Maker is $49.99 on their sites. You can also easily get an authentic Crockpot-branded slow cooker online for $39.99.
Comparatively, the LĒVO C is listed at $249.00, so it’s kind of at the top of the price range (minus the Ardent FX by $50) when it comes to home activation and infusion.
*All prices reflect website pricing at the time of writing and may not reflect current price increases or reductions
Like the good little American consumer I’ve been trained to be, I was impressed with the sexy color options. Getting an appliance that makes making weed oil easy and convenient gave me visions of the first time I used a Tatung rice cooker compared to a steel saucepan.
Undeniable Appliance Sex Appeal
Before getting into how it actually worked, we should quickly touch on the gorgeous design factor of these machines.
The product designers that not only schemed the form factor but also the color palettes for the LĒVO C deserve a pat on the back because this just LOOKS like something that would blend in perfectly next to an Italian espresso machine and a Smeg refrigerator, on the other side.
Of course, function over form, and we’ll get to the function part in a bit…
Still, I strongly feel any cannabis brand that is helping to break stereotypes of what cannabis culture was like vs. what it can evolve into is deserving of recognition because the more non-stoners we can collectively turn on to weed, the better this world will be for all of us.
Alas, while cool designs and preconception-shattering are great things, brands still need to walk the walk and actually deliver the goods. Is The Hallowed Gram an authentic cannabis blog, and does the LĒVO C activate and infuse as smoothly as it looks?
Well, I deliver on the former and elaborate on the latter below.
Activation & Infusion Attempt #1
Being a massive fan of edibles, I couldn’t wait to start making my own at home, but first, I needed an ounce of cannabis, as that’s the capacity of the herb pod that hangs in the oil within the LĒVO C infusion machine.
Oregon Bud Company was a logical stop for the weed as their prices have always been fair, and they usually have some pretty decent shake on discount.
For this first run, I chose some decently fragrant Mac #4 as Mac strains are usually decently potent, and I liked the smell. I believe the cost was somewhere around $40 or so.
Got home, packed the infusion pod full of Mac #4, poured in the MCT oil that LĒVO themselves supplied, turned on the LĒVO C, and selected “Activate,” which is the decarboxylation cycle that is supposed to run for 45 minutes at 240° F.
After letting the Activation cycle run, I ran the “Infuse” cycle for 2-3 hours to ensure I maximized the extraction of as much of the cannabis plant into the MCT oil as possible. This cycle runs at a custom time setting at 200° F.
Once the infusion cycle had finished, I picked a packet of LĒVO gummy mix and followed the instructions precisely to make my gummy mix which was to be then squirted into the silicone gummy molds to set in the fridge.
Despite following the instructions on the packet perfectly, I noticed that my MCT oil and gelatin wouldn’t mix. Being my first time ever doing this, I assumed that that was just excess and enough had been mixed into the gummies to get the job done.
Well, fast forward to the next day, and cautiously trying one gummy and then another and feeling nothing, I could only conclude that all that extra oil sitting on top of the tray was the good stuff and the gummies themselves hadn’t absorbed any of that oil.
No problem; I still had almost a liter of oil that I’d poured back into the MCT bottle after running this first activation and infusion cycle.
So, I squirted a bit into my tomato soup, fried some eggs in it, and even took a few droppers to the dome, and still nada.
The only time I felt a slight high sensation was when I’d covered some chicken wings in the MCT oil and seasoning. However, that high was quite light and not what I’d expect from the quantity of the oil that the wings had been coated in.
Something wasn’t right here, so I messaged LĒVO support, and to their credit, they pretty quickly replied that the default Activation setting at 240° F for 45 minutes was actually for just a half ounce of flower or half a herb pod full.
You need to do two full activation cycles consecutively for a full ounce or a full pod, which the LĒVO C is advertised as being designed for.
Well, that kind of takes some of the advertised convenience out of it, in my opinion, if you have to run multiple cycles.
Why not set the default activation to 90 minutes at 240° F for a full herb pod and then allow users to lower the duration if they were using just half, or who knows, ¼ pod?
I double-checked the included manual, and sure enough, buried in a long paragraph on activation, it did indeed state a full ounce should be activated twice.
Okay, not the most intuitive design and not the most obvious instructions but ultimately a user error as I had indeed only run my first ounce of cannabis through a single activation cycle.
I would have expected to feel something even with one cycle, but I’m no chemist, so okay, cut that $40 loss on weed and try again.
Activation & Infusion Attempt #2
Because I’d tried to activate a full ounce with just one of the default activation cycles, I’d ultimately wasted that ounce of cannabis that I’d used for that first premature run.
Fortunately for me, I’d just come into possession of about a gallon’s worth of delicious Orangeade home-grown from some newfound friends, and thus the loss of the first ounce stung a little less financially than it normally would.
I’d still recommend LĒVO update their instructions very clearly, perhaps in bold, at the beginning of the literature, mentioning that if you’re using the full pod, you MUST use two activation cycles; otherwise nothing will happen.
Nonetheless, the allure of crafting my own gummies was strong, and after grinding up yet another ounce of weed, this time Orangeade instead of Mac, I was ready to do this correctly.
I filled up the herb pod but noticed that the silicone lid that was supposed to secure to the top of the submerged herb pod did not fit.
Remembering that during the first activation and infusion, the lid was kind of a stinker to get on, I persisted. Ultimately, even after getting the flanges tucked into the metal herb pod, they’d slowly, all on their own, work themselves out.
I’ve had silicone expand like this on me before, but it was my rubber stopper for the pouring top I’d stuck in a bottle of vinegar. I don’t know how acidic hot MCT oil is or if it was perhaps just the heat itself, but the herb pod definitely won’t stay on now. Great.
Thankfully my funnel for pouring the oil back into its original vessel has a metal strainer.
Hence, if the herb pod lets a few chunks of flower float out into the oil, I could just easily strain them out later, although, at $249.99, I’d expect my lids to fit for more than a single use…
Carefully monitoring the LĒVO C, I selected a second “activation cycle” within a minute of the first cycle completing as instructed by the manual and customer support. After both activation cycles finished, I let it infuse for another two hours like before.
For the second attempt at mixing the oil with the gelatin gummy mix, we did NOT follow the instructions exactly because they say to take the mixture off the heat before then injecting it into the molds, but that didn’t work the first time, so we left the mixture on the stovetop on low and cooked it for a couple of minutes longer than the packet states.
I understand gelatin can be tricky, and everyone’s home appliances will differ slightly. Still, we followed the instructions to a tee the first time with abysmal results, so for this second run, it was more intuition and less reading the instructions on the packet.
And wouldn’t you know it, the oil actually took to the gelatin and mixed nicely. Let set and sprinkled in a bit of sugar, and we finally had infused gummies that looked just like the ones you can buy at the dispensary.
Elatedly we dosed one and eagerly awaited what was sure to be a solid high because the MCT oil for this was the re-used, under-heated oil from the first try, then double activated a second time with a whole fresh ounce of cannabis. It should have been potent AF.
But it wasn’t. Frustration mounted as we tried 2, then 3, before, eventually, popping 5 in a row with no discernible effect. Bummer man.
Things weren’t adding up. We used a whole ounce of verifiably fresh cannabis flower, used the provided MCT oil, did two activation cycles as advised, infused, and still nothing.
Given that the instructions were followed perfectly, my suspicions turned to the LĒVO C device itself as potentially being the cause of the problem because of how rapidly the silicone lid for the herb pod became malformed after just one use. Perhaps this device wasn’t properly tested or is defective?
Activation & Infusion Attempt #3
At this point, I’m just desperate for some infused oil. Given that I’ve previously successfully made potent AF oil with just AVB (already vaped bud) in a Crockpot, the notion that the LĒVO C was supposed to simplify any part of the process was becoming almost farcical.
In order to try to troubleshoot why I wasn’t getting any success, I scrutinized my LĒVO C machine a bit more closely; perhaps something wasn’t working as it should.
So, I dumped my bunk oil back into the LĒVO C one last time and hit activate. This wasn’t because I thought the third time would be the charm but because I wanted to measure the oil temperature during the activation cycle to indeed confirm it was reaching 240° F, which is the most commonly cited temperature for effective decarboxylation to occur.
I used a simple meat thermometer I’d received as a Christmas gift the year prior to take a couple of readings throughout the “Activate” cycle, and the highest recorded temperature was 214° F.
Below is a video of the temperature at the very end of the activation cycle with just 7 minutes remaining until completion, with the long thermometer probe reaching about midway into the glass basin of the LĒVO C machine.
So it would seem that my machine was not thoroughly heating up my oil enough to fully decarboxylate the cannabis contained within, rendering an ineffective final output.
Since the glass basin sits atop a hot pad, one could assume that the temperature at the very bottom of the basin may reach 240° F, but the bulk of the oil in the middle and top of the container don’t reach such temperatures.
This is where LĒVO’s silicon-covered magnetic stirrer bean is supposed to come into play, presumably by spinning in place and circulating the oil all around the vessel so that it all has ample time to come in contact with the appropriately heated bottom of the unit.
With my dark green oil, I couldn’t really see if the stirrer was doing its thing, so I emptied my LĒVO C and put just tap water in it so that I could easily see if the magnetic stirrer was indeed stirring the liquid inside.
As you can see, the stirrer does nothing but sit there, which means it’s not circulating the oil around the container, and as such, all the oil above the immediate contact zone at the bottom of the jar will not get hot enough to activate.
After consulting with the LĒVO C instructions again, they specifically say the stirrer is “not needed” for the activation cycles and recommend removing it and only adding it for the infusion process. Hmm… okay?
Feeling satisfied that I’d discovered the reason why my LĒVO C wasn’t working, I ground up yet another ounce of cannabis (3 ounces in at this point which, if you were to buy it all at a dispensary, could easily run you $100) and put that flower and the twice-failed LĒVO-provided MCT oil in my Crockpot and set the heat on low and let it run for 4 hours.
The result was a wonderfully dark and richly infused oil that, with just a tiny squirt, maybe a teaspoon worth, will turn any meal into a space exploratory adventure because of how potent it is.
Turns out the $40 Crockpot does it better than the $249.99 dedicated activation and infusion device!
Summarizing Take Away (TL;DR)
Obviously, this was quite a deflating performance for the LĒVO C. The instructions are not clear, the build quality of the silicone lid for the herb pod is not sufficient enough to maintain its form after just one use, the stirrer didn’t stir, and as such, my oil never reached a hot enough temperature to activate enough THCA into THC to impart any noticeable sensation after consumption.
The fact that they say not to use the stirrer during the activation process is even more perplexing. How else is the entire quite tall liters-worth of liquid supposed to heat even if the heat source is a small heat pad at the very bottom of the glass basin?
As such, I would not recommend the LĒVO C to anyone looking to get into edible making. If you’ve got a slow cooker, I’d stick with that. Perhaps the Magical Butter Machine, Ardent FX, or Easy Butter Maker would be better options, although I haven’t tried any of them personally yet.
As much as the failure to perform as advertised disappointed me, I’m more disappointed in the brand overall. Clearly, they’ve got some brilliant product designers and marketers, as the aesthetic of the machine and the design work in regard to packaging and branding are all quite lovely.
Cannabis culture needs to be shared with more people than just the stereotypical headshop stoner demographic, and cute little infusion machines like the LĒVO are a great olive leaf in terms of making cannabis (edibles) less scary and more approachable to the layperson.
Who knows, perhaps the original LĒVO is fantastic. If you check out YouTube, you’ll find tons of rave reviews, but very few actually measure the oil temp or tell you how they feel after consuming the final product.
It should be noted that LĒVO offers a pretty attractive affiliate program where influencers can earn a solid commission when they refer a customer to LĒVO, so perhaps that’s some of it.
Also, it could be that I simply got a defective machine, and the rest of them work great; who knows! Although I still have my doubts because, well, if the quality control wasn’t sufficient enough to catch both the defective silicon pod lid and also the magnetic stirrer, I have my doubts…
To add to these doubts, other users seem to be experiencing quality control issues as well, from exploding glass basins during activation cycles to activation cycles plain not doing anything as I experienced.
So the moral of this story is to just decarb your cannabis in your oven or in a Crockpot with oil instead of going out and buying a dedicated machine at $249.99 because in the end, as I found out the hard way by going through 3 ounces of cannabis and probably 6 hours of my time trying to figure this thing out and then diagnose why it wasn’t working.
I should have just stuck with what works, as it turned out in the end that the Crockpot method is actually the more reliable and efficient option.
