Dope Cooks Article from weeklyweedly.com

Dope Cooks Serves A Delicious Menu Of Extracts

Tue, Aug 09, 2022

Dope Cooks co-owners Michael Magista and Javier Villegas.

Among cannabis processors in Tacoma, Dope Cooks stands out because of the knowledge and artistry of the people who create the products. Housed in a former retail tool shop on Center Street, the space was renovated and converted into a full-fledged processing operation led by co-owners Michael Magista and Javier Villegas. Together with extraction technician Erik and Magista’s wife Alexandria in fulfillment, the core team of four produces some of the purest and tastiest extracts available locally.

“Javier and I pretty much built this place ourselves. It took a long time, and it has come a long way,” Magista said.

He and Villegas had been involved in the medical marijuana community for years, then secured their recreational license in 2019 after the state integrated the medical market with the regulated recreational market.

With Magista and Villegas having met around 2012 when they both worked as cooks in the same restaurant, “Dope Cooks” seemed most fitting to name the brand. Magista was first to leave the culinary world to plunge full-time into the medical cannabis industry, and he soon invited Villegas to join him – ironically on the exact same day that Villegas was laid off from the restaurant.

“I told Michael I didn’t want to commit for more than three or four months,” Villegas said, but here it is going on nine years later. “Since our kitchen days, I noticed that Michael is a good-hearted person and I like that about him. I knew I could trust him so I decided to stick around.”

 

Dope Cooks packaging is easy to spot on cannabis store shelves.

All Dope Cooks products are made with the BHO (Butane Hash Oil) method of extraction for the most potent cannabis concentrates with all the cannabinoids and terpenes for the full spectrum entourage effect. This not only gives recreational users an exquisite high but also provides patients with quick relief from symptoms and pain. The magic of Dope Cooks is that Magista and Villegas approach extracts as creatively as they do with food – if something doesn’t work, they try something else and keep refining their processing techniques this way. It’s their personal knowledge and skill that set them apart from other companies.

Dope Cooks produces three products that cannabis consumers can find on the shelves of local weed shops. “Diamond Dust” is pure THCa crystals that can be sprinkled on top of your cannabis in the pipe or bong, added to a joint, or dabbed. Vape cartridges containing BHO full spectrum extract are handmade on site and their contents are unlike any other cannabis carts available because they aren’t filled with just distillate and flavoring. For a third choice, Dope Cooks dabs/wax has a delicious scent and is just as versatile as Diamond Dust. The company’s next venture will be to make infused pre-rolls, so keep an eye out for these hitting cannabis stores in the near future.

 

The Dope Cooks team includes extraction technician Erik.

The journey from cannabis to concentrate starts with big bags of trimmings, buds and kief of various grades procured from local farms. Higher-grade cannabis yields extremely flavorful extracts for higher end finished products. For the lower-grade cannabis, Dope Cooks specializes in transforming it into a quality extract that appeals to a wide range of customers.

“There’s lots of THC left in there and it’s our job to get it out,” as Magista put it, and that’s just what Dope Cooks does expertly.

Its BHO extractor is Dope Cooks’ most expensive piece of equipment, an apparatus made up of parts used in other industries – dairy and brewing, for example – and HVAC refrigeration equipment tubes, piping and pumps. The priciest completed extractor units can run as high as $250,000 or you could build your own for less than $5,000. Dope Cooks uses a basic model that they’ve modified to perform just as they need it to.

The raw cannabis is prepped in a large grinder at a little over two pounds at a time. From here, the cannabis goes into the extractor’s solvent tank with a mix of odorless and 99 percent pure butane and propane gasses. This brings out the resin and extracts from more than eight pounds of plant material in one cycle. Filters keep out all particulates. Solvent containing the cannabis oil goes through a series of heating and cooling that eliminates the gasses and leaves the oil that then goes through a curing process to result in the exceptional line of Dope Cooks products.

Magista and Villegas have come a long way from the pre-legalization years when extracts were homemade and on a largely trial and error basis, especially for those new to the process. This was how it went for the two Dope Cooks back when they were first experimenting with making “home brew” medical grade extracts without the fancy machines used today. One batch would turn out great then the next would turn out not so great but, obviously, they figured it out beautifully.

The Dope Cooks brand can be found in Tacoma at House of Cannabis, The Joint, Local Roots, Bloom Cannabis, and Zips.