How Do Herb Vaporizers
Work And What Is Vaporization All About?
Vaporizers are designed with one goal in mind – reduce
combustion and deliver the same effects. A surprising amount of vaporizers fall
short of this promise. It is worth learning about how vaporizers operate in
order to really understand what you are getting and what benefits are important
to vaporizing effectively. Knowing how a vaporizer works will help you get the
best vaporizer for your money.
The principles of vaporization are fairly simple. Use the
application of heat to vaporize or boil off the active agents into a vapor
without producing smoke. The application of heat has to be indirect and has to
be below the point of combustion to prevent smoke. Smoke contains a host of by
products that are harmful to the lungs. Vapor is a purer concentration of the
active agents and is safer to inhale, with the same effects.
Herbal vaporizers work with herbs as the consumable substance –
fuel for the car (in our case, cannabis). Looking closely at the herbal
content, we can tell a lot about how effectively or efficiently a vaporizer
works (weed consumption = ‘gas mileage’).
Temperature control is key to
effective, efficient vaporizing. See the volcano vaporizer Unfortunately, with most vapes on the market,
temperature control is as often based on faith as anything else. Cheap vaporizers can yield disappointing
results. Temperatures, when displayed, can suffer from a sizable
range/variation (up to +/- 50 degrees F!) which can result in combustion
instead of vaporization. When there is no temperature displayed, the set point
is relative to trial and error, best estimates and other means of guessing. All
the temperature uncertainty can vary your vaporization results.
Convection seems to stem some of the temperature variability,
but comes with its own caveats. How reliable is the airflow? How consistent is
the device’s heating element? See the http://smokefreeweed.com/volcano-vaporizer/digital-volcano/ .While no heating element comes directly in
contact with the herb, if can still produce smoke, or inefficiently vaporize
content. The Volcano vaporizer has succeeded in creating a device that
convectively vaporizes better than anything else we’ve tried so far. It is a
solid unit that delivers what it says it will do – vaporize better. The Volcano
vaporizers quiet the two main issues that make convection effective.
Taking a look at the herb after vaporizing with the Volcano, we
can tell a lot about efficiency. The herb is evenly dried or desiccated
throughout. The weed is dry but not burnt. The herb is only slightly
discolored, from green to middle brown. With the Volcano vaporizer convection
is properly managed and produces good, tasty vapor.
With a small amount of herb (~ 1 gram) we inflated 7 bags (~ 4L
each) at various temperatures. And got really high. The Volcano gave us seven
times the amount of vapor as we would have gotten from smoking one joint, or three times what we
would’ve gotten from smoking two bowls from the bong. It doesn’t take long for the efficiency to
make a real impact on how you ingest your weed. Vaporizers are a great
alternative to smoking. And, it is just as effective at smoking. Vapor is inhaled
directly and is absorbed into the bloodstream for almost instant effects.