Dry Herb Vaporizers
Best Dry Herb Vaporizers
weed vapes or tobacco vaporizers have been around for several years. As the movement has evolved alongside the medical industry, herbal vaporizers have become more popular. They can be used as a healthier alternative to herbal cigarettes like those made with cocoa bean shells, lemongrass, or mint by people wanting to quit nicotine.
What is A Dry Herb Vaporizer?
A dry herb vape is a device that allows you to smoke dry herb, plant, or flower material without the same level of combustion you'd require with a water pipe or cigarette. They have an internal rechargeable battery and a heating chamber. Some weed vaporizers come in a small form factor and are often called vape pens or portable marijuana vaporizers. Larger desktop dry herb vaporizers also exist.
These larger ones are like electronic hookah that can be shared in a group smoking session to consume different flavors of tobacco and herbs.
While they provide more power, they are less portable than herb vape pens but often allow more than one person to vape at any given time.
How do Herbal Vaporizers Work?
The loose leaf or flower is placed into the heating chamber of the dry herb vape. Using convection or conduction, (often a combination of both), the dry herb is heated anywhere from 200 to 450F. This allows all the flavonoids and terpenes to be released, without burning the plant. The released vapor is inhaled through a mouthpiece connected to the heating chamber.
Benefits of Herbal Vaporizers
The main benefit of weed vaporizers, as opposed to smoking, is to your health. Each time you smoke in the traditional way, you burn the herbs, which causes combustion to occur. This means that you are inhaling the toxic chemicals released in combustion. When using a dry herb atomizer, there is no combustion, so you don't breathe in any harmful chemicals.
Another main benefit of herb vaporizers is that by using a lower temperature than smoking, they can release more of the flavor from the herb. When combustion occurs as in smoking, you are immolating the herb and destroying many of the active compounds. At lower temperatures, these can be released.
Let's get all scientific for a moment.
Plants are made up of hundreds of different compounds. These will occur in varying concentrations depending on the type of herb. They are essentially the stuff like nicotine that gives a little head rush. Or the chemicals in plants like Hyssop, a holy herb that can help cleanse and purge.
Other plants like Korean Ginseng can restore balance in the body and reduce stress. They do this by interacting with different neutrons in your brain. So the more you get from your herb, the better right? Well, these compounds are released at varying temperatures from around 220 to 450F. Above that, the heat scorches and destroys some of these beneficial compounds in a fiery blaze.
Session vs. On-Demand Vapes
Session vapes are the most common types of weed vaporizers. These are simple and easy to use. Just load the chamber with your herb. Power up the vape and set the temperature or voltage and the vape gets to work. It will heat up and maintain the set temperature for a session that is similar to how smoking a traditional joint works. However, there is no combustion and you just get the pure vapor. It requires minimal input from the user and is a very intuitive way to vape.
On-demand vapes are different, these devices require the user to press a button to vape and this gives them the freedom to take a hit whenever they want. However, with dry herb vapes the oven part which the herb is in needs to be able to heat up very quickly to release the compounds from the weed and this means they are less common. There will naturally be some lag between pressing the button and inhaling as the device heats up.
The on-demand advantage is that it allows you to take a hit whenever you want rather than consuming the weed in a single session.
How to Use a Dry Herb Vaporizer
Using a herb pen or herb vaporizer is super easy. This step-by-step guide will walk you through the process.
1) Before using ensure the heating chamber or oven is clean. If it's the first time using a brand new device, then cycle through the heating cycles at the highest temperature setting before loading your first lot of herb.
2) Grind your herb to a relatively fine consistency.
3) Pack the heating chamber lightly with your herb of choice. Be sure to pack it evenly.
4) Choose the best temperature for your herb, then wait for the device to heat up.
5) Once the desired temperature has been reached, you can take gentle puffs from the mouthpiece.
6) you can adjust the temperature to release and consume the different compounds.
Here is a video showing the unboxing and how to use the Lookah Ice Cream portable marijuana vaporizer.