Two heat methods: Slow and Sedative, or Rapid and Euphoric
Conduction vs convection; what’s the difference? These two heat styles provide different effects and an overall different user experience. With conduction vaporizers, we can take long, slow sips of vapor, or several puffs back-to-back, with thick clouds and more sedative effects. With convection vaporizers the herb is heated and extracted more quickly, which results in several big rips of vapor, and rapid effects.
How to Use Conduction Vaporizers
How do conduction vaporizers work? Heat radiates from the walls of the herb bowl into the flower, which releases cannabinoids and terpenes into the air. When the vapor is inhaled, it’s replaced with cool air. Long, slow sips, or several short hits back-to-back allow the herb to remain hot and continue to produce dense clouds and sedative effects. If the vapor diminishes, wait a moment for the herb to heat back up, and/or bump up the temperature of the vaporizer. The thick clouds and short sips of vapor on conduction vapes often appeal to joint, blunt, and pipe smokers.
How to Use Convection Vaporizers
With convection vapes, hot air is pulled through the herbs. This quickly heats the material and vaporizes the oils in the plant. The rapid extraction produces more cannabinoids and terpenes in a single hit, which provides euphoria and effects more quickly. Convection vaporizers often appeal to bong smokers. The weed is extracted in a handful of hits, and the plume of clouds easily milks up a bong, so the experience feels familiar despite no combustion.
Conduction vs Convection: Which provides the best vapor flavor?
The vapor from dry herb vapes is full of flavor, and much tastier than smoke. How a vape heats the herbs will change the vapor in various ways, including vapor density and flavor. Both conduction and convection vapes can be tasty, they often reveal different nuances in the flavors and effects. In this video Troy enjoys a session on the Davinci IQ2 while they discuss vapor flavor. Conduction vs convection: taste edition. Which one comes out ahead?
Which vaporizers are full convection?
Full convection weed vapes provide a plethora of effects and flavors. With plenty of choices to choose from, Troy and Jerry want to highlight some full convection vaporizers, available on both the mass market, and from small producers or artists.
What makes a great conduction vape? And why so much stigma?
Conduction vaporizers have earned a stigma from dry herb vape enthusiasts that they’re old and cheap technology, when in fact they offer great flavor and potent, sedative effects! Troy and Jerry break down these terms, and explain the truth behind the conduction vaporizer stigma. Turns out many dry herb vapes are at least partly conduction, but they’re marketed as convection due to the stigmas against conduction weed vaporizers!
Conduction vaporizers…or radiant vaporizers? Radiators?
Conduction heat in a cannabis vaporizer is more than just conduction, it’s also radiant heat. See, some of the heat is transferred through the herb via contact, but the herb itself is insulation and doesn’t transfer heat very well. As a result, some of the heat and cooking going on in a conduction vape is from heat that radiates out from the walls of the herb chamber. This radiant heat is what penetrates through the herb, and provides the thorough extraction that leaves the cooked bud so dark.
What heat style offers the longest battery life?
Troy and Jerry explain how conduction and convection heat greatly affect the battery life of a vaporizer.
Battery life is better with conduction vapes. In convection weed vapes, the vaporizer heater heats up the air to cook the herbs. Air does a poor job conducting heat, so convection vapes need to put a lot more power into the cooking process. Meanwhile, conduction vaporizers heat the bowl, which cooks the herbs via direct contact. This is more efficient, which results in better battery life in conduction vapes.
Conduction or Convection? Or a Hybrid of both?
If the conduction vs convection conversation didn’t sway you one way, there’s another way you could go. Hybrid vapes offer very high performance due to their combination of heat, which provides fluffy, terpy vapor that’s still very thick and satisfactory. Hybrid weed vapes work with both small puffs (like a joint or blunt) and big rips (like a bong). Troy and Jerry share examples of hybrid vaporizers, and explain how they’re designed to offer the best of both worlds.
Understand Weed Vapes & Find the Right Weed Vape for YOU
It’s hard to choose between weed vaporizers with so many choices. Cannabis vapes must be experienced to fully understand how they behave, and unfortunately there are little to no opportunities to try vaporizers in the wild. Thankfully we can learn how a vape extracts our herb, and use that information to determine if it’s ultimately the right weed vape for ourselves. We can buy vaporizers with confidence, with the knowledge that we know their performance and capabilities.
If you have any more questions, or you wish to get more engaged with others who vaporize their herbs, you are welcome to join the 420vapezone Discord. We have a friendly community of weed vape enthusiasts who enjoy vaping together and engage in discussions of all kinds. Cheers, and happy vaping!
For more content on dry herb vapes and vaping weed, check out Troy’s separate Twitch and YouTube channels for live discussions and vape sessions, and drop by the 420 VapeZone website for more cannabis vaporizer news and reviews.
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