Microdosing is a hot topic in the cannabis world, but what is it? And how can a dry herb vaporizer help the cause? Tonight we go over the two main ways to microdose marijuana, and the best vapes to get it done. Grab your smallest bowls, pull up a chair, and let’s get dinky with it!
Let’s define microdosing
This is a debatable topic, so let’s get our definitions straight first. There are two main ways to microdose, “all at once” or “as you go”.
All at once microdosing is a “Holy Grail” kind of chase. The goal is to fully extract everything from your herbs in one hit. This is best done with a desktop that can throw an enormous amount of controlled heat at a small amount of herbs. Since most desktop vapes use convection heating, they excel at microdosing, if you get the configuration right. For instance, the Arizer Extreme Q is a pretty inefficient vape, until you pack the elbow screen, when it becomes a microdose contender. It can be extremely satisfying to hit the perfect microdose bowl, and our favorite vapes excel at large and small amounts.
As you go microdosing requires an an-demand vape, or any vaporizer that lets you separate the bowl from the heater, like a whip vape. You pack a bowl, and the vape only heats it when you hit it, as opposed to a session vape that cooks between hits. In general, try to avoid conduction vaporizers like the PAX 3, DaVinci IQC, or Starry when you want to microdose – it’s not their strong suit. Two conduction heating vaporizers that are good at microdosing are VapCaps and the Magic Flight Launch Box. Some fantastic on-demand vapes we hit up to microdose are the Tafee Bowle, the E-nano, and the LaMart P80.
Which is your microdose style? Let us know in the comments at the end!
The microdose chart
Here are some specs for some of our favorite microdosing vapes.
| Vape | Microdose Style | Satisfaction | Bowl Size | Portability | Heat source |
| Woodscents | As you go | High | Small and variable | None* | Passive convection |
| E-nano | As you go | High | Small and variable | None | Passive convection |
| Vapman | Both | High | Small and variable | High | Conduction |
| Grasshopper | As you go | High | Medium | High | Convection |
| Sticky Bricks | Both | High | Variable | Low | Convection |
| VapCaps | Both | High | Small and variable | High | Conduction |
| Tafee Bowls | Both | High | Medium | Low | Convection |
| Firefly 2+ | As you go | High | Medium | High | Convection |
| LaMart P80 | Both | High | Small to medium | Moderate | Convection |
| Magic Flight Launch Box | As you go | Moderate | Variable | High | Conduction |
| Arizer Q | Both | Moderate | Variable | None | Convection |
| VapeXHale Evo | Both | Moderate | Variable | None | Convection |
| TinyMight | Both | High | Variable | High | Convection |
| Milaana | Both | High | Variable | High | Convection |
When microdosing snowballs
In my personal experience, log vapes take the cake when it comes to microdosing. Mine was always plugged in and ready to go for years. The bowls are so small they force you to microdose, and keep your tolerance low. It took a long time, but once my tolerance increased to a three or four bowl session with a log vape, the sessions were too long. What good is efficiency if it’s all lost to time invested?
Enter the whip vape. We put the Extreme Q in the chart above, but could have included any number of whip vapes, like the DaBuddha or the Volcano Hybrid. Any plug-in vape with a removable bowl can be configured to microdose with a small amount. In the last couple of years Troy and I have both chased the massive microdose one-hitter, and it led to the ball vapes.
When we say ball vapes, we typically mean any vape that’s been modded with glass balls in the heater / heat exchanger. The balls add extra heat reserves, and transfer even more calories to the hot air stream. We want a rich, heat-saturated air stream to fully extract in one hit. There have only been two commercial attempts at this kind of heater – the Terp Torch and the Hot Rod. Bottom line – they smack!
The Think Dank
What’s been on your mind this week, Troy? Turns out, Troy thought a lot about anxiety. While Troy is quick to recover from past hurts, he noticed he tends to get anxious about the future. We dive into the now, different perspectives, and how we deal with life’s worrisome trends. Oh yeah, and we were high. Thanks for watching!
Tune in to Think Dank every Friday starting at 9 pm EST/6 pm PST.