Vaping and vaporisers:
Vaporising cannabis is the one of the healthier ways of consuming your plant. Even though it’s been around a while, it’s only in the last 10 years or so its popularity has been skyrocketing.
When Vaporising cannabis the plant matter is heated up to a temperature just below its combustion point (200°C/ 392°F) at a temperature of 170°C/ 338°F. Which means instead of breathing in a smoke substance, you are breathing in a vapour. Due to the lack of combustion this is much less to entirely non carcinogenic (cancer forming). It is also the tastiest way of consuming your weed by activating the terpenes and cannabinoids at the most effective temperatures.
There are 3 main types of vaporisers: Pen, portable and stationary. Unfortunately you cannot just use any vaporisers, you need to buy specific ones for cannabis products.
There are 3 main types of delivery systems that vaporisers use.
- Bag or balloon – used with volcano vaporisers
- Tubing – used with portable vaporisers and stationary ones
- Direct draw – used with pens and portable vaporisers
Heating methods:
There are 3 types of heating methods most commonly used in vaporisers.
Conduction Heating –
Most portable vaporisers will use Conduction heating. This is where you will put the cannabis inside a chamber, the chamber then heats up to the desired temperature controlled by buttons or a screen on the outside of the vape. The pro’s of these are the portability of the vapes. The cons are that the cannabis can easily be burnt on the outside leaving the inside untouched. You’ll then need to open the chamber, take a small poker (usually included with the vape when purchased) , mix the leftover plant up, close the chamber and carry on your session.
Convection Heating
The most popular type of vape that uses convection heating would be the famous Volcano vaporiser. Instead of heating up the chamber the cannabis is placed in, the system will pass hot air through the plant heating it to the desired temperature. This means no contact with any heating elements which means no burnt cannabis!
The pros are that there is little cleaning and maintaining to be done, tends to be a better vape and taste and the even heating factor. The cons are that the vape is usually expensive and quite large, which makes vaping on the go a bit tricky!
Radiant / Infrared Heating
You won’t find these kinds of vapes around too often, they use infrared energy to heat the cannabis to the desired temperature before vaping. Similar to the convection heating system they are prone to burning the plant matter. Also funnily enough similar to a toasters heating system!
Temperatures
Smoking cannabis although effective can actually burn away the terpenes and cannabinoids before they get the chance to do their thing. When smoking with a lighter or matches the cannabis will burn at a minimum of 315°C ( 600 °F ) all the way up to 2000°C! ( 3590°F ) .
CBD will be activated at 180°C (356°F ) and THC will activate around 157 °C (315°F) .
A lot of studies have been done on the perfect temperature for vaping cannabis and there isn’t one right answer. It depends on what you want out of your session. If you are looking for a tasty vape, start off at a lower temp and work your way up, starting at 180 °C (356 °F ) to around 200 °C (392 °F ) to finish off.
Thanks for reading and happy vaping!
