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Vaporizers
Vaporizers are fast becoming a popular alternative for those who smoke. Using an herb vaporizer may be a good
alternative for you. There is little to no smoke produced (if used properly) and we all know this can be a major benefit to
those who smoke. So, check out our little page here and let us know what you think. You will also find some online resources
at the bottom of the page for Vaporizers online.
What is a Vaporizer?
Most people interested in vaporizers don't really know what they are. A vaporizer or herbal vaporizer,
uses heat to release the herbal essences of any tobacco or herb material at a temperature below that where it
combusts. In lay terms a vaporizer releases the good stuff because you are not heating the material so much
that it burns. Hence, you inhale virtually no smoke. The temperature the herbal material is subjected to
will vary slightly. With some vaporizers like the awesome Vapor Brothers unit, the speed with which you
inhale fine tunes the temperature the herbs will see. The benefits of using an
herbal vaporizer are readily obvious. There is a vaporizer
review that coveres many of the latest vaporizer models and has lots of good information.
You may be thinking that using a vaporizer
is the wave of the future. You are correct. You may be thinking that a vaporizer probably has some down sides to
using
one. The only downside we have found is that virtually all quality vaporizers are larger than
most truly portable smoking devices (ie: pipes). So, while they are not as portable as some "old fashioned"
smoking
devices (there are portable units such as the Vapir Air-2 cordless) they are more efficient and use much less
herbal material as traditional smoking does. The benefits obviously outweigh the cons of using a vaporizer. Even
if you only use the vaporizer when you are at home or the office (or both) you will be inhaling that much less
smoke in your everyday life.
For those of you who are interested in the different models of vaporizers out there, I would recommend reading
the review done in January of 2003 at www.vaporwarehouse.com.
They review 3 of the top selling vaporizers on the market: The Air-2 Vapir unit, the Vapor Brothers Vaporizer and
the BC unit by Rollies. Differnt heating methods such as
convetion vaporization and remote heating vaporization are discussed as well.
Vaporizer Tech
Without getting too technical, let's look at what vaporization reallly is. When heat is applied or
added to a liquid at its boiling point, all other variables remaining the same (like pressure), the
molecules acquire enough energy to overcome the forces that bind them together in the liquid state.
They escape as individual molecules of vapor until vaporization is complete. For a liquid, this is
simply known as boilling. Each substance has its own specific amount of heat that must be supplied
to vaporize a given quantity. This amoung of heat is known commonly as the
latent heat of vaporization. The amount of heat necessary
to change one gram of water
to steam, at its boiling point at one atmosphere is approximately 540 calories. Now this, doesn't
tell us what temperature specific herbs will vaporize at, but it helps to understand the priciples
behind the method. Obviously, experimentation will allow you to fine tune the termperature of your
vaporizer to maximize your vaporizing experience. A good unit for people concerned about being able
to control the amount of heat applied to their herbs, is the
Air-2 Digital Vaporizer.
This unit has a digitally adjustable thermostat and will display the temperature, allowing you to
fine tune the unit in one degree increments.
Some units use convection to vaporize, some use a remote heating element
to vaporize plant material. The convection method uses a heating element to heat air that will
be drawn over the plant material when you want to inhale vapor. When you inhale air (through a tube or
whatever aparatus your vaporizer has) heat is trasfered from the hot air to the plant material. Once
enough heat has transferred to vaporize the essence of the plant materials vapor will be formed. Remote
heating element vaporizers really are using the same principles involved with convection vaporizers,
but the heating element is separate from the rest of the vaporizer unit. Heat is applied and controlled
by the remote heating element. This poses even more of a problem (in our minds) to controlling the temperature
applied to the plant material. With typical convection vaporizers, you can regulate the temperature the
plant material is subjected to with the rate at which you inhale.
We hope this brief explanation helps you on your quest for information about vaporizers. We would like
to add that the vaporization of herbs has not been approved by the FDA to the best of our knowledge and
using any of this information or products listed in this article is at your own risk.
Vaporizer Reviews
Here are a few of the different vaporizres that we have used and tested:
Of course, there are more vaporizers on the market today, but these are the pioneers and in many cases, still some
of the best units on the market. We will hopefully be getting to reviews of some of the other vaporizers that are available
today at some point soon.
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