DPHil.Socrates
10-22-2009, 12:42 PM
Come one. Come all. Step right up and learn how to best use your Volcano!
To all of you that don't own one, but own another vaporizer, I'm not sure how much of this will apply to you, but nevertheless there are some good ideas here (not to toot my own horn, or anything...).
Operation and Upkeep
When using your Volcano, there are several things that over the course of heavy use, will start to deteriorate and need to be maintained in order to properly enjoy the device.
Sticky Bag Attachment:
You may notice that after a while, your bag attachment will start to stick and lock into place, making it difficult to attach it to the bowl until it's heated up. In order to avoid this, or to make it easier to attach to the bowl, push the metal cylinder back and forth until it moves relatively easily. This will make it easy to attach to the bowl, and will also avoid extra wear and tear by trying to force it on initially to the bowl.
Sticky Bowl and Metal Screen:
After a while, due to the THC from the bud you're vaping, you may notice that if you leave the bud in the bowl after it's been vaped, and it has time to cool fully, that it is difficult to pull out the metal screen that you put on top of the bud. This is due to sediment mainly, but also to the metal expanding during use, and contracting during cooling. In order to make it easy to pull out the metal slide, make sure the bowl is still warm/hot (not hot enough that it burns you, we wouldn't want that!) and dump out the volcano poo into whatever you store it in, and keep the metal screen sitting ontop of the bowl, not actually in it. This will make cleanup easy and it will be ready to use as soon as you want, without the hassle of trying to pull out the slide, and having your volcano poo fly everywhere.
Bag Care:
Keep your bag at all times perpendicular to the table your volcano is sitting on. This keeps the plastic in tip-top shape, and will dramatically increase the life of the bag. When the hot air hits the plastic enough, eventually the bag will deteriorate near the bag attachment, where the hot air and THC hits it, creating holes - something you don't want!
***SIDE NOTES:
You may notice that on the metal washer above your metal screen slide, that there is a black substance building up on the underside. This is valuable! Scrape it off after a substantial amount has collected (thick enough coating so that you cant see metal through the goo), and roll it into a ball and smoke it! You have full melt hash there from all the THC that was blown onto the washer, cooled, and collected.
Also, keep all the bud that you vape in a cup or jar, it is still valuable. Since you've vaped the weed, most of the THC will have been vaped off, but not all of it. This small amount of THC left on the bud can add up after a decently long time of use, so much so you can cook with it. I suggest cooking the vaped weed in oil (enough oil for your recipe, no more) and making brownies with that oil. It may not be as potent as using the same weight of regular bud, but it will still work well. If you're feeling adventerous, you can also add some of your kief or regular ground up bud in addition to the vaped weed, which will make it super potent. ***
Bag Ideas
If you find yourself sharing your volcano with more than a few people, perhaps consider upgrading to a larger bag (I prefer twice the normal volume, but if you are really sweet, you can make it even bigger) so that you don't have to refill the bag before everyone even gets a hit.
Vape Ideas
Now to the good stuff...
There are a few things you can do to really increase the flavor, potency, and smoothness of the hit.
To start with the basics:
Always, always, always grind your weed. If you are breaking it up with your fingers, you're not only decreasing the surface area of the bud (compared to grinding or cutting), but the THC is also going to partially get stuck to your fingers, making the vape overall less potent. Another benefit of grinding vs. other methods, is you get to collect the THC that falls off during the process (assuming you have a pollen collector in your grinder, which if you don't, you should).
Remember, since the hot air is vaporizing the THC off of the bud, only the THC that is exposed to air will be vaped. As such, DONT PACK YOUR BUD DOWN IN THE BOWL! This reduces surface area and makes it harder for the hot air to get to the top of the bowl, reducing efficiency. Once you grind your bud, make sure you just dump it into the bowl, you shouldn't ever have to touch your bud once it's ground.
How to best use your Kief:
What I've found works best, is a tempurature setting of 5.5-6.5, depending on how much bud you've packed into the bowl. The more bud, the higher the temp. This is more a preference, so experiment with different settings for different volumes of bud.
Now, to use your collected kief. When you have a sufficient amount of kief, and you want to treat yourself, grind some bud. Pour about 2/3rds or so of the bud into the bowl, then sprinkle the kief ontop of it as evenly as you can (surface area is important), and then pour the rest of the bud ontop of that. This keeps the kief suspended in the bowl, which will allow the hot air to vaporize it, instead of shoot it into the bag! The more kief you use, the thicker the vapor will be. The more kief you use, the higher the temp should be, too, generally no higher than 6.5 though or you run the risk of harsh vape.
I have not used oils or hash in the vape, because it runs the risk of melting down, and dripping into the volcano itself, which I imagine can't be good for it. Do this at your own risk (and if it works, please tell us, because that may be the most awesome thing EVER).
Another cool idea that I haven't tried yet, is using herbs other than bud, with bud, for added flavor. For example, lemongrass or mint mixed into your bud will impart an extra level of flavor to your bud, which may or may not be to your liking. If you have bud that isn't the best ever, this may be a good option to tricking yourself that your smoking some sick Amnesia Lemon (http://www.marijuanareviews.com/amnesia-lemon-amnesia-732.html) (the taste, not the high :(). However, if you do have some flame bud (which I assume most of you do, or have access to) you probably wont want to add anything that'd change the flavor. Nothing is better than awesome flavorful bud out of the volcano.
Anyways, those are some of the things I've learned since my purchase, and find that they make vaping more enjoyable than any other method of smoking, and it's healthy on the lungs to boot.
Enjoy!
To all of you that don't own one, but own another vaporizer, I'm not sure how much of this will apply to you, but nevertheless there are some good ideas here (not to toot my own horn, or anything...).
Operation and Upkeep
When using your Volcano, there are several things that over the course of heavy use, will start to deteriorate and need to be maintained in order to properly enjoy the device.
Sticky Bag Attachment:
You may notice that after a while, your bag attachment will start to stick and lock into place, making it difficult to attach it to the bowl until it's heated up. In order to avoid this, or to make it easier to attach to the bowl, push the metal cylinder back and forth until it moves relatively easily. This will make it easy to attach to the bowl, and will also avoid extra wear and tear by trying to force it on initially to the bowl.
Sticky Bowl and Metal Screen:
After a while, due to the THC from the bud you're vaping, you may notice that if you leave the bud in the bowl after it's been vaped, and it has time to cool fully, that it is difficult to pull out the metal screen that you put on top of the bud. This is due to sediment mainly, but also to the metal expanding during use, and contracting during cooling. In order to make it easy to pull out the metal slide, make sure the bowl is still warm/hot (not hot enough that it burns you, we wouldn't want that!) and dump out the volcano poo into whatever you store it in, and keep the metal screen sitting ontop of the bowl, not actually in it. This will make cleanup easy and it will be ready to use as soon as you want, without the hassle of trying to pull out the slide, and having your volcano poo fly everywhere.
Bag Care:
Keep your bag at all times perpendicular to the table your volcano is sitting on. This keeps the plastic in tip-top shape, and will dramatically increase the life of the bag. When the hot air hits the plastic enough, eventually the bag will deteriorate near the bag attachment, where the hot air and THC hits it, creating holes - something you don't want!
***SIDE NOTES:
You may notice that on the metal washer above your metal screen slide, that there is a black substance building up on the underside. This is valuable! Scrape it off after a substantial amount has collected (thick enough coating so that you cant see metal through the goo), and roll it into a ball and smoke it! You have full melt hash there from all the THC that was blown onto the washer, cooled, and collected.
Also, keep all the bud that you vape in a cup or jar, it is still valuable. Since you've vaped the weed, most of the THC will have been vaped off, but not all of it. This small amount of THC left on the bud can add up after a decently long time of use, so much so you can cook with it. I suggest cooking the vaped weed in oil (enough oil for your recipe, no more) and making brownies with that oil. It may not be as potent as using the same weight of regular bud, but it will still work well. If you're feeling adventerous, you can also add some of your kief or regular ground up bud in addition to the vaped weed, which will make it super potent. ***
Bag Ideas
If you find yourself sharing your volcano with more than a few people, perhaps consider upgrading to a larger bag (I prefer twice the normal volume, but if you are really sweet, you can make it even bigger) so that you don't have to refill the bag before everyone even gets a hit.
Vape Ideas
Now to the good stuff...
There are a few things you can do to really increase the flavor, potency, and smoothness of the hit.
To start with the basics:
Always, always, always grind your weed. If you are breaking it up with your fingers, you're not only decreasing the surface area of the bud (compared to grinding or cutting), but the THC is also going to partially get stuck to your fingers, making the vape overall less potent. Another benefit of grinding vs. other methods, is you get to collect the THC that falls off during the process (assuming you have a pollen collector in your grinder, which if you don't, you should).
Remember, since the hot air is vaporizing the THC off of the bud, only the THC that is exposed to air will be vaped. As such, DONT PACK YOUR BUD DOWN IN THE BOWL! This reduces surface area and makes it harder for the hot air to get to the top of the bowl, reducing efficiency. Once you grind your bud, make sure you just dump it into the bowl, you shouldn't ever have to touch your bud once it's ground.
How to best use your Kief:
What I've found works best, is a tempurature setting of 5.5-6.5, depending on how much bud you've packed into the bowl. The more bud, the higher the temp. This is more a preference, so experiment with different settings for different volumes of bud.
Now, to use your collected kief. When you have a sufficient amount of kief, and you want to treat yourself, grind some bud. Pour about 2/3rds or so of the bud into the bowl, then sprinkle the kief ontop of it as evenly as you can (surface area is important), and then pour the rest of the bud ontop of that. This keeps the kief suspended in the bowl, which will allow the hot air to vaporize it, instead of shoot it into the bag! The more kief you use, the thicker the vapor will be. The more kief you use, the higher the temp should be, too, generally no higher than 6.5 though or you run the risk of harsh vape.
I have not used oils or hash in the vape, because it runs the risk of melting down, and dripping into the volcano itself, which I imagine can't be good for it. Do this at your own risk (and if it works, please tell us, because that may be the most awesome thing EVER).
Another cool idea that I haven't tried yet, is using herbs other than bud, with bud, for added flavor. For example, lemongrass or mint mixed into your bud will impart an extra level of flavor to your bud, which may or may not be to your liking. If you have bud that isn't the best ever, this may be a good option to tricking yourself that your smoking some sick Amnesia Lemon (http://www.marijuanareviews.com/amnesia-lemon-amnesia-732.html) (the taste, not the high :(). However, if you do have some flame bud (which I assume most of you do, or have access to) you probably wont want to add anything that'd change the flavor. Nothing is better than awesome flavorful bud out of the volcano.
Anyways, those are some of the things I've learned since my purchase, and find that they make vaping more enjoyable than any other method of smoking, and it's healthy on the lungs to boot.
Enjoy!