As the design of vaporizers continues to improve and refine, we've noticed that it's more for beginners to have questions as they get started. Common questions revolve around advanced features that high-end vapes offer, and this is especially true for wattage settings.
In this article, we'll talk about how wattage impacts how your vape works, and answer how to determine what wattage one should vape at.
How Does Wattage Affect Your Device?
Wattage is the unit to describe how fast electricity is generated or used by a particular device. In vaporizers, it describes how much power your device is using. For your vaping experience, higher wattages typically mean higher temperatures, since more power is needed for hotter vaping.
Your device may have voltage instead of watts, or it may directly read out a temperature setting. Regardless of how power is categorized on your device, you can assume that higher wattage or voltage will typically translate into hotter vaping temperatures.
How Is Wattage Measured?
Wattage is measured by multiplying voltage by amperage. So, for example, if a device is using 5 amps of power at 100 volts, the wattage would be measured at 500. For vaping, knowing how the wattage is measured won't really help you adjust your vaping session (unless you're using a specific vape called a mechanical mod, which is geared towards advanced e-liquid vapers).
What Is the Ideal Wattage?
There's not an overall ideal wattage or temperature for you to vape at. Instead, it will come down to what you want out of your vaping experience. Higher wattages usually produce hotter and thicker vapor, while lower wattages produce cooler, thinner vapor that allows more dry herb flavor to shine through.
It may also come down to when you can charge your battery next. Higher watt vaping will drain the battery faster, while lower watt vaping will be gentler on your battery life.
How to Choose the Perfect Wattage?
It won't take very long to find the ideal wattage or temperature when you use a vaporizer for the first time. We recommend starting at lower wattages and working your way up to higher wattages and hotter vapor. Starting low and working your way up will prevent accidentally burning your dry herb or getting unexpectedly hot vapor that might trigger a coughing fit.
Take your time experimenting, and you'll find the best temp to vape weed according to your specific preferences.
What Does Higher Wattage Do When Vaping?
When you vape at higher wattages, your device is drawing more power and usually vaping at hotter temperatures. If you want thicker vapor or you prefer hotter hits, then a higher wattage or temperature setting is a great choice.
Vaping at higher wattages won't hurt your device, but it will put more strain on your battery. If your device already has a short battery life, and you plan on vaping a lot while you're out and about, then you may want to vape at lower temperatures to conserve battery life.
What Are the Benefits of High Wattage Vaping?
There are a handful of benefits when you vape at high wattages, including:
Better Throat Hit
Hotter hits tend to provide a better throat hit, which describes how the vapor feels when you take a hit. If you like feeling the vapor of your dry herbs when you take a draw, then consider vaping at a higher wattage.
Thicker, More Potent Vapor
Vaping at high wattages usually means higher temperatures, which means your device will produce more vapor more quickly. Thicker vapor is more potent vapor, so if you want your weed to hit more quickly, then you may want to vape at higher wattages.
Hotter Vapor
Finally, if you just prefer hotter hits, then you should definitely be vaping at higher wattages. You may need to experiment where the ideal high wattage setting is, since what wattage produces what temperatures will vary from device to device.
If your device allows for direct temperature control, you won't have to worry as much about experimenting with varying wattage levels.
What Vape Wattage Has the Best Flavor?
Ultimately, the vape wattage that has the best flavor will be based on your preferences. However, lower wattage vaping tends to provide fuller, deeper flavors when vaping dry herbs, since the cool vapor carries more of the subtle flavors in the weed.
The flavor of your vapor is also going to be dependent on the kind of device you use, regardless of the wattage or temperature that your device is set to. For example, convection vaporizers are known for producing quality vapor flavor at a broad range of temperature settings.
Is It Bad to Vape At Low Wattage?
Not at all! It does not harm your battery or device if you decide to vape at low wattages or temperatures. You should keep in mind that you may just not like vaping at lower wattages, but there isn't any problem should you decide to do so.
Remember, low wattage vaping will produce deeper flavor and thinner vapor. If you prefer big, cloudy pulls when you take a hit, or you would prefer to have a less "weedy" flavor, then you may want to consider vaping at higher wattages or temperatures.
Conclusion
As a general rule, most vapers can consider the "wattage" of their device to be the temperature setting. The higher the wattage, the hotter the vapor, and the lower the wattage, and the cooler the vapor. Most dry herb vaporizers don't allow "wattage" adjustment, instead, you just directly adjust the temperature to your preference.
Remember, just because your vaporizer doesn't show the wattage doesn't mean it's low-end. Even the best portable vaporizer may not show wattage, because it's just not necessary on the majority of dry herb vapes.
