Vaping has long since moved out of the realm of a passing fashion statement and is now fully entrenched in cannabis culture.
In the not so distant past, cannabis vaporizers were large, stationary volcano style appliances.
Useful for flowers and buds, but pretty restrictive for everything else.
Now, vaping technologies have exploded on to the market, including the introduction of the vape pen.
Marijuana vaping enthusiasts can virtually smoke whatever type of cannabis they want.
This includes everyone’s favorite concentrate—shatter.
Today, we'll look at how to smoke shatter in a vape pen without wasting any of it.
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What’s the Deal with Smoking Shatter in a Vape Pen?
It’s no secret that today’s smokers love concentrates, including budders, oils and shatters.
These powerful substances deliver an equally powerful high.
One that's much stronger than any all-natural flower could deliver.
But most of the more conventional methods of smoking concentrations, mainly dabbing, come with a few downsides.
For one, they are anything but discreet.
Secondly, they still burn organic plant material, and those burnt particulates are inhaled directly into your lungs.
Third, dab rigs are not portable.
For these three reasons, and more, many have chosen to move their shatter smoking experience to the vape pen.
How to Smoke Shatter in a Vape Pen
There are essentially three main steps to smoking shatter in a vape pen.
- Load the chamber with shatter
- Prime the chamber before taking a hit.
- Take the hit.
These are the basic elements, which aren't that complicated for anyone familiar with vaping.
But what about the novice vape users?
Or what about the pros, who have long developed bad vaping habits?
Let's break down each of these elements down into more detail.
Details, which will help curate a clean, pure shatter vaping experience.
Step One: Choose Your Concentrate
Vape pens are celebrated not just because they take the concentrate smoking experience outside, but because they're versatile.
Yes, you can smoke shatter in a vape pen, but you can also vape budders, oils, and waxes.
You just have to make sure you have the correct atomizer for what you want to smoke.
Because it accommodates any concentrate you have on hand or dry herb, a vape pen is a versatile cannabis tool.
But with all the choices, why choose a shatter?
To produce a stable and clear shatter requires technical skills far beyond your standard butane hash oil.
Here, we contend that shatters are arguably are one of the most technical, and beautiful, concentrates on the market today.
Step Two: Load the Chamber
Once you’ve chosen the perfect shatter for the occasion, it's time to load up.
If you open the chamber of your vape pen, you should see an open space for concentrate, as well as the atomizer coils.
Using a dabbing tool, scrap a small amount of the shatter on to the end of the dabber, and scrap it off into the chamber.
Never touch the concentrate with your fingers, because it can damage the delicate structure of the cannabis.
You'll also want to avoid touching the inner heating element; it's very susceptible to damage.
Step Three: Prime the Chamber Before Taking a Hit
Although you can technically close the chamber right away and take a hit, some prefer to prime the wick first.
This is a technique for those that enjoy a more potent vaping experience, to produce that tell-tale cloud of vapor.
After closing the chamber, hold down the button for a few seconds.
This will ‘prime’ the wick, and melt the shatter down into the bottom.
The shatter will have melted to surround the heating element in your vape pen.
It's ready to deliver that next big hit.
Step Four: The First Inhale
Press down the button, to heat up the heating coil, and take a long smooth pull of the mouthpiece.
It doesn’t get more delicious than that.
If you want to get slightly more technical, you can play with the vape pen heat settings.
The lower the temperature, the tastier and smoother the inhale.
The higher the temperature, the harsher the vapor will be, but the more powerful the pull.
The temperature you want might also change depending on the shatter.
Ultimately the smoking experience is entirely up to you, and how you like it.
How Much Shatter Should You Put Into the Chamber?
Under most circumstances, you should load the chamber to roughly 75% capacity.
If you don’t load enough into the chamber, often the vape pen can have trouble producing enough vapor.
However, if you overload, you’ll run the risk of overflow.
If you ever tried to clean up a melted cannabis concentrate, you’ll know how difficult it is to clean.
Because there is such variation between the size of vape pen chambers, the rule of thumb is to fill up to 75% capacity.
Do this until you get a better understanding of the nuances of your vaporizer.
How Will You Know to Reload?
It all depends on how much you originally loaded the chamber with.
The more you preloaded, the longer you can go before reload.
It's pretty obvious when your concentrate starts to run low.
You’ll immediately find the flavor during inhaling diminishes.
The vapor clouds also becomes less than impressive.
Depending on vape pen, the size of the chamber will vary.
If you’d prefer to avoid the hassle of continually reloading, consider investing in a vaporizer with a more substantial storage tank.
When Do You Need to Clean Out the Vape Pen?
There will come a day when you'll need to confront the clogged up coil and a sticky vape pen reality.
It's time to clean out your vape pen.
The first step is to dismantle the mouthpiece, the battery, and the chamber from each other.
The mouthpiece is relatively easy to clean, just wipe with a sanitizing wipe.
The chamber, containing the sensitive heating element is more difficult.
Using a q-tip, gently dip in alcohol, and insert into the chamber, wiping around picking up the dark residue from inside the tank.
Do not put too much pressure on the coil itself, as this could damage it beyond repair.
Conclusion
So, how do you smoke shatter in a vape pen?
The process is pretty easy if you boil it down:
- Choose your concentrate
- Load the chamber
- Prime the chamber
- And inhale
Shatter can be pretty sticky, so when you are loading the chamber make sure you keep that in mind!
Were you able to load shatter in your pen? Let us know how it turned out in the comments below!