What’s The Difference Between Dabbing & Vaping?

What’s your favorite method of using cannabis? Do you roll and smoke it like you would a cigarette? Or do you prefer to ingest or inhale it by vaping or dabbing? Whatever method you choose to get high remains valid regardless of your preference. However, what you must never do is mistake vaping for dabbing and vice-versa.

Yes, you heard that right! Even though vaping and dabbing are two techniques for inhaling Marijuana, they aren’t the same. So, have you been using both terms interchangeably? Not to worry, we’ll let you in on everything you need to know about vaping and dabbing to tell the difference next time. Don’t forget to pass the knowledge to your stoner friends too!

 

What’s Vaping?

Vaping involves using oils, e-liquids, dried herbs, and vapes (of course). Note that while there are different sizes and shapes of vapes, they all achieve the same purpose. To vape, all you need to do is take a pull after packing your device.

In a nutshell, here’s what you need to know about vaping:

• Vapes can come in portable forms (vape pens) or as a desktop device
• Vaping allows you to achieve your precise temperatures
• Depending on the device, vaping requires the use of concentrates or dried herbs
• Instead of passing through water, vapor will rather pass through channels and chambers intended for preserving flavour

 

How Do I Know If I’m Dabbing?

You will likely use a dab rig to dab. Dab rigs are similar to bongs in functionality, except that you wouldn’t have to burn raw flower. Instead, you’ll use a butane torch and quartz (glass, banger, or metal nail) to vaporize your cannabis concentrate. These are the essential features of dabbing:

• The exclusive use of marijuana concentrates
• The vapor that passes through percolators and water
• The use of nails and bangers
• No setting of precise temperatures with traditional rigs except e-nails

 

Vaping vs. Dabbing: What’s the Difference?

Vaping and dabbing perform the same function by aiding vaporization. However, it’s important to highlight their differences since they give the user different experiences and quality of high. Let’s dive into the major factors that make dabbing different from vaping and makes them different from smoking:

 

●       Material

As you must have already noticed, one of the major differences between vaping and dabbing is the cannabis material. While dabbing uses nothing but concentrates, vaping uses concentrates or dried herbs.

Concentrates, cannabis extracts, or dabs are produced by concentrating the resin from the trichomes of the cannabis plant. This process, in turn, produces terpenes, cannabinoids, and flavonoids that give it its distinctive taste and power. There are many forms of concentrates, including sauce, wax, shatter, rosin, and live resin.

Meanwhile, some vaping devices are specifically for handling ground bud and others for herbs or oil. Disposable vape pens and some other devices come carrying their oil concentrates. Generally, while dry herb vapers are similar to traditional smoking but without burning, an oil vape pen gives you a close feeling to dabbing.

 

●       Temperature and Type of Heating

Vaping and dabbing are different from smoking cannabis because you don’t need combustion to inhale its contents. Instead, you just need to heat the substance below the burning point but high enough to bring the terpenes and cannabinoids to a boil. Although vaping and dabbing look like they have similar temperature ranges, the disparities in temperature are one major way they’re different.

Generally, vaping has a temperature range of 157 to 221°C,  and that of low-temperature dabbing is around 157 to 232 oz. Another important fact to note here is that you’re more likely to heat a specific temperature with vaping than dabbing, with the exception of e-nails.

Vaping and dabbing also differ in the type of heating they use. While vaping uses either convection or conduction, dab rigs use only conduction heating.

 

●       Potency

Dabbing is more potent than vaping for many reasons, like the material they use. While concentrates can surpass 80% THC, traditional dried herbs only reach around 30%. Again, you’ll experience a more psychoactive experience with dabbing than vaping, as dabbing requires you to take single and large hits per time.

 

●       Health

Dabbing and vaping are more healthy alternatives to enjoying cannabis than smoking. According to research, vaporization releases the purest streams of cannabinoids and terpenes. It also contains 1/1000th of the hazardous substances associated with combustion that produces carcinogenic compounds.

 

●       Flavour

When it comes to flavour, dabbing and vaping are much better than smoking. There are no burnt flavours with vaping and dabbing because no one is combusting anything. This means there’s enough space for the terpenes, the material that gives cannabis its diverse flavour ranges, to shine through.

Again, dabbing is more flavourful than vaping because concentrates contain good amounts of cannabinoids and terpenes. However, some stoners like the herbal, regular bud taste that vaping highlights better.