What You Can (and One Big Thing You Can’t) Wipe Weed
If you’re new to marijuana and about to celebrate your first 4/20, you’d be forgiven for thinking that dabbing is just an outdated dance craze. Outside of cannabis culture, dabs are rather obscure. This is likely to change when cannabis becomes mainstream as the culture and benefits of dubbing are part of its powerful popularity. For the uninitiated (and I’m sure there are many), here are the basics.
Heating the ball – for lack of a more precise term other than “dab” – cannabis concentrate in various ways and inhaling it: this is what children call “tearing the smear”. This is a method of using cannabis, perhaps the most ardent fans, and it is worth learning about and trying for yourself.
What are concentrates?
A dub is different from sprinkling sticky hash or kief-type concentrates onto a bowl; they have too much chlorophyll and other plant matter to be consumed by the same methods as swabs. Oil, wax, sugar, sauces, and other cleaner forms of cannabis concentrate are what you need. Wiping begins when you heat a quartz bowl, called a banger, to a temperature high enough to vaporize the drop of concentrate you’re dripping into.
All this ash and smoke and tar is hashish and parts of weed flowers, while a well-heated smear will almost disappear, except for a small residue. This is due to the smaller number of constituents – a smear is usually mainly composed of cannabinoids and terpenes. For this reason, dubbers often keep their instruments as clean as possible – the whole point is to get the taste of the plant in one hard swipe, not unlike a sip of strong alcohol in terms of both ritual and power.
Khalid Al-Nasser, Head of Product atRaw Garden , a vertically integrated cannabis brand known for its concentrates, offers some tips to keep in mind. “Probably the first and most important thing to know is that, as the name suggests, these products are concentrated,” he told us via email. “That means you’ll be consuming smoke or steam, resulting in a more powerful experience.”
So what is dub?
Some smears have a tiny taste and some… don’t. Depending on the size of the swab (“drop”) used, you may be able to take hundreds of milligrams of THC per session. Obviously, this is not ideal for every consumer.
Powerful, fast and smokeless vapor bursts are great for medical users, especially in situations where smoking or drinking weed is not an option. The strokes are also careful – to a certain extent. The traditional equipment, called a rig, is somewhat like a regular glass bong, but many electronic dab devices are small and portable.
Al-Nasser notes the difference between a bong and a dab: “Eating the floral material results in more smoke with low efficiency,” he said. “When you consume a concentrate, you are vaporizing the full spectrum of psychoactive cannabinoids and aromatic compounds that work together to create a powerful vapor that usually results in a much more intense sensation.”
This means you can stop after a little baby taste, or you can eat a whole flower in one go. “This is an advantage both for people who are looking for a more sustainable high-performance effect, and for people who simply want to consume less smoke or vapor,” said Al-Nasser.
Types of smears
Now that you know the basic mechanics of dabbing, we can take a closer look at the different approaches to heating the concentrate and sucking it up like Sméagol weed. People who use a drill rig and a torch or an electronic nail to heat up their dabs fall into the “hot dabs” crowd. This means that the bowl of the rig – the firework – is heated to the desired temperature (usually inaccurate, especially if you’re using a blowtorch) before dropping the concentrate with a metal or ceramic tool and closing the firework with a glass lid. designed to help him spin in the hot chamber and let off steam.
For those who are afraid of fire, cold starter strokes are a little less intimidating since you apply the concentrate on the spot before heating, meaning you don’t have to put your fingers in the hot bowl.
Jessica Redenbaugh, spokeswoman for Ispire, an electronics company, says fear is what inspired their product line. “Our founder visited the US and saw people using blowtorches to consume concentrates and realized that there are no safe, affordable ways to swab,” she told Lifehacker via email. These handy tools, which in the past were not part of the smear commandments, make the practice more accessible to beginners and reduce the overall stigma of growing weeds, but reduce another barrier to entry.
Similar technology from Inspire can simplify cold start strokes. “Heating is accurate and perfectly calibrated to user preference,” said Redenbaugh. “Load your concentrates and you can tap the device as it heats up to your chosen temperature, giving you the full flavor and effects of different terpenes with different burn temperatures.”
Cold start is controversial in some circles – the saying is “tastes waste”, which means that to get the full benefit of all the natural terpenes in marijuana, you must use a lower temperature that leaves more residue. Taste oriented people like Raw Garden’s Al Nasser prefer them. “I hate hot brush strokes,” he said. “When you start a cold start, it’s easier to tell that you’re reaching the right temperature, which usually results in a quick, smooth start.”
What else you need to know before applying a smear
Electric devices allow you to set a specific temperature for each concentrate you use, and are much easier to carry in the city. The choice of temperature for any particular concentrate is a matter of knowledge and preference. Some brands offer a recommended range, especially for vape cartridges, but swabs can be more personal, so check with your sponsor for advice. “Research your concentrate and the terpenes it contains, and then study the burn-out temperature of those terpenes,” Redenbaugh advised. “This will help you decide what temperature to set your [device] to for the perfect kick every time.”
The terpene content can usually be found on the COA (Certificate of Analysis), which notes what the lab found in samples of the product. Some states require more information about legal cannabis products than others. When in doubt, visit the brand’s website or search your product’s strain library to determine the main terpenes within and at what temperature they are best consumed. You can also use your nose – limonene smells like lemon, humulene smells like hops, and many other terpas remind you of things you know in everyday life.
Big Don’t: Don’t Overdo It
The only major caveat to wiping, aside from the risk of playing with a flashlight, is potency. Swabs are no joke, and some of us have seen grown (albeit dehydrated) men pass out from tearing too hard. Remember to weigh your swab tool first and then again after scooping out the ball of concentrate so you know how much cannabis you will be consuming. This makes it easier to calculate the THC dose based on the total THC listed on the package. That’s the beauty of the metric system.