Does vaping through water reduce potency / effects?

[Finessseee]

Is there any consensus on if vaping through water reduces the potency / effects? Since it removes some of the terpenes flavor, does it also remove some of its overall strength? I’m wondering if I’ve been doing it all wrong this whole time by constantly vaping through water.. I didn’t once think that it would reduce the effects. Do y’all only vape through water when taking heavy hitting rips? Thoughts?

 

[staircase slight of hand]

I can’t tell a huge difference when running dry-herb vapor through water, but for concentrates the difference between dry bong and wet is absolutely night and day for me. Noticeably stronger without water.

 

[chlorophyll_man]

I prefer the taste and effects of dry vaping but recently switched to water when at home on the assumption that it might help filter out any bits and pieces that might otherwise enter my lungs.

 

[Vaporware]

Empty the water out of your glass and see for yourself!

I think the taste is a bit muted by water, and it probably does pull some of the cannabinoids out (if not in the water then by cooling them enough that they condense on the glass), but unless you’re using a huge amount of water and distance in the vapor path I don’t think it makes a huge difference.

Right now I’m using my FlowerPot through a dry dual matrix (the kind NewVape sold before), but I usually use it with water. If there’s a big difference in effects I’m missing it.

 

[Babylon Drifter]

Wait, I thought that's why you drink your bongwater so you dont miss out? Have I been doing this wrong?

J/k I always felt like I needed an extra bowl in the bong vs my pipe, maybe I need to experiment, dang it.

 

[3l3tric]

I think I've read a couple anecdotes over the years that claimed water would somehow filter out some of the cannabinoids (even though thc isn't supposed to be water soluble? not sure what's up with that).

I used to use a proper vaporbong setup (arizer exq w ddave whip adapted into a straight tube piece) pretty religiously, but eventually found better effects out of a standalone whip setup, then later portable vapes with only a couple inches worth of airflow. I personally feel like a lot of the difference is subjective (more intense hits = more intense felt effects), but now when I try to go back to using any kind of water filtration, I largely always feel like something is "missing" and end up going for an extra bowl or two. It probably doesn't help that virtually all of my experiences with water setups have been at higher temps (390F+), and I generally feel like high temping also kinda diminishes the experience for me personally.

Shoutouts to the good ol' early days though, when I used to exclusively use cheap head shop vapes through powerade and pencil DIY bongs. I had an Atmos Orbit (if anyone is unfortunate enough to remember that trash) whose mouthpiece opening just happened to be the same size as the end of a mechanical pencil body, so I combined the two in plenty of ludicrous ways for extra water filtration. One setup consisted of the pencil body cut in half and shoved into a 5 hour energy shot bottle sealed with super glue for a "reverse sherlock pipe". I ended up having to rebuild them so many times it became pretty much second nature for a minute.

Anyways nowadays I actually give a shit about materials and yet find myself almost never water filtering

 

[invertedisdead]

Of course it does. Going through water is one of the worst things you can do to vapor.

Themodynamically speaking, you want as short of a vapor path as physically possible. A grasshopper would be a good example. Now a lot of people find that vape very uncomfortable to use natively, bordering on unusable. But what we want, and what the vapor wants, are two different things.

A heavy hitter through a water bong is probably the least efficient setup around. They mostly work on brute force, like a big motor in a heavy car.

I might even go out on a limb and say much of the differences observed between conduction vs convection is actually probably related to wet vs dry vaping.

 

[vapirtoo]

Short vapor path seems to be the key, but the vapor tends to be harsh.
Even Magic Flight came out with the orbiter water tool for their launch
box to remedy that harshness.
I guess we all compromise to get that perfect hit.
Dry morning hits with my Vapbong are sooo smooth and tasty.
Fuck it, I ate some ABV this morning, so edibles for the win. LOL

 

[3l3tric]

Of course it does. Going through water is one of the worst things you can do to vapor.

Themodynamically speaking, you want as short of a vapor path as physically possible. A grasshopper would be a good example. Now a lot of people find that vape very uncomfortable to use natively, bordering on unusable. But what we want, and what the vapor wants, are two different things.

I'll add on to this, I think a big thing that adds to the harshness of short paths is the lack of microparticle filtration. IME when you ensure there's a couple of turbulence points in the airflow for the vapor to be smashed against a wall, the harshness goes down pretty significantly without reducing potency a ton. Hence why 3D stems and such work well; It's way harder for a tiny piece of pollen to navigate all the nooks and crannies of a nippled stem without touching the sides compared to a straight tube. Finer filter screens also help, but at the expense of clogging far more quickly and retaining more resin.

You get the right hook setup and you can have a night and day cooling experience with just a couple extra inches of airpath and no water added in.

Another factor that impacts the efficacy of water is the size of piece most use. I think most people typically use their vapes with a bong rather than a dab rig with low internal volume, so the large chamber acts almost like a temporary balloon filling up as the user takes their rip. I very briefly used a faberge egg piece with my exq setup years ago and I remember having better results with that than my tube piece since the vapor was hitting my lungs a lot more directly.

 

[Unibonger]

Water???

Start using wine in your bong. A nice melot or a pino noir. After two bowls, enjoy the wine.

 

[RustyOldNail]

Never liked dry vaping in my water rigs.... until...
.... I made my small globe with quartz balls, DRY vape rig, I barely reach for my water rigs anymore.

Behold... The Canadian Winter

I showed this thing in the Hopper IO thread and it got some reactions so I thought why not make my very first thread in the forum about it. I call this The Canadian Winter 🥶 and it's very effective at cooling the vapor without muting the flavor. As you can see it's nothing revolutionary, glass...

fuckcombustion.com

 

[cvs8floz]

I started off vaping dry and wish I hadn't. After a year of using the e-Nano dry through a j-hook, the tickle in the back of my throat wouldn't go away anymore and I started to become a chronic cougher. That's a big no no for me. Now, I only vape through water in a bong with glass dropdowns to cool the vapor even more and I never feel the urge to cough. Yes, the water reduces the effects somewhat and there is some loss of "efficiency"; to that I say: just vape an extra bowl and you will be even.

 

[DennisFlonasal]

objectively speaking I think water for sure cools better than without, on the flavor side, water definitely reduces it IMO

 

[Glorg]

I find the difference isn’t noticeable in any real way and dry rigs start tasting worse and need cleaning way more often then properly maintained water ones. Dry hits for jhooks water for rigs is my go to.

 

[GoldenBud]

on one hand cannabis oils are not water soluble,
on the other hand the vapor is at high temp and contains more energy etc' which creates some kind of solubility, not too much I think, but still
my recommendation is to skip the water. dry bubbler with or without ashe catcher is the best setup IMHO.
ofc i prefer with an ashe catcher because it has a bigger volume overall

less need to clean it, less chance for mold and less oils to lose

 

[dallasxus]

I've not noticed any difference other than vaping through water makes the flavor a little worse.

 

[hinglemccringleberry]

I started off vaping dry and wish I hadn't. After a year of using the e-Nano dry through a j-hook, the tickle in the back of my throat wouldn't go away anymore and I started to become a chronic cougher. That's a big no no for me. Now, I only vape through water in a bong with glass dropdowns to cool the vapor even more and I never feel the urge to cough. Yes, the water reduces the effects somewhat and there is some loss of "efficiency"; to that I say: just vape an extra bowl and you will be even.

I had the same issue with my Milaana until I got vlad the inhaler's vigreaux/3d glass stem that has super aggressive and numerous cooling dimples. It's an absolute night and day game changer. That vape with the stock stem is so bad with the throat tickle that it's unusable. That same vape with the vigreaux stem, finest vapor quality I've ever experienced.

 

[Cannabiker]

No, it doesn't change potency or effects, it just reduces the volume of vapor. That reduction is minimal, and it's offset, for many of us, by smoother vapor that we can inhale in greater quantity.

Water cooling doesn't change the equation any differently than other forms of cooling--they all lose a little to condensation, whether your reclaim is sticking to a cooling unit or floating around in little bong boogers. @invertedisdead nailed it; vaping with no loss looks like a Grasshopper. As the owner of a 'hopper that never leaves the drawer, I say bring on the bubblers.

 

[GoldenBud]

No, it doesn't change potency or effects, it just reduces the volume of vapor. That reduction is minimal, and it's offset, for many of us, by smoother vapor that we can inhale in greater quantity.

+1
these oils are hydrophobic..

 

[invertedisdead]

Well it does change potency and effects because you're always going to be fractionating out the higher boiling point compounds, which reduces the cannabinoid spectrum / entourage effect.

Don't get me wrong, I still vape through a water bong 99% of the time, but these physics are well established. Distillation is one of the oldest scientific practices in existence, dating back to Alchemy.

Published research data already demonstrates different vaporizers leaving behind different quantities of resin as device residue. Some as much as 200% difference between devices. And none of those tests even involve water cooling.

The Plenty was shown in testing to lose over 20% cannabinoids consistently to the stainless steel whip. That means for every ounce of resin vaporized, that’s 5.5 grams of cannabinoids stuck to the hose. That’s a lot more than a “little” loss, IMHO. And a whip doesn’t have anywhere near the surface tension that water does - notice that these oils always condense in the same spots, right at the water line.

 

[chlorophyll_man]

Water cooling doesn't change the equation any differently than other forms of cooling--they all lose a little to condensation, whether your reclaim is sticking to a cooling unit or floating around in little bong boogers

I wonder then; is the amount of cannabinoids lost from vapour directly proportional to the temperature drop of the vapour, from the herb chamber to one's mouth, regardless of whether it's through water or a dry air path?

 

[GoldenBud]

I wonder then; is the amount of cannabinoids lost from vapour directly proportional to the temperature drop of the vapour, from the herb chamber to one's mouth, regardless of whether it's through water or a dry air path?

I tend to think that yes, this is the situation here
The water in a bubbler can be considered as an heat exchanger, if the delta Temp' is bigger hence more residue will be accumulated and cleaning will be needed more often, so more cannabinoids will be lost if the delta T (vapor vs water) will be higher

without water.... well... then the surface which flows very near the glass will have higher Delta Temp' or even the speed of the flow in the very near part of the glass will be 0... so it tends to be condesed into reclaim, but i'm not sure

 

[YanJagger]

Using water in a bubbler can indeed act as a heat exchanger and potentially lead to the accumulation of more residue, requiring more frequent cleaning. This could potentially result in the loss of some cannabinoids if the temperature difference between the vapor and water is significant.

 

[PeteyS]

I usually start vaping through water when my throat starts to get irritated from long sessions or for higher temps.
I notice a loss of flavour, and possible loss of thc. But its better then beating up your throat and lungs.

 

[YanJagger]

Using water in a bubbler can indeed act as a heat exchanger and potentially lead to the accumulation of more residue, requiring more frequent cleaning. This could potentially result in the loss of some cannabinoids if the temperature difference between the vapor and water is significant.

While there may not be a definitive answer regarding the impact of water on potency and effects, experimenting with different setups and observing personal experiences can help ultimate guide you towards your preferred vaping method. Remember, what works for one person may not work the same for another.