The Misunderstood Supreme Vaporizer - The Best Vaporizer That Gets No Respect
All pictures by Kumar himself
This review exists because I don't think the Supreme gets as much attention as it should.
The Supreme Vaporizer is a "medical grade", economical, really hard hitting, reliable, rugged and compact vaporizer . That is an impressive description, and it's the Supreme vaporizer, not stretching the truth in the least. And yet nobody gives a damn about it because it's externally heated (usually gas torch, but can be stovetop). Well the snobs are missing out, because this vaporizer kicks ass, and external heating can be quite an advantage sometimes.
Hitting the Supreme Vaporizer is like shotgunning a beer, in both appearance to an outside observer (if hitting directly from the Supreme) and the rapid medicinal effects. You know the thing where you punch a hole in the bottom of a can? Yeah, only this is much healthier when done correctly, yet far more painful when done incorrectly.
Yellow is burn marks, blue is scratches or dings after just a couple of weeks of on-and-off use. I've not caused any injuries worse than brief pain, and no other property damage yet.
The Supreme Vaporizer is the neatest little vaporizer that lots of people apparently just
don't get. That's not suprising, considering how little owner discussion I see online. It's possible some of them have replaced their basic old Supreme with a competitors blinged out electric model, and maybe they're even smugly thinking about how thier fancy new vape is more convenient(takes less space to use, quicker to load), or quieter (no little blowtorch hiss), or more portable & safer (not hot to the touch). Well they may have topped the Supreme in some of those ways, but
I bet that even the more expensive vaporizers still do NOT:
a.) leave less overvaped/undervaped/unevenly-vaped herb, or waste less in any way
OR
b.) get bigger, denser clouds of vapor from less herb at once or even lesser herbs
The Supreme always seems to give really good vapor, with no waste. Anything else a vaporizer can do is is gravy, but any way you look at it,
the Supreme is quite impressive at the act of vaporizing herbs. And in situations where electricity isn't available, like camping or power outage, I think the Supreme Vaporizer is the best vaporizer to have. I'm not saying the Supreme Vaporizer is the best vaporizer out there, but it sure can vaporize the hell out of a bowl when many others cannot. I've literally never had a failure to get great performance, without exception, under varying conditions, without needing special "techniques", and just following these instructions:
- Grind the herb, not quite to powder. It can be dry or not.
- Heat up the heat exchanger to 270-330F, or higher if you like to void your warranty like I do. Heating can be done at any time before inhaling, using any single-gas torch or an electric burner. There are probably other things that'll do it as well.
- With the Supreme Vaporizer upside down, drop the herbs in the bowl. Give it a little jiggle if any herb sits on the wooden shoulder in there. A paper funnel helps.
- Shove in the screen. Make sure it's all the way in by pressing your finger against it.
*OPTIONAL* Shove in the whip & bong adapter
- Turn Supreme vaporizer right way up when first inhaling, just to get the herb solidified in place, then after a second or two you can hold it in any orientation you like. You can inhale fast or slow, torching the heat exchanger if you like. Just make sure you pay attention, maintain a safe temperature, and don't burn anything but metal, even indirectly!
That's it. When you run it to the highest temp you care to, and it no longer gives vapor, then that load is cashed until you either crank up the heat further or regrind it. If you already know how to operate the Supreme, then you can pack it and heat it up, then a noob can inhale however they please and get good results, and you can skip the vaporizer orientation.
I think the Supreme is made of Walnut, but I don't know for sure and haven't spoken to Ed about the wood.
Do you know the kind of herb that sucks and is all compressed? And you know how there are times in life when something is better than nothing? Grind it up, drop it in the Supreme, make thick clouds. The Supreme likes to make a lot of vapor all at once with anything herbal. Better herbs can quickly get a bit out of hand, which is a good thing. There is a reason for this impressive performance, and I think that reason is the patented heat exchanger thing combined with good choice of bowls - an aluminum tube with an ID of well over 1/4", but not quite 3/8", and nearly 1.5" deep, and by my questionable calculations, a volume of around 0.149 cu.in. or 2.44 cc.
The gap between the end of the bowl tube and the last plate in the heat exchanger is what keeps herbs from going into the heat exchanger. It is pretty good about not collecting particles and gunk, and shouldn't be hard to clean if it came down to it.
Official Diagram of the Supreme Vaporizer, or slapped together in MS paint from my imagination?
You decide.
The heat exchanger, once up to temperature, can heat a big volume of vapor quite nicely. But you don't really know what the heat exchanger's temperature is unless you use your own thermometer, because the readout on the Supreme is actualy displaying the
bowl temperature. Thus the Supreme is baking your herbs constantly, in addition to forcing hot air through them when you inhale through it. With an inside diameter of just under 3/8" and just under 1-1/2" long, made of thin walled (maybe 0.035") aluminum. This heats the whole package through and through, and it does it really quick if you like, giving comically large vapor clouds from medium-small piles of crappy herbs or tiny piles of good herbs. In order to get the biggest clouds, you should start hot and inhale hard, so it depletes the herbs in just a few puffs. Starting at a lower temperature and working your way up will give a greater total number of puffs, and many people will prefer this.
You can even use a big propane torch if you'd like to heat the Supreme Vaporizer up in seconds. Whatever you heat it up with, be careful
whenever you're using the thing.
EDIT: Removed a picture at Ed's request. You should not have a torch locked in the ON position unless you are holding it carefully in your hand. I hope I remember that so I don't heat mine up to 2000 degrees or whatever torches go to.
It takes just over a minute to heat from room temperature using the included torch. The small burner on our electric stove on medium heat was just a couple of minutes, and a bigger gas torch would be much faster, like well under a minute.
I think the ability of the Supreme to create a lot of hot air
and to heat up its bowl allows the herb to remain below combustion temperature while being quickly and thoroughly heated to all good vaping temperatures. I've run mine over 360 many times, and over 370 a few times and the only thing that happened
once is the rubber stopper, which was already fit in the hole quite air-tight, swells a bit and the whip adapter doesn't want to come out. I applied great force, it gave in, no damage could be detected. And I've never, ever even sorta burned any herbs at all, not even once. I also didn't do slow pulls at 360+, so don't go trying to prove the Supreme can combust just because I was able to act like an idiot and still completely avoid burning herbs. Vapor usually quits flowing well at temperatures below warranty-safe 330F, and completely dries out around 350 or so.
Supreme Pros:
-It precisely and aggressively extracts vapor from herbs
-The Supreme doesn't really need stirring, though you can bang it around to stir if you like, as long as the bowl isn't 100% full. Either way, it's easy to lightly roast all herbs throughout and without overheating.
-Because of the thermometer, the Supreme can consistently give you low temperature nice vapors, thick high temperature vapors, just by choosing a vaping temperature to start drawing air
-Sourcing your own gas torch or electric burner heat is actually a pretty flexible couple of options, even if neither is perfect.
-The only parts which I think could wear out or fail could be replaced with independently sourced parts. The party piece heat exchanger is here to stay.
- As long as you have heat and a working thermometer, you can have perfect thick awesome vapor in very little time, with no waste.
-The Supreme can vape MyrtleZap sized bowls (with more hassle of course) quite well, but there's more fun to be had with bowls a few times that size
I guestimate the Supreme could hold 6 or more MZ bowls.
Supreme Cons
-Vaping reground ABV is like drinking a stiff milkshake through a straw, and
you must use the adapter & whip or bong to avoid inhaling stray bits, but it certainly does work. It could use a bigger bowl cross section to be good at this. Make sure your screen is jammed in tight with regound ABV, or watch out for powdered herb!
-Everything they say aboutit: scorching the wood, burning yourself, getting crud on the heatbox, droping hot things. Yeah, it can all happen. And in my case it all did, and none of it was more than a momentary
OMFG followed by resuming normal use. MZ/PD users are laughing at my dear Supreme.
-Loading the bowl and jamming in the screen is slower and clumsier than I'd like, but it definitely works, as long as you don't let the screen go too far out of shape.
-You can load it ahead of time for a bowl on the go, but loading/reloading on the go is no fun. It isn't great at home either.
If I were to guess, I'd say the size of aluminum tube used in the heat exchanger and the whip adapter, was some common stuff you can find: OD 0.4375" , Wall 0.035", ID 0.3675" (3/8"=0.375"). Not pictured: The whip which is just clear hose with <3/8" OD and ~1/4" ID.
The matter of price:
Some people say that $170 is too much. Well, I would have agreed before getting one, but now I would say the performance and reliability are worth it. I requested a lower price, and got one, and I hope they do lower the price, but it is a very functional tool and worth every penny they are asking at $170. When I want a second one, I'll pay $170 if I have to.
Random things:
- It would be awesome for camping.
- You can really take some impressive hits off some crappy stuff
- It kinda looks like it could be a thermometer
- I wish there was a way quickly load and unload it, so I didn't have to cook my herb when not vaping
- I wish there was a big-bore version for ABV & bonkers hits
- While I don't recommend this, what I do is I get the heat exchanger way too hot, then dump in my herbs, reassemble, then quickly inhale a lot of vapor. This way works, but is not the safest or easiest way.
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Updates will follow if I get around to it.
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Any questions? Ask away.
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its definitely not portable vape.. for me
