Hey Everyone,
I've been using the Air regularly for five months and would like to share some of my personal tips and experience for using the device. I find the all glass stem without the plastic tip to be the most satisfying. I find it works best when your lips are pressed against the opening as opposed to wrapping your whole mouth around it.
1. Grind - The weed gets baked more consistently than it would if it was just a solid chunk or chunks. The taste is more satisfying for longer. The device does do well with solid pieces, but in my experience it's not ideal.
2. Screens - Screens are a must if you are using ground up weed. When using a grinder, the material gets small enough to fit through holes of the stem that leads from the bowl and into your mouth. Use stainless-steel pipe screens. Get them slightly bigger than your stem's bowl. Do not trim them. Bend the outer edges until it's roughly the size of the bowl and stuff it in there (bended side toward the holes of the bowl) with the included packing tool. Makes sure it's in there tight and won't easily fall out.
We're not done yet. Take another screen and this time trim it slightly smaller than the size of the bowl. This screen will prevent your weed from full, direct contact with the heat of the oven. You'll be creating a "sandwich" in your bowl, with the two screens being your bread.
If you don't use screens you're going to have a bad time. Even with solid material, a screen is recommended for preventing full direct contact with the oven.
3. Temperature - This is tricky. I've vaporized roughly half a pound in this device so far. Different strains. I've found that the strain doesn't matter much when using my method.
My method:
1. Insert a loaded stem into your Air.
2. Select the "Green" setting and wait until it reaches temperature.
3. Take a soft, slow but quick pull to draw the vapor upward.
4. Wait 10-15 seconds to let the vapor build up and draw. When you draw make sure it's soft and slow.
5. Now after savoring that draw go ahead and take another. You know you want to.
6. Here's where it gets blasphemous, according to this thread. Set your temperature DOWN to pink. Continue to take hits until the device automatically shuts off.
7. Remove the stem. Using the scraper end of the packing tool, remove the screen and discard the top level of weed that was closest to the bottom of the oven. Stir and mix the remaining weed in the bowl slightly. Re-insert trimmed screen.
8. Insert your stem into the Air and set the temperature to green again. Taking a couple of soft, slow draws and setting the temperature back to pink again. When the vapor weakens set it back up to green again. Keep getting nicely toasted until the machine shuts off again.
9. Leave your stem in and set the device to green. Keep hitting it until there's no more vapor left.
10. Empty the contents of the stem while its hot to keep stems and screens cleaner, longer.
I know it may seem like a a lot of work, but I've gotten used to it. This method will:
a.) Make your weed last longer while expelling decent, thick clouds.
b.) Negate any unwanted awful taste by not continually roasting your weed at high temperatures (green, yellow and red.)
If you're looking for a quick high. Just crank it up to green and keep going. Set it and keep it at yellow for an even faster session. Red will just leave you with a "who farted?" look on your face. The denser the bud, the more heat it can withstand.
4. Battery - I use this device 5-10 times a day. One battery will last roughly 1.5 long sessions or 2-4 short sessions. Extra batteries are essential if you want to use this device more than twice a day away from home. I only use OEM batteries so I can't speak for the performance of aftermarket ones.
5. Cleaning - After a session while the stem is still warm, remove screens and scrape whatever you can off the glass stem. Fill the tube with alcohol and shake it up for a minute or two. Empty alcohol and scrape residue off under water. Rinse and scrape until clean. There are residue solutions on the market but alcohol works well and it's more cost-effective considering its many other uses.
Screens can be re-used by soaking them in alcohol for a couple of hours.
The oven can be cleaned using some alcohol and a cotton ball. Make sure to run the device without anything in it to burn away anything left behind.
I know some of this information has been mentioned already but some has not. Just sharing my personal experience with the device.
A big thanks to everyone who has added anything constructive to this thread. I've read and taken in most of it.
edit: sorry for the grammatical errors. not really much of a writer.