After 2 weeks with this thing I'm loving it. I do have to say tho, I have experienced combustion 4 times now, and am wondering if anyone else has had this? The first 2 were on high, but the second 2 only medium high.
After playing with just about every possible way of hitting this thing, I'm pretty confident I can avoid combustion in the future. I have to say, what I'm settling on as my favorite technique is a bit different than what others are saying here. In my experience, packing a full bowl results in much more uneven browning, as the metal plate in the bottom gets hot from the air - just as the herb does - and bakes the bottom of your bowl through conduction. When I play with varying my draw to get the bowl as hot as possible I get very dark avb on the bottom and this is also when I've had combustion.
I find that a very loose pack produces even browning, incredible amazing flavor, and even successful stirring with the elusive "tap" method. I've mostly been using ground material, and have found that I can either fill it almost to the top, but so loose that I can see through it to some extent, or lightly pack about halfway up to create a bit of a disc that will float up off the bottom when you draw. Depends on stickiness, coarseness, and whether or not the herb had been compacted after being ground. Either way, I find that I can/have to put less force into my draw than with a full bowl, and the flavor is waaay better. I can extract the bowl to a very even, very dark brown and have great vapor for at least 6 hits - and often more as it seems to take a few more draws to really brown your material with just air. Watching through the window you can see your bowl lift up and smack against the glass - keeping it away from that hot metal. I like to keep drawing after I let off the button to clear the path and cool the the plate a bit. I still like to stir some so that I can visually inspect for bits that are over browning, but with the loose pack tapping against my palm actually seems to do the trick. I think I'm getting more bang for my buck this way as well - I seem to get the same enjoyment, and more complete and even extraction with less material.
I also think this thing is pretty damn simple to use. No matter how I was packing it, I've been able hand it to people and say "grab it by the buttons and hit it" and have them do pretty well.
Anyone using a grinder for their material with the ff2? Seems my hand tearing is fairly inconsistent and leaves some little sense nugs... Any grinder suggestions that would work consistently?
@toked23 when I "hand tear" more likely than not I get those "little nugs" too, but for me this consistency works fine. I have read that Santa Cruz coarse shredder works good if you just grind it for one small turn. I have not verified this personally. They run about $79 for larger ones. Spending that much for a grinder kind of turns me off since hand tearing is working so far for me. I would be curious if someone on this forum would use the Santa Cruz coarse shredder for their FF 2 and report back their results. So far I have only seen a couple of vape reviews online where the reviewer states that the Santa Cruz Shredder is preferred for the FF 2.
One thing I have noticed is that if I tear my buds up but leave it out for a few hours to dry my bowl burns more consistently, and I see more visible vapor.
I use a Santa Cruz 3 piece (I prefer not to separate my kief, but hate having to dump out 2 piece grinders, which also grind too fine) the 2" diameter one, and it works great. I pre grind enough for a day or two and put it in my jar (Santa Cruz also). I have had success hand tearing as well, but I find I get more even browning from the grinder. About $40-50 bucks on amazon depending on color.