@AJS
Thanks for the feedback and that was an awesome video! Four nice rips from the 14mm basket load! And I'm microdosing it for now, so your use of the 18mm basket packed just had me like
.
Have some comments on things you mentioned...
- Putting water in the cooler. Yes, it does hold water, but I'd really recommend against it. The first being the safety of the Mil. It's a portable and I wouldn't trust myself to hold it stable enough to avoid a mishap. The second is flavor. You had mentioned in the video that using it dry it only felt as of you had breathed in cool air. And that was on a bowl that had been twice drawn on already. Normally, by 3rd draw I can taste the degrade of flavor compared to a fresh bowl. Same experience I had while testing dry, but also noticed I got more flavor. (Yes, I tried it a couple times with water.. but only 14mm setup and microdose levels..) So for the safety of the Mil and preservation of flavor... my vote is "go dry".
- Stem to Silicone to Stem: I did think of replacing it with a 14mm/18mm Male/Male. Then there were two aspects of having this configuration that were too important to discard. The first is that the setup allows for a bit of flex. If you had solid glass to solid glass to Mil, what you have in essence is a long glass tube. When inserted into the Mil, it becomes like a lever, with the pivot point being the rim of the Mil oven. With the principle of leverage in that setup, a small amount of sideways pressure on the mouthpiece side of the wand would equal a huge amount of force on the Mil oven glass. So, the silicone middle piece allows some "give" in the whole length of the wand and greatly reduces any leverage on the oven glass. The other benefit is that no matter how hot the Cooling Wand becomes (that heat has to go somewhere), the silicone piece remains cool to the touch. Gives a constant place to hold the wand, no matter how hot it is. That is why I retained the Stem to Silicone to Stem setup.
- Finally, don't miss out on a hidden benefit of that keck clip! It does a great job of holding that wand together, but it has a far more important role to play. It also keeps the wand from rolling off a table.
Hope this info helps! Again, that was a really awesome video!
Enjoy!