Indopedia All Things Marijuana
To be honest, I’m pretty bored with cannabis vaporizers at this point.
Pretty much every brand seems to release copycat designs, giving the consumer little choice in a sea of mediocrity.
There’s more to this whining rant — let me just grab the door, though. I heard the bell ring. Hang tight.
Whoa.
Just got a box in the mail from Puffco, a company that has been innovating in the space. You can read more about in last year’s review of the Puffco Plus.
After tearing open the packaging, I had to take a step back to process what I was seeing.
Remember the Peak, the space-age looking rig that amazed trade show attendees before generating a ton of buzz for its ingenuity and unique appearance?
I just received one to review.
Sometimes my decision to change majors from something totally useless like architecture or marketing to “Professional Weed Smoker” (with a double minor in “NBA 2k” and world doughnut studies) feels like it’s really paying off.
On first impressions alone, it felt like I was opening a top-secret parcel containing a rare stone that someone meant to send to a superhero for energy replenishment. Puffco’s design team will surely win whatever award is given to products with visionary aesthetics, as the hand-blown custom glass resembles a rare crystal, molded by mythical forces to serve one worldly purpose: Get people baked in the most enjoyable and visually pleasing way possible. [Note: Duke went to see the new “Avengers” movie, “Infinity War,” before writing this.]
The foam carrying case is easy to hold with one hand and optimized for travel. Just don’t forget to empty the water out of the glass before packing up your Peak, as it will drip out of the side of the case and create quite the embarrassing “Billy Madison”-esque scene for you when you stand up after carrying the Peak in your lap for a long car ride.
Once I got the peak out of its case and assembled, which is very easy to do — the body of the Peak is divided into two impeccably crafted sections — it was time to figure out how to operate it.
I tested the Puffco Peak with Mendo Breath flower rosin I pressed using my Rosinbomb Rocket.
The ceramic nail chamber of the Peak is easy to unscrew and replace with the backup nail Puffco includes in the box. The nail and heating element are so crucial to the integrity of the entire rig; so many portable units get it wrong. The reason experienced dabbers end up sticking with their traditional torch and rig setup is that portable units simply can’t get hot enough to work any better than a pen and tabletop electronic nails are too expensive for the average consumer.
But at $379, the Peak is about half the price of your typical tabletop e-nail, and you can take it everywhere with you. It was time to see if the Peak stacked up hitwise to my normal rig.
It took me a few minutes to find the hidden multipurpose button that turns the unit on, controls heat, and extends your session if you have company, or huge lungs and tolerance that require seconds, but it’s embedded in the lower silicone handle portion of the device directly under the nail.
Speaking of the nail, I absolutely love that Puffco wrapped the outside of the ceramic in a silicone rubber ring that allows you to handle the nail while still hot should the need arise. Never seen that before. Genius.
There are four temperature settings, all with their own positives and negatives, as with any dab rig. The hotter you set the nail temperature, the more vapor you’ll produce. But you may combust the oil slightly, affecting the taste and inviting some throat-burn aftershock. Lower temps allow for more flavor, but you’ll definitely want to use the included quartz carb cap to cut down on wasted oil. There is an LED inlay around the device that indicates temperature, as well as haptic feedback that vibrates when the Peak is ready to be dabbed. The temperature ranges from 450 degrees Fahrenheit to 600 degrees Fahrenheit, or 232.2 degrees Celsius to 315.6 degrees Celsius, in increments of 50 Fahrenheit degrees.
Once the Peak is about to cease heating and cool down, the unit will vibrate once more. When this happens, a quick double-tap of the multipurpose button initiates Puffco’s proprietary “Sesh Mode,” which keeps the nail hot enough for you to pass the Peak around your smoking circle and let the homies hit it, too.
Because the glass perc chamber is so easy to insert and remove, it would make sense that glass blowers would create attachments for the device that allow users to further customize their high-end dabbing experience. Of course, when I hit Instagram to see if people were already employing customized add-ons, the creations had already hit the interweb.
