Who needs expensive vaporizers when you can enjoy concentrates with a glass bong? A bong that is suitable for dabbing is called an oil bong, dab rig or oil rig. To use it effectively, special dabbing tools are needed, such as dabbers, heat-resistant nails made of steel or glass, as well as Bunsen burners and lighters with jet flame. Currently, smoking via dab rigs is gaining popularity in Germany.
Originally a trend in the USA, dabbing is now also practiced in Europe. In dabbing, also known as oil smoking or extract vaping, substances are inhaled in concentrated form with the help of special bowls - so-called domes or bangers. This makes it very popular with customers, especially pain patients, who consume extracts with increased active ingredient content for medicinal purposes, such as hash oil or wax. What makes dabbing special is that the concentrates are vaporized rather than burned. Among the most popular dabbing concentrates is BHO: "Butane Hash Oil" or simply wax. It is extracted from suitable plants by means of butane gas, dimethyl ether or similar solvents. This makes BHO particularly pure and unadulterated - which makes for an intense smoking experience. Because only highly concentrated substances with a high active ingredient content are vaporized during dabbing, it is rather unsuitable for beginners to use dab rigs.
Visually, there is not much difference between a glass bong and a dab rig for the layman - however, these devices are by no means the same. Oil bongs often have a masculine glass joint and, compared to a bong for consuming herbs, are of a smaller size. They appear increasingly as small-format beakers and recycler resp. incycler bongs, which are equipped with more or less elaborate percolator systems in order to subject the vaporized concentrate to the best possible cooling, even over a short distance to the mouthpiece. Due to their compact design, dab rigs with a carb hole are rarely found. The most obvious difference, however, is in the bowl. Unlike the traditional funnel-shaped herb bowl, the dab rig is equipped with a dab nail (with or without a glass dome) or a banger made of a heat-resistant base material such as borosilicate glass, quartz glass, stainless steel or even titanium.
In the past, this might have been mandatory - but those days are long gone! With suitable ground joint adapters, reducers and oil nails for male AND female connections, you can use practically any bong for vaporizing concentrates. However, you should keep 2 things in mind: 1. choose a smaller model so that the concentrate can be drawn through optimally and thus be fully utilized instead of just settling on the glass. 2. make sure that the evaporated concentrate can be cooled as best as possible - otherwise it will get super hot!
To perform dabs in such a way that you get the best out of your extracts, the oil nail must first reach a temperature of 148°C and above. If the temperature lies below, the taste and effect of the extract will suffer because it will not evaporate completely. Broadly speaking, there are 3 temperature ranges in which dabs can be done right.
From a temperature range of 482°C and more, the concentrates are no longer vaporized, but combusted on the heated nail. This means that the taste and ingredients are lost to you and the dab was wasted. It usually takes some experience to find the right temperature range when dabbing with an oil bong and a gas burner. For this reason, a tool like an E-Nail, which can be used to specifically adjust the vaporization temperature, is very popular.
The best dab rig is of no use to you if you don't have the right dabbing accessories. Well known tools for dabbing oil and wax include the following:
