Solid Valve or Easy Valve | Choosing your Classic Volcano Valve Set Up
Solid Valve or Easy Valve | Which One is Best For Your Classic Volcano ?
So you have decided that you are going to pull the trigger on the Volcano Vaporizer. Good call, we are outspoken advocates of the Volcano Vaporizer and with such a great vaporizer you cannot go wrong, no matter what valve system you choose.
Now you have to decide between the Solid Valve or the Easy Valve. We offered some comparisons below so you can decide which is better going to suit your preference.
Solid Valve – Comes with three main parts – The filling chamber, mouthpiece and solid valve. Then there is the filling chamber insert and solid valve clip, which are essential for use. So besides the three main parts there are a total of five essential pieces.
Easy Valve – Is one piece , well two pieces if you want to get technical (as it separates), but those two pieces comprise one component, which serves as the only needed component you will need for your valve. To state it more simply the easy valve filling chamber is the whole entire easy valve.
Usability – With the solid valve being a three part system there is an additional step to using your volcano. However once you get the swing of the thing , the minor extra step from removing the filling chamber and attaching it to the mouthpiece are insignificant. After using the solid valve for years ,I looked at an easy valve with confusion.
Easy valve
- Input herb in chamber and pack down moderately
- Close chamber back up and attach the bag to the heating element
- Attach bag to nozzle of chamber and fill bag
- Remove and enjoy
Solid valve
- Input herb in chamber and pack down moderately
- Place chamber on heating element
- Attach solid valve with bag and fill up
- Remove solid valve from filling chamber
- Attach the mouthpiece to the solid valve and enjoy
Cleaning – More parts mean more cleaning, while both systems make disassembly and cleaning a breeze, by their make up, having only one essential component to clean is much more simple compared to a slew of parts.
Preference
The Chamber – The solid valve chamber is taller (roughly 2 cm tall ) and about a 1/4 less in width than the easy valve filling chamber. This does give more ability to pack a small amount for oneself who wishes to enjoy a private session and not use much herb. On the contrary you can pack more herb with the greater volume capacity of the solid valve filling chamber. With the solid valve you can enjoy with less or more – whatever you want.
The solid valve also comes with the filling chamber insert which helps hold your herb in place preventing it from being blown about by the forced air on smaller sessions.
The Bags – Both valve systems come with pre fabricated bags ready to go. However the solid valve comes with a roll of replacement bags leaving replacing the bag up to you. This does make for more work in cutting and tying off your replacement bag, but the solid valve bags require only purchasing a roll of bag material to replace your balloon versus buying a brand new easy valve bag to replace. Also with the solid valve you can more easily customize your vapor bag size to your preference.
Money wise – Both starter kits will cost you the same ($99). If you don’t want to re-fabricate the easy valve bags yourself you are going to need to purchase them about every 50 or so sessions. This is additional cost adds up over time versus the lesser cost of replacing the solid valve bags.
The Solid valve has more parts, which mean more parts to lose or break. Simple probability says you’ll misplace something over time.
Given the trade off between the bags costing more on the easy valve versus the multiple parts of the solid valve you could lose, it’s anyone’s guess what would cost more over time. So we created this very complicated algorithm to show which valve system will cost you more. No wait, we didn’t create any algorithm. We just wrote down some craziness on a piece of paper and will let you decide.
Our Opinion – Weighing all the nuances, my personal preference is the easy valve. Despite the fact it requires a bit more herb to pack, the simplistic one part chamber and pre made bag make it my prefered method when I decide it’s volcano time.
Ultimately this makes sense. Storz & Bickel has a product line which contains 5 of the best vaporizers in the world. They are innovators in their space, but the science of their production often supersedes a user friendly experience for a new comer to vapor. The easy valve was a response to customers asking for a more intuitive way than the Solid Valve . The Volcano demonstrated it had the best capability of any desktop vaporizer and the easy valve refined the way this vapor was delivered.
As mentioned whichever you pick you will have the same vapor experience