Episode 80 of Utah in the Weeds features George Breiwa, the founder of DynaVap, a company specializing in unique thermal technology for vaporizing cannabis.
We started this episode with a brief history of DynaVap and the reasons for vaporizing, rather than smoking, cannabis. [02:19]
Host Tim Pickett unboxed a number of DynaVap products and received tutorials from Breiwa on how to operate them, starting with the “M” line of DynaVap vaporizers. [08:07]
Tim and George talked about the company’s induction heater, which can be used to heat a VapCap vaporizer like the “M” without a flame. [16:25]
Next, we looked at DynaVap’s Duality 1+1 torch for heating VapCaps. [25;12]
Finally, we unboxed DynaVap’s flagship device—The Omni—and a Vong (or vaporizer on glass). [29:39]
We wrapped up this episode with a discussion of the user-serviceable parts in a DynaVap device, the pricing for their devices, and the online community that has formed around DynaVap. [43:55]
Click here to watch the unboxing and product demonstrations on YouTube.
Tim Pickett:
Boom.
George Breiwa:
Just like that.
Tim Pickett:
Oh my God. This is by far… I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I hate to say it, but it’s like this is one of the funnest podcasts I’ve done. Welcome everybody out to episode 80 of Utah in the Weeds. My name is Tim Pickett. I’m a medical cannabis specialist here in Utah. Utah in the Weeds is a podcast about Utah cannabis and cannabis culture in general.
Tim Pickett:
Today’s guest is George Breiwa. We have an opportunity to speak with him and do a lot of videos. This episode, if you aren’t on video or aren’t on YouTube, then you might want to be sure to log on to Discover Marijuana on YouTube and watch this episode because I unbox the DynaVap products. We talk through them and there’s a lot of visual stuff. I do my best to describe what I’m doing on for audio.
Tim Pickett:
But the DynaVap product is pretty interesting because it’s essentially a vaporizer, a flower vaporizer that doesn’t require any battery. You use either some type of heating element and they have a battery, or you can use a torch to heat up the element in order to vaporize the flower, but all medical. Really, really cool Wisconsin company that is producing these right here in the US. They’re phenomenal quality, and is just fun to… Cannabis is fun.
Tim Pickett:
It’s fun to learn new things, learn about new ways to consume and try to avoid putting flame to flower. This week, Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Just very, very grateful to all of you, all of the subscribers, listeners. Thanks for subscribing to Utah in the Weeds. You can listen to it on any podcast player that you have access to.
Tim Pickett:
Thanks for subscribing and watching on Discover Marijuana. Again, my name is Tim Pickett. This is a great interview with George Breiwa from DynaVap in Wisconsin. Enjoy this episode. Tell me about your company.
George Breiwa:
Our company was formed primarily for the purpose of sharing an idea, and that idea is really, is there any longer a need in our world for people to be lighting things on fire and intentionally inhaling the smoke? We don’t believe that there is. We have the technology. And it’s not just the devices that we make, Tim. There’s many other options on the market. It just we like the devices that we make.
George Breiwa:
We put a whole lot of care and effort into designing them to be simple, very durable, and also very user-friendly, and also put a lot of care into trying to do our best to emulate the ritual and the experience of consuming cannabis.
Tim Pickett:
Because it is, to that point, there is a culture around cannabis. There is that experience around cannabis, and Utah, by going away from, by becoming one of these non-flamed states, you’re like a dry state or something. There’s a lot of people that they’re always just pissed off because they don’t get that experience. There’s something about grinding, rolling, packing, the preparation of this whole thing, very ritualistic. And that alone can be very medicinal for people.
George Breiwa:
I think it has way more value than most people even would ever contemplate. That’s whether it’s someone that’s in the cannabis industry, someone that consumes cannabis or not. Some people just don’t really think about it, but the reality is the thoughts that we have, and the actions that we take, and the anticipation that leads up to what the experience has to offer contribute in very significant ways in terms of what the end result of that experience is going to be.
Tim Pickett:
I like the way you say that. How did you get into that? Is this something you’ve always been involved in personally, or is this something you fell into?
George Breiwa:
It’s just a little bit of both. I didn’t really participate in any sort of cannabis consumption, or the culture at all, until I was into my twenties. Part of it was the legality issue. Part of it was occupation related where it just didn’t make sense and it would’ve been a good choice. But from my first introduction, I knew one thing for sure. And that is, I did not like the smoke.
George Breiwa:
I’ve been very anti-smoking for a very long time. Smoke bothers me. I think I’m even at this stage in my life partially allergic to it. I don’t think I’ve got asthma or anything like that, but it affects me in a very negative way. I don’t like the other ingredients in smoke besides the things that I’m looking for, all the incomplete combustion byproducts and all the other yucky things. So looking for another way.
George Breiwa:
The process started probably back in the early 2000s when the idea of using a vaporizer was just there if you were really looking for it. Some people that maybe have heard of it, but most people hadn’t. There wasn’t a whole lot of a love for the technology that was out there at the time. So I looked into it a little bit, played around, tried to make some stuff. Then it just sat by the wayside for a few years.
George Breiwa:
But all the while, anytime I would come near burning cannabis, it was like, “Ugh, why does it have to be this way? Why does it have to taste so terrible?” I mean, it smells great, but then when you taste it after you’ve burned it, come on. Who puts cookies in their oven and burns them on purpose?
Tim Pickett:
Right. I mean, it’s so true. There’s something about it. It’s you want that joint to taste good, but it just doesn’t, right?
George Breiwa:
No.
Tim Pickett:
It’s like it almost is there, but then-
George Breiwa:
Almost.
Tim Pickett:
… there’s that… Yeah, you just can never get there because there is that combustion. There’s that high heat and you’re inhaling the plant material. From a medical standpoint, as a medical provider, we know, and the Utah Medical Association got right on board with the no flame thing, because there is no medical benefit of combustion.
George Breiwa:
No. No. It’s contradictory [crosstalk 00:07:17]-
Tim Pickett:
Plain and simple. Yeah. It is contradictory. There are discussions, I guess, you could have on risk versus benefit. If somebody has terminal cancer, are you going to kill them with the smoke before they die of the cancer? Maybe not. But why not just teach people to use a method that gives them the experience, gives them the medicinal quality of whatever you’re consuming, offers more benefit because you get that entourage effect. Way better than burning off all those cannabinoids, and we’ve talked about this in the podcast before.
Tim Pickett:
But in addition to talking about you, we’ve got these things that are in front of me here, now that I have taken out of the package.
George Breiwa:
All right.
Tim Pickett:
You’re going to have to walk me through this a little bit. I have-
George Breiwa:
I would love to walk you through it. I wanted to send you an overview, a sample, to give you a good general idea of what our company and what our product line is all about. The quick overview is we manufacturer smoking alternative devices, or thermal extraction devices, what we really like to call them because-
Tim Pickett:
Thermal extraction devices, DynaVap, Thermal extraction device company, like when it gets right down to it, right?
George Breiwa:
It gets right down to it, because why would you light your medicine on fire when all you need is heat to get what you desire, right?
Tim Pickett:
Uh-huh.
George Breiwa:
I mean, and this is how it works, Tim. It’s so much fun that… But if you take any one of the devices out, so if you just grab any part of the stuff that’s in that box… Hold it up so I can see you see it.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. I’ve got this little…
George Breiwa:
That’s one of our colored Ms. That is our completely plastic-free packaging.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. It’s a little cardboard and I had to peel it apart.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Inside is a cylindrical device. Looks like a vape pen.
George Breiwa:
It does.
Tim Pickett:
A vape pen battery.
George Breiwa:
Yep, but it’s small.
Tim Pickett:
A little cap on it.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
Ooh. It’s like a single hitter.
George Breiwa:
Kind of. What I’m going to do is I’ve got another variation of that here in my hands.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
I’ll visually walk you through this while I describe it. When you take that little cap off, what you see is the extraction chamber.
Tim Pickett:
Yep.
George Breiwa:
Okay. That’s where you put your cannabis or your other botanicals, because these devices work with a wide range of botanicals. Okay?
Tim Pickett:
Sure.
George Breiwa:
After we’d done that, you can put the cap back on. Okay. The cap is the key to the [inaudible 00:09:58]. The cap is the key to the functionality that allows you to consume your cannabis without lighting it on fire, okay?
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
Inside this cap, and all our devices come with one, is a tiny little calibrated thermostat that will click when your extraction chamber gets to extraction temperature. Okay?
Tim Pickett:
Okay. Okay.
George Breiwa:
There’s a couple of ways that we can make it click. There’s some torch lighters in the box. There’s also a really fun little package that looks like this.
Tim Pickett:
Yes, I’ve got that-
George Breiwa:
We can get into that now, or we can get into that later, depending on how you want to go.
Tim Pickett:
Let’s get into it now. Okay. So-
George Breiwa:
Okay. So then-
Tim Pickett:
… that comes in a zippered pouch.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
Really nice zippered pouch. I’m opening up the zippered pouch. Inside there, there’s a couple of little things, one bigger square device.
George Breiwa:
Yes. About the size of an old flip phone, right?
Tim Pickett:
Yep.
George Breiwa:
Before they started making them small.
Tim Pickett:
Works [crosstalk 00:11:01] too.
George Breiwa:
This device, if you look on the side, there’s a little button. If you press the button quickly three times, it’ll turn it on.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. I’ve got the green light.
George Breiwa:
You see the green light.
Tim Pickett:
Yep. Got a green light on my-
George Breiwa:
Really fun, Tim. If you simply take your device, your VapCap-
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
And you drop it in like this, okay, the light should turn from green to red. And when you hear it click, take it out.
Tim Pickett:
Oh.
George Breiwa:
Just like that, [crosstalk 00:11:35].
Tim Pickett:
Just like that. Okay. I slid that in there.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
And it didn’t take, but-
George Breiwa:
Now be careful. The cap is now very hot.
Tim Pickett:
Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. That thing is hot.
George Breiwa:
Okay. It’s hot enough to effectively extract all of the active compounds from whatever’s in the extraction chamber.
Tim Pickett:
Oh yeah. You do taste a little bit of the heat, right on a dry hit of the little… What are we calling this?
George Breiwa:
This is a VapCap.
Tim Pickett:
A VapCap. Okay. VapCap. And then what do we call the battery?
George Breiwa:
That’s an induction heater.
Tim Pickett:
An induction heater. We’re going to drop this in.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Boom. It flashes.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Flashes again. I’m doing it again. It clicks.
George Breiwa:
There you go. Let me take it out.
Tim Pickett:
How the hell did you get it to click?
George Breiwa:
It took a little bit of doing, a little bit of engineering. But the true goal here, Tim, was to utilize the available technology today in our world to give people a much better option for consuming their products, their botanicals, their cannabis, whatever it might be, without having to light it on fire. Key thing is also the cap will only click once on the heat up. So we need to let it cool down and reset before we heat it again.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
On that induction heater, you notice this little magnet. Okay.
Tim Pickett:
Yes.
George Breiwa:
You can sit your device right on that magnet and that’ll help pull some of the heat out, until you hear that reset click.
Tim Pickett:
I did hear the reset click. It doesn’t take long.
George Breiwa:
No, it doesn’t stay hot all that long. But here, again, we’re trying to emulate as much as we reasonably can. It’s a little bit of a shift, we’re using some technology, but our goal is to emulate the smoking or the combustion experience without the need for creating the incomplete combustion byproducts and all the other nasty things. So you can really enjoy everything that your botanicals, that your plant, that your cannabis has to offer without all the other unpleasant things.
Tim Pickett:
No, this is slick. This is probably a good two or three inhalations at least in this-
George Breiwa:
A typical load in that size extraction chamber is about 0.1 grams.
Tim Pickett:
Got it.
George Breiwa:
Okay? What people typically find is that that’s going to give a nice experience over the course of somewhere between three and five, maybe six heat cycles. So you’ve just gone through two heat cycles. Okay.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
Where this gets really fun is, all of our devices, the ones we manufacturer now, some of the older ones didn’t have this capability, have the capability to reduce the size of the extraction chamber by 50%, which means it makes for, oh, at least in my opinion, a very, very nice microdosing tool, so you can consume a very tiny amount, which is really nice for people that are trying to just carefully medicate, just the right amount, for the effect that you seek.
Tim Pickett:
Well, this is exactly what I was thinking when I put this… I’m looking at the chamber and thinking to myself, “Oh, not a lot goes in there. That’s just the right amount for….” Fill in the blank there. That’s just the right amount for. When it comes to flower, the big problem for newcomers to cannabis as medicine, and consuming cannabis in general as somebody who’s new to it, it’s always dosing. It’s always dosing. How can you keep the dose low while you figure it out?
George Breiwa:
Well, you now [crosstalk 00:15:24]-
Tim Pickett:
And then, how can you get flower… Second, how can you get flower dosing to be consistent? That is so difficult to do. But with a chamber like yours, I mean, it literally just the right amount. When I’m looking at it, I swear I could just put a pencil eraser in there.
George Breiwa:
It is about the size of a pencil eraser.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. And it’s-
George Breiwa:
It’s about eight millimeters in diameter and just a little bit less than 10 millimeters deep at full size. When we go to the half size position, it’s the same diameter and half that depth, so about five millimeters. So it’s very small chamber.
Tim Pickett:
So half size would be a different device, a different-
George Breiwa:
Oh, actually, no. I don’t want to get too complex right now because-
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
… again, it’s first introduction. But the screen that’s in the bottom of that chamber is positionable. I can show you how to position it into the half chamber size. We can do it now or we can do it later. Whatever you’re most comfortable with.
Tim Pickett:
Well, let’s leave it for now right there, and let’s go back to this battery, this induction heater.
George Breiwa:
Induction heater, yes.
Tim Pickett:
Because this, essentially, we’re going to drop that in there, wait for the click. And this turns on and off and is chargeable here. Anything else-
George Breiwa:
[crosstalk 00:16:47]-
Tim Pickett:
… with this? If I leave it in there for two clicks, is it going to get hotter?
George Breiwa:
If you leave it in there, it’s going to continue to heat until the device times out. It’ll time out in about 10 seconds. Okay.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
Many people refer to our devices as analog devices because they effectively have no electronic components, right?
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
They don’t turn themselves on, they don’t turn themselves off. You as the operator are the person that is driving the device. So you can heat it longer if you like, you can take it out before it clicks if you like. You can dial in exactly what you’re looking for because it’s your foot that’s on the gas. Unlike the electronic devices where you’re pushing a button and you’re letting some microcontroller take control in terms of determining how it’s going to operate, the person holding the device in their hand is the control.
George Breiwa:
The induction heater is your source of energy. By separating the extraction chamber from the energy source and the control, what we’ve been able to do is make a device that’s extraordinarily durable because it’s the controls or the energy source, whether it’s battery or even a torch or something along those lines. Those are the parts that fail.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah.
George Breiwa:
This is your dosing mechanism.
Tim Pickett:
Right. What approximate temperature are you getting with one click?
George Breiwa:
Okay. It varies a little bit, depending on your technique. Here’s where it gets a little bit more fun. Slightly more challenging. But for most of us back in the day, when we were first getting on a bike, it was a little bit challenging. Once we got over that initial learning curve, it became more or less second nature and we could choose if we wanted to go fast or go slow, right?
Tim Pickett:
Yeah.
George Breiwa:
These devices work very similarly once you understand the principle of operation. What I’m going to get at is just a couple of things. With an induction heater, especially this one, you drop it in. If you just leave it there until it clicks, it’s going to click on the first heat cycle, somewhere in the neighborhood of around high 300s to low 400 degrees Fahrenheit in the extraction tube. Okay.
George Breiwa:
After the reset, like you drop it in again, that temperature, when it clicks again is going to be slightly higher because there’s some residual heat left in there when the cap resets. Okay. Now that’s with the induction heater. If you’re going to use a different source of heat, say, a flame or a lighter-
Tim Pickett:
I happen to have one of these in my box.
George Breiwa:
Yes. So let me see which one you’ve got. Let’s-
Tim Pickett:
I’ve got this one and I’ve got some torch.
George Breiwa:
Yes. Okay. Depending on where you heat the cap, okay, if you heat towards the tip here, okay, we like to have some sayings here. So you heat the tip for a tasty rip, you heat the base, go to space. The reason behind that is, the temperature indicator, the thermostat is towards the front end here where the groove is. Okay?
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
When you heat closer to the groove, especially with the torch, it’s going to click and give you that temperature indication early, okay, before we put as much heat into the extraction chamber. When we heat a little bit further away, we’re driving more heat into that chamber before our cap clicks, which is going to give us a little bit higher temperature.
Tim Pickett:
I see, little higher temperature.
George Breiwa:
Little higher temperature. We can do the same thing with the induction heater by placing it in the induction heater for a few seconds, pulling it out, giving it a few seconds for the heat to conduct through, to get more to thermal equilibrium, drop it back in, and more slowly bring up your extraction chamber to optimum temperature.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. Now that I’m understanding this a little bit better and it really only took me a minute with you describing it, I’m the master of how hot this gets.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
This little induction chamber is going to get as hot as I want it to get. For the first few times, I’m going to drop this in, wait till it clicks. I’m going to take that hit.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
I’m going to see how that goes. Certainly, I’m going to try that for a little while. Then I’m going to say, “Ah, you know what? I want to get it a little hotter. It’s nighttime. I need that to just be a little bit…” I don’t know, for me personally, the lower temperatures tend to be a little bit uplifting, more uplifting, and the higher temperatures tend to be a little bit more sedating.
Tim Pickett:
So, for me, it’s evening time. I want that to be a little bit hotter. I’m going to play with that. I’m going to not let it click. I’ll wait. I’ll let it flash a few times. I’ll pull it out. I’ll put it back in there, wait for it to click a second time. Boom. Now I’m in the 420 range Fahrenheit and I’m golden. Ooh, that’s easy. I just did it. I’m an expert already.
George Breiwa:
Isn’t it nice and intuitive?
Tim Pickett:
It’s totally intuitive. This makes sense to me because I can… I’m assuming that this other little canister that’s in the DynaVap product is a little bit of a… Like an Arab container.
George Breiwa:
Yes. Inside the induction of your case.
Tim Pickett:
Inside the case for the induction heater, there’s a nice little plastic, perfectly fit.
George Breiwa:
Plastic [crosstalk 00:22:33].
Tim Pickett:
Plastic stash jar. I can put that in there. I can put basically my pen in there as well and I’m good to go. That’s that’s super cool because the dosing is the right way. One thing about COVID is there’s no sharing of anything anymore. So everybody wants to have their own single serving size.
George Breiwa:
Which is nice.
Tim Pickett:
It is nice.
George Breiwa:
You’re going to have a few extra devices, Tim. So when you have friends over for dinner, no different than when you’re serving food. You don’t take a couple bites and pass your fork to the right. You can give everyone at the table their own VapCap.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah.
George Breiwa:
Okay. And that way they can control the experience very precisely once they understand what they’re looking for. Maybe they want that hotter hit, even though it’s so early in the evening, and you don’t. Maybe they want a different strain than you’re looking for. Not that I’m against sharing. I’m certainly not. In fact, sharing is a huge part of, I think, the cannabis culture, and it’s also a-
Tim Pickett:
I agree.
George Breiwa:
… huge part of our culture as a company. But I would much rather share my torch or my induction heater than my VapCap.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Your VapCap, the induction heater case happens to be just the right size for four or five VapCaps in the top. Probably this little mesh compartment on the top would be perfect for a couple of alcohol wipes, if I’m thinking… I’m thinking I can wipe these off. You’ve got a few people who are involved. You’ve got one induction heater, and you’re off to the races.
Tim Pickett:
Wow. You have really just opened my eyes to an entire new way of consumption in a group where you’re all participating in the same event, essentially, like the old… You’re all smoking joints together, but you don’t have to smoke joints. You’ve got your own dosing device. Everybody shares an induction heater. Way to go. Way to go. I’m excited for this. How do you turn this thing off? Three buttons, three clicks?
George Breiwa:
It’ll go off automatically, or push it three times again, it’ll shut off.
Tim Pickett:
How long does the charge last?
George Breiwa:
With that device, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about 35 to 40 clicks.
Tim Pickett:
35 to 40 clicks. That’s great. Okay. When I’m heating this up with a torch, teach me how to use this lighter you have.
George Breiwa:
Okay. That lighter there is the new lighter, yes. The gas is already on when the lid is open.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. Looks like a high-tech Zippo.
George Breiwa:
We tried to make it like a Zippo. If you open the lid and put your thumb, right on the top of the flame would be, and then slide across the flint, it should light right up.
Tim Pickett:
Oh yeah, we got heat. I had to manipulate the bottom.
George Breiwa:
There you go. What’s fun with this lighter is we designed it so that it could be either a single flame porch or a dual flame torch. there’s a slider on the side that allows you to select between single flame or dual flame.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. The slider on the side, I put the slider down and then I ripped the flint, and only one flame fires. And when the slider’s on the top, it gives me both flames.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. That makes total sense. And the gas is on when the lid is up.
George Breiwa:
Just like a Zippo.
Tim Pickett:
Then there’s a window on the side where I can see how much fuel is in the-
George Breiwa:
Exactly.
Tim Pickett:
… is in lighter itself. The bottom, of course, has a flame adjustment knob, little twist knob.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Where I can make it a torch.
George Breiwa:
Dial it in. Yep. I like to have my lighters adjusted. So turn the flame down as far as I can to maintain a steady flame.
Tim Pickett:
Yep. That’s what I was just trying to do and I turned it just a little too far.
George Breiwa:
That lighter lights the best if you hold it up and put your thumb right on the top middle and slide it across.
Tim Pickett:
Yes. Super easy when you do it the right way.
George Breiwa:
Yeah. If you try and just hit the side of it, they’re more difficult to light.
Tim Pickett:
Got it. Makes sense. Really nice. What type of fuel is in this lighter?
George Breiwa:
Your typical refillable lighter butane.
Tim Pickett:
Now, we could use this for the VapCap.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
Just like you were saying, and we can still get the click?
George Breiwa:
Absolutely. The technique is a little bit more challenging than with the induction heater.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
What we want to do with the flame is you want to hold your cap above the flame. You want to aim the flame for somewhere in the middle of the cap and rotate either back and forth or continuously around to heat the cap until it clicks, just like that.
Tim Pickett:
Oh yeah. It clicked away.
George Breiwa:
And you’re done.
Tim Pickett:
I still can’t figure out, everybody you know that we’re all going to be sitting around, and we’re going to be thinking, “Man, the click, the click is the key. Right?
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
How’d they get it to click? It’s awesome. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Then your cap is essentially heating the herb and then your drawing. That’s the idea behind not having to put flame to the herb.
George Breiwa:
Exactly. I can give you a quick analogy. It’s no different than when we’re baking cookies. I mean, who doesn’t like the smell of fresh baked cookies. Fresh baked cookies tend to smell a whole lot like cookie dough smells, because we’re just simply heating it up when we’re baking. The extraction chamber in a VapCap is basically a tiny little oven, and the cap has a thermostat in it.
George Breiwa:
When you set your oven, you’re basically setting a thermostat so that it stops heating at a particular temperature. Okay. When the cap clicks, we know that we’ve hit the temperature. We are then smelling or tasting our fresh baked cookies, versus taking our really nice cookies and lighting them on fire, so then they taste like burnt cookies.
Tim Pickett:
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. This is really cool. Okay. We can’t leave it at that because I have two more cylindrical containers here.
George Breiwa:
Oh, these are fun.
Tim Pickett:
I think I’ve got a zero… These might be the same-
George Breiwa:
No, they’re very different, what’s inside.
Tim Pickett:
Oh really?
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
This really is Christmas. Okay. They come in basically like tubes, like I’m going to unroll them and cook some rolls. It looks like a large organic version of your VapCap.
George Breiwa:
And you’ve just opened it.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Okay. I just pulled it.
George Breiwa:
Yeah. That’s packaging for what we call our Omni. That’s this guy right here.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. The Omni.
George Breiwa:
Yes. This is our-
Tim Pickett:
I’ve got the Omni out, and then it comes with its own… Does it come with its own lighter?
George Breiwa:
I like to put a lighter in there as well, yes. So you’ve got another option, because I wanted to make sure that all the devices that I sent you have portable heat source, so that they’re useful, so you can mess around with them and share them. You can give them away to someone that you care about.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. This is fantastic. This looks a lot like a chillum design where you have a device inside another device.
George Breiwa:
Yeah. It’s fun. We wanted the packaging to look like the device inside. The packaging is actually made by us in our shop.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, it’s great. It looks like it’s got wood on both ends, and then the metal, machined metal through the middle that’s cylindrical. Then you pull another version of the VapCap out. Same style, VapCap. Is this your lighter too? Do you make these?
George Breiwa:
No. No. We participated in designing the lighter that you just used with the flint. The other lighters are more or less commodity torch lighters.
Tim Pickett:
Now what’s the difference? Is there difference between the VapCaps that I had in the cardboard and this Omni?
George Breiwa:
Yes. We’re looking at either end of the spectrum here. The first ones that we looked at were what we’ve heard to as our M, and these are the colored Ms. They come in three different colors. They also come in a base stainless steel as well with no color. The one that’s in your hand right now, we call our Omni, and this is our black one, or we call it Obsidium. It’s the high end of the spectrum.
George Breiwa:
This device is completely machined from titanium. The only part that’s not titanium is the little black cap on the end. So every other part of this device is grade two titanium, which means it’s just commercially pure titanium. It’s not alloyed with alumina or vanadium like grade five titanium is. It allows for a little bit more of a customizable experience because, on this device, when you grasp the mouthpiece and give it a little twist, it will adjust some internal parts, that if you pull it out, you can see what’s inside. The mouthpiece will pull right out. Okay.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. It looks like a little drill bit almost.
George Breiwa:
Right. When this is put together, you will notice that the two parts thread into one another. Okay. When we twist the mouthpiece when it’s inside the tube, that other part of the tube, which you see the twisty parts, which we call the condenser, it will either extend or retract. Okay. As is extending or retracting, it changes the clearance between that tube and the backside of our tip or extraction chamber.
George Breiwa:
What that allows you to do is it allows you to dial in how much dilution air is coming in our air ports here, versus how much vapor is coming from your extraction chamber. So you can really precisely adjust and modulate, what we refer to as your air and vapor ratio.
Tim Pickett:
Now, why does this matter, George?
George Breiwa:
Why does it matter? Well, for anyone that has ever coughed when consuming cannabis, that’s why it matters.
Tim Pickett:
Because the amount of air versus the amount of essentially vapor that you’re getting is going to adjust the harshness of the product?
George Breiwa:
You got it, Tim. It’s that simple.
Tim Pickett:
I guess I’ve really never considered it. But having the availability to adjust how much air and how much… Now you’ve got my attention. I mean, I guess we probably do this by habit. When you’re taking a hit, you’re going to take a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, I call it-
George Breiwa:
A little bit of air and mix it in.
Tim Pickett:
Right? You’re sipping on the vaporizer. Here you’d be able to basically dial that in by the length of those internal parts.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
And how far they are away from the chamber.
George Breiwa:
A quick way to do that, if you pop it out again, and you basically thread the two together and then back it off just a touch so they’re not [inaudible 00:35:08], right?
Tim Pickett:
Right.
George Breiwa:
Then you place it back in to the stem. If you look closely at the mouthpiece, what you’re going to notice is there’s nine lines that are carved into the mouthpiece. They vary in length from short to long.
Tim Pickett:
Wow.
George Breiwa:
Okay. If you rotate this mouthpiece to the shortest length, line clockwise looking at most of these, right?
Tim Pickett:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
George Breiwa:
And then start rotating it counter-clockwise, just like a combination lock. Each little micro rotation is going to extend that condenser a little bit further into the tip, further reducing how much the dilution air is going to be admitted into the device. Those little lines, since they go up incrementally, allow a visual cue. If you know that, yeah. I like to run my device somewhere between five and seven, right?
Tim Pickett:
Right.
George Breiwa:
I rotate it all the way around to effectively the beginning and then back it up four notches, five notches. I’m going to get consistent results each time.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. I know exactly the person that this needs to go to. No question about it. I’m thinking of a person who’s preferred method of consumption is joints. It’s their civil disobedience in Utah. I know that this has got to be something they need to experiment with and experience because, I don’t know, it’s all of the things. You still get that experience, but you don’t have the medical problem.
George Breiwa:
No.
Tim Pickett:
For listeners who are interested in this, or don’t know, when you consume… There is no connection between smoking cannabis and lung cancer, and everybody will tell you that. That’s the thing everybody latches on to. But cannabis smokers get emphysema and they get chronic bronchitis. That is because we’re inhaling the combusted plant material. The longer you smoke, the more chances that is.
Tim Pickett:
Now that we have a growing population of cannabis consumers in this country, and the younger crowd, there’s a lot of young people, a lot more young people smoking cannabis than there was 20 years ago, just by numbers. That’s a lot of people who are going to develop chronic bronchitis and the emphysema symptoms from that inflammatory response from all that plant material.
Tim Pickett:
So the more we can tweak this use and reduce the smoking, the better, from a medical standpoint, patients all over. I think what you’ve mentioned here, George, is that by trying to help people get that experience of smoking and yet not smoking.
George Breiwa:
Isn’t it beautiful?
Tim Pickett:
It really is a great idea and a great company. Okay. I’m opening up this last box. It’s another tube.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
We have a similar lighter. And yet, in this one, we have a nice wooden… Looks to me like walnut-
George Breiwa:
It is.
Tim Pickett:
… wood. There you go. There’s my cabinetry making days. I’ve got a magnet on top, which I’m going to assume is, now that I’m getting familiar, that my cooling magnet.
George Breiwa:
Yes.
Tim Pickett:
And then, how do I open this? Oh, it twists. What?
George Breiwa:
Just like your old school stash box.
Tim Pickett:
This is an old school stash box right here. You’ve got to twist it all the way around to take it out both sides.
George Breiwa:
Yep.
Tim Pickett:
Okay. Now I’m holding a wooden metal VapCap that is… I’ve got the same cap, so I’m familiar with that now. But I’ve got a really nice looking… Looks like it’s machined metal. What metal are we looking at?
George Breiwa:
This device we call the VonG. VonG is more or less an acronym that means VapCap on glass. This is a combination of wood and titanium. Either end of this device is got two type… Got a titanium crown, we’ve got a titanium tip, and then, of course, our temperature in the [inaudible 00:39:57] cap on the one end. What’s really fun is, on the mouthpiece end of it, you have a 10 millimeter taper and a 14 millimeter taper where the logo is.
George Breiwa:
This piece will natively connect with both your 10 millimeter and your 14 millimeter female glass connectors on your water pieces.
Tim Pickett:
What the… What? Okay. Stand by, George.
George Breiwa:
Oh, we’re getting the glass, huh?
George Breiwa:
Okay.
Tim Pickett:
Boom.
George Breiwa:
Just like that.
Tim Pickett:
Oh my God. This is by far… I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I hate to say it, but it’s like this is one of the funnest podcasts I’ve done, and we’re virtual. I mean, I can’t imagine. I’ve got to fly to you next time.
George Breiwa:
Well, you’re certainly welcome to visit anytime you like.
Tim Pickett:
Okay.
George Breiwa:
I will show you around.
Tim Pickett:
The diameter of this fits right into a glass piece perfectly. Wow. You just made that glass piece legal in Utah.
George Breiwa:
Isn’t that nice?
Tim Pickett:
That is nice. I mean, okay. And then, the container it comes in, that’s classic. I really like that a lot, because you could put herb in there in the one side. This slides down in nicely, and you’ve got a completely conspicuous container. Man, there’s hours and hours of fun to be had with these things.
George Breiwa:
Hopefully a lifetime of quality time that you can spend with yourself and with your friends, enjoying the things that you love to do.
Tim Pickett:
No question about it. Well said. Every time that little cap clicks just makes you smile, doesn’t it?
George Breiwa:
It sure does.
Tim Pickett:
Utah is a non flame to flower. We cannot put flame to flower, and yet a lot of your devices, other than the induction heater, are going to require… And certainly it’s easy to carry a flame with you to heat them up with a flame. So there is that element to it. I think that I would tell people, if you were going to buy a DynaVap, to me, the induction heater makes the most sense, from a medicinal standpoint, because it is the, look, if you’re concerned with breaking out a flame at all, then the induction heater is certainly the least-
George Breiwa:
Attention grabbing.
Tim Pickett:
Yes. The least attention grabbing.
George Breiwa:
But what’s nice with these devices, Tim, is if your battery gives out, all you need is something that’s hot. If you’re a person that likes to be outside, it’s particularly satisfying when you’re sitting around the campfire, and no joke, you can just grab that poking stick that you’ve been poking the fire and the end is smoldering, got a cherry on it, you can roll your cap right on the hot end of that burning stick. And when your cap clicks, you have a nice high quality experience without the harshness of the smoke.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. In Utah, that makes a lot of sense because, boy, we have a lot of people who like the outdoors. Batteries tend to not do so well in the heat. They don’t do well in the cold. They wear out. Whereas these devices really will never wear out. It seems to me, looking at these, that the cap is the thing that would potentially wear out the first?
George Breiwa:
There’s three parts of the device that tend to wear out. The cap is one of them, the little screen inside is another, and occasionally the o-rings fail. But all of these things are easy to replace, are user serviceable. The fun thing is we see many, many reports of customers that have purchased products from us years ago and use them multiple times a day, every single day, and haven’t had a single part fail. So they can be extremely durable. But even if one of those three consumable parts does fail, they’re relatively low cost and very easy to replace.
Tim Pickett:
Would you recommend that… I mean, how do you recommend which one somebody starts with? I mean, here it is, Christmas, Black Friday, literally Black Friday, this podcast is going to go up on Friday morning at 4:20 AM.
George Breiwa:
Nice.
Tim Pickett:
I did not do this intentionally, folks. I’ll certainly put a link in the video. When it gets posted on YouTube, we’ll put a link in the video to DynaVap’s website, so that we can make sure that you’re getting there, because, gosh, I think this would be a great… These are great Christmas presents, the Omni, especially, the VonG. And I don’t even know what these costs, but really doesn’t matter. You need to buy a legal way to consume your cannabis.
George Breiwa:
Let’s talk about the cost for a second, if you don’t mind.
Tim Pickett:
Love to.
George Breiwa:
We manufacture these devices in our shop here in Wisconsin. Okay. These are not made in China. They’re not made overseas. Okay. We manufacture them using the highest quality materials we can get our hands on. We design our devices to the best of our ability to be as durable as we possibly can with the intent to make them generational. This is something that you could give to your grandkids when they are of the appropriate age, and it should still work just fine, potentially, maybe needing a small replacement part or something along those lines.
George Breiwa:
When using these devices, especially for the consumption of botanicals such as cannabis, it’s very common for people to find that after having one of our devices for just a few weeks and getting more familiar with the nuance of how to use it, how to ride that bike, and to get to where I’m going at the pace I want to get there, then all of a sudden, the quantity of material that you’re consuming has been reduced substantially.
George Breiwa:
It’s pretty common for people to find that they are still getting to where they want to go, just as fast as they want to get there, but they’re only using half as much as they typically used to, especially if they were lighting it on fire. So the reality is, even though the devices are not in and of themselves cheap, they tend to pay for themselves in relatively short order, just on conservation alone.
Tim Pickett:
It does seem like they’re going to last me forever. My thought process is on, okay, which one do I want? Well, I’m going to have this… I mean, they look like, oh, I’m going to have this for a long, long time. So I better choose wisely. Right now, in current prices, certainly if this lasts forever, the prices will likely change over time as materials and everything change. But what are they? What are the costs right now, roughly?
George Breiwa:
The price on the M, which is our entry-level stainless steel model is $75. The colored ones are a bit more at 87. The VonG, the last one we opened up, is our middle of the road one, that’s around 125. The Omni, which comes in two colors right now, just the plain titanium or the black or the Obsidium like you have, the plain one is 220 and the black one is 250. So, again, they’re not cheap devices. But at the same time-
Tim Pickett:
You know what though, this is definitely on par with what I would consider high-end vaporization of flower. I’m actually surprised that a couple of them aren’t $300, to be honest.
George Breiwa:
There’s a fun part about that as well. We have a little bit of a community on various social media platforms, Reddit being one of them. On Reddit, there is a couple of communities that focus on vaporization. They also have a subsection where people buy, sell, and trade their vaporizing devices. What we’ve seen is that our devices, historically, have held their value very well.
George Breiwa:
It’s not unusual for a device that’s two or three years old to still sell for 70 to 80% of its original price. In some cases, which is almost mind boggling to me, Tim, some of our older devices actually sell for more than they were brand new.
Tim Pickett:
Wow, I could see, like you say, passing these things down, or giving these as a gift. This is a really nice gift to give somebody. Very, very classy. It’s smart. It’s a health conscious, frankly, decision. It’s American made. It checks all my boxes on purchasing things like this. Where can people get ahold of you and find out more?
George Breiwa:
Our website is dynavap.com. That’s D-Y-N-A-V as in Victor, A-P as in Paul, dot com. You can find us on most of the other social media channels as well, whether it’s Facebook or Instagram. We have a pretty extensive list of videos on YouTube as well, showing our products, showing how to use them, how to care for them, how to do maintenance, et cetera. I would say that pretty good summary.
George Breiwa:
There’s other things out there. I encourage people to simply type our brand into any search engine and you should find us right there. We sell our product in a wide range of other retail stores and shops. If you go to our website, we have a “Where to buy” that will direct you to a store or a shop, hopefully close to where you’re at, where you might be able to simply go and see it in person or buy one right there. We like it when you support the local shops, because when the local shops aren’t there, it’s really annoying.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. It is really annoying.
George Breiwa:
It’s really nice when they are there. I’m one of those people, I like to try and do my best to appreciate things while I have them, versus wishing I had them when they’re gone.
Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Well, this has been great. Is there anything else that we’ve missed or passed over, that you wanted to bring up?
George Breiwa:
Well, there’s a couple of things. I don’t need to spend a lot of time on them, but the first one is really, why do we exist? As we touched on at the beginning of the episode, it was in the pursuit of finding a better alternative, that wasn’t some giant battery powered vaporizer, we’ll just see if we can do our part to bring some nice, simple, durable technology to the world, to accelerate the transition away from smoking.
George Breiwa:
At the same time, we’ve also found that, as people come on board and learn a little bit more about what it’s all about, and they join what we refer to as the Dyna-verse, this community of like-minded people that very much enjoy not just using our products, but generally using some other methods of consuming their cannabis, their flower, their botanicals, whatever it might be, in a more responsible for themselves and responsible for the people around them fashion, get rid of the smoke, that they really like interacting with one another.
George Breiwa:
It’s created a very positive place online for people to interact with one another, talk about stories, talk about tips and tricks. It’s also created another thing that was totally unanticipated back in the day, and that was a whole secondary market of makers that make a wide range of accessories and even aftermarket components for these devices. So you can really dial in and build or modify your device to really represent who you are or what mood you just happen to be in at the time.
Tim Pickett:
That’s pretty cool. Just something that brings this community back together too, because if you’re not taking care of the core cannabis community, I don’t know, they’re the ones who kept this plant around during prohibition. We owe it to that culture to support that. This has been a really fun conversation, George. I’m glad that you came on and shared this stuff with us.
Tim Pickett:
If people want to find out more about DynaVap and the brand, we’ll put some stuff online about it. You can certainly call us if you can’t find these products and we’ll figure out ways to work with you, George, and get patients in Utah access to this stuff. I think it’s been really great.
George Breiwa:
We hope we can do that. We hope we can participate. Quick note regarding the patients, our devices just earlier this year were approved in Ohio, which is also a generally non-smoking medical state. So we’re on the official list for Ohio as a smoke-free consumption device.
Tim Pickett:
Oh, good.
George Breiwa:
So if you have any points of contact that you might be able to assist us with for Utah, we’d like to do the same thing.
Tim Pickett:
Absolutely. And absolutely, we do. No question about it. We can connect you with the right individuals, I think, and really help a lot of people get to know what’s out there, get to know safer consumption methods. That’s what’s important. So yeah, we’ll work together for sure.
George Breiwa:
Beautiful.
Tim Pickett:
Just to wrap this up, everybody, thanks for subscribing. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. If you subscribe to the podcast on any podcast player that you want to listen to podcasts on, and utahmarijuana.org/podcast is where you can find this podcast and the transcript of it. Discover Marijuana on YouTube will also be a place where this is posted.
Tim Pickett:
If you want to get ahold of me, or you have questions for George or myself regarding this stuff, if you can’t get ahold of him on his YouTube channel or on their website, feel free to go to ours and just comment on this video and we’ll look at all those comments and answer all of those questions. Thanks everybody. Stay safe out there.
