I recently came home and noticed a package on my doorstep which contained a Firewood vaporizer! Manufactured in the USA, the Firewood is a hand crafted portable vaporizer with a built in NiMH battery which can provide over 5 vape sessions while you’re on the go. Soon after unpacking my Firewood, I began to get to work testing it out and seeing how it performs.

The herb chamber is fairly small, and removing spent bud from it sometimes requires the use of a tool such as a pen or small screwdriver to help loosen the herb. There are small peepholes on either side of the bowl so that you can check how vaporized your herb is, but I find it hard to see through them unless I’m close to a direct light source. I imagine cleaning the chamber would be difficult as there’s no way to access the inner chamber besides the mouthpiece hole.



Since the Firewood is a manual vaporizer (you control the heat by holding down a button on the side of the unit), I found that it has a fairly steep learning curve. Much like the Vaporgenie, it took me a little while before I began to get the hang of using it and getting consistent vapor hits. The best way that I can describe the process is that you need to get a feel for when your herb is being vaporized via both smell and the taste of vapor being produced. I recommend taking long and slow draws if you want to take larger hits, (I found 15 seconds to be a good time) . Warm-up time took a few minutes before I began to notice the taste of vapor. The unit has a main switch to turn it on as well as button that you hold to activate the heating element. One strategy I found to work well for producing vapor was to hold the heat button down until I began to smell a slight hint of vapor coming from the mouthpiece. Once this happened I would take a 15 second drag and then let go of the button. The vapor was hot and a little harsher than my plug-in vapes, but this is to be expected from portable

vaporizers in my experience. The Firewood produced a few clouds of vapor during hits, but not too many given the small size of the herb chamber. After taking about 12 hits, I removed the spent herb from the chamber, and as the photo above shows it is vaporized quite evenly (after 6 hits I used a pencil to stir the bowl once). I definitely felt quite buzzed off a single bowl.

I never burned a bowl, but I imagine that it could happen if you’re using very dry bud and hold down the heating element for too long. The mouthpiece is held in place using a built-in magnet, but it does feel like the mouthpiece assembly can come loose if you aren’t careful. The glass on the mouthpiece becomes hot during operation, so it is something you should be aware about while taking hits. The draw also feels tight, so be prepared to take strong inhales in order to get the vapor flowing.

One thing I really like about the mouthpiece is its recessed design, which I find makes the Firewood quite portable. The Firewood fit comfortably in my pockets and is about the same dimensions as a smartphone, but slightly thicker. I found the Firewood to be very discreet, and was even able to take a few puffs on busy streets without anyone taking notice. It does produce some smell, but as long as you’re in an open area it shouldn’t be very noticeable at all.

The battery lasted quite a long time, and in real world experience I could get about 3-4 bowls out of a single charge. It took about an hour and a half to recharge. It is rated for 4.8V and 2200mAH and is non-replaceable.

Overall the Firewood is a solid vaporizer, and I feel that its definitely a step up from both the MFLB and Vaporgenie. The learning curve can be a little steep however, so be prepared to spend a little bit of time learning how to hit it right. The price is also quite good given the high build quality.

Pros:

Solid wood construction

Good battery life

Price

Discreet

Cons:

Steep learning curve

Mouthpiece gets hot during operation

Draw feels tight