What Wattage Should I Vape At?


What Wattage Should I Vape At? Oliver Norman

What Wattage Should I Vape At?

The wonderful world of watts ohms and volts is one of the most inaccessible parts of the vaping journey. It’s all Greek to most of us when starting out, and even confirmed vapers might not have their heads around it, owing to the many devices out there that don’t give you the option to tailor your power output like disposable vapes.

Thankfully you don’t need to start taking night classes or have a degree in electrical engineering to get the most out of your vape, follow some simple practices and you’ll be just fine – in fact, if you get the hang of it tweaking your output just right can deliver a much better vaping experience.

The good news is that by pairing the right e-liquid with the right device, often means that working out the wattage you need won’t be too hard – most device packaging tells you what range to work with either on the box, in the manual, and often on the side of the coil itself – check it out!

And don’t forget if you’re thinking this is a bit advanced, we have a guide to help you work out which e-liquid is best for you as well as which device to choose to suit it: How to Vape Properly.

Close up of a person vaping

Best wattage for vaping 50-50 e-liquid

50-50 e-liquids are thinner and are available in both lower and higher nicotine strengths. The devices that pair best with then are smaller and have lower power outputs. Many 50-50 devices won’t even give you the chance to customise the wattage that much, sometimes having one to three presents at most.

50-50 juices are best vaped at lower wattages, and that goes double for higher strengths. Unless you are looking for an intense experience, high watts with a high strength juice like 18mg can be harsher with a strong throat hit.

Follow your devices guidelines, but aim for between 12 and 20 watts at most when experimenting to find the best balance of smoothness, flavour and vapour production.

Best wattage for vaping nic salt e-liquid

The principals for 50-50 freebase e-liquids apply to nic salts too. Keep the power settings low and carefully experiment to find the best balance for your needs.

Remember though that nic salts are designed to be super-smooth, even at the highest strength: 20mg. because of this, you can crank the watts a little for more flavour and vapour without unintentionally increasing the throat hit. Just make sure you stay within the safe limits described on your coil or device.

Best Wattage for vaping sub-ohm high-VG e-liquid

80-20, 70-30, high-VG, these extra thick juices are designed to be vaped in higher powered devices to produce massive clouds and bold flavour.

Sub-ohm vaping devices are needed to make the most of high-vg e-liquid. They are larger in size and have a much higher power output than those intended for 50-50 vaping. This is because the thicker juice needs more heat to become vapour, and so the devices use heavy duty sub-ohm coils which can be anywhere from 0.1 to 0.9ohms.

The large batteries heat the coils which can vary from needing 40-60 watts, and even as high as 100-200+ watts. There is a lot more room for customisation with these kits, and it’s vital you read the coil you are using to ensure you don’t burn it out by going above the safe limits.

Vaping device close up

Checking the coil is so important when sub-ohming, because the devices can often support different types that all perform bets at different wattages – if you want to sub-ohm without this fuss, choose a device that automatically adjusts the power depending on the coil it detects you have inserted (don’t worry, this sounds fancy but even £25 kits have this tech in them nowadays!).

Check out our sub-ohm guide to learn more!

What vape wattage has the best flavour?

This is all down to personal taste, but aligning three key principals will put you on the path to  better flavour, with a little room for personal tweaking as you get more confident.

  • Decide on 50-50 or HVG juice
  • This will dictate what device and coil you need to use
  • Which will give you an optimum wattage range to play around in

The other alternative for the ultimate flavour-chasers is to use an RDTA – this is basically a rebuildable coil unit. You choose the wire, the wicking material, you build it up, test it to get the perfect resistance (ohms) and then drip thick vape juice onto it and heat it drip by drip.

We know that sounds like a lot of fuss, but the flavour rewards are unreal if you have the desire to tinker (we recommend using a dedicated toolkit to make sure you are safe when working with RDTAs – if you aren’t sure, don’t take the risk!

To learn more, check out our guide all about getting max flavour.

Vaping close up of smoke ring

Is it bad to vape at low wattage?

Absolutely not – if you are using a 50-50 device with a high strength juice, low wattage is perfect.

Beware running powerful sub-ohm devices on low watts though, you won’t burn anything but you may find that you get next to no vapour, which means no flavour, if the coil even heats up at all! This is because low wattages cannot force the current through the high-resistance sub-ohm coil wire. This is when it is bad to vape at low wattage, and you need to crank up the juice!

Be safe & have fun!

Experimentation is the name of the game – have fun and explore your potions to find the best vaping experience for you! If you already know what you want, save time and money with a LiQuid Subscription.

Just remember to always check your devices safe limits before playing with your wattage – safety first!

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