You probably didn’t need us to tell you this – but blowing huge clouds when you vape is a lot of fun. When you started vaping, it was simply about finding an alternative to cigarette smoking with the potential to be less harmful. Many people who switch to vaping, though, eventually find that vaping has become more of a hobby for them than a simple means of nicotine replacement. For some, vaping even becomes a passion – and if that statement rings true to you, you’ve probably dabbled in a bit of cloud chasing during your time as a vaper.
Why Cloud Chasing Is So Fun
The best thing about cloud chasing is that it is more fun today than it ever was before. In the past, you really needed to build your own coils if you wanted to experience the biggest clouds that the world of vaping had to offer. That took some people out of the cloud chasing game by default, because coil building is an activity that some people find incredibly tedious. Sure, you could get bigger clouds if you built your own coils, but that would be close to 20 minutes of work, and a sub-ohm tank could get you almost all of the way there with none of the effort.
While rebuildable atomizers have certainly enjoyed plenty of mainstream popularity within the hobbyist vaping community, sub-ohm tanks remain – by far – what most vapers use.
As you’re about to learn, there has never been a better time to use a sub-ohm tank – and that’s because the technology powering these tanks has advanced so far in the past couple of years. Sub-ohm tanks have gotten so good that most people don’t even know how to build coils capable of competing with the pre-built coils that they can just screw in and use.
It used to be that an RDA with a simple dual-coil build could easily generate bigger clouds than any sub-ohm tank. Thanks to newer developments like mesh coils, that’s no longer the case. A modern tank can blow away any simple RDA coil.
Why Do People Buy Vape Tanks for Cloud Chasing?
Most people decide to chase clouds for one or more of these three reasons.
- They do it because they want to experience bolder flavors. The bigger the clouds, the more e-liquid you’re using – and the more e-liquid you use, the more you’ll taste.
- They do it because they’ve fully adjusted to life without cigarettes, and they no longer care about throat hit as a means of feeling satisfied. When you use a cloud chasing tank, you’ll use a low-nicotine e-juice and will inhale the vapor directly into your lungs. You’ll experience almost no throat hit.
- They do it because it’s fun. Whether you enjoy taking part in vape culture or not, there’s no denying that it can be very fun to blow a huge cloud across a room.
How to Identify a Cloud Chasing Tank
Let’s suppose that you find yourself at a vape shop browsing the selection of tanks. None of the models are familiar to you, so you have no idea which one you should choose. How do you identify a cloud chasing tank? All that you need to do is look at it, because everything about a tank that’s designed for big clouds is, well – big!
- The tank will hold a large volume of e-liquid, because it’ll use a lot of e-liquid. Refilling your tank constantly is very inconvenient.
- The tank will have a wide mouthpiece and large airflow vents. A cloud chasing tank needs to have very generous airflow because you can only get those huge clouds by inhaling the vapor directly to your lungs.
- The tank will have a large atomizer coil assembly because modern sub-ohm coils have a lot of metal and a lot of cotton. You’re about to learn why.
What’s the Latest Cloud Chasing Technology?
So, how do vape tanks produce such impressive clouds? It all comes down to the design of their coils, and today’s vaping manufacturers use two different techniques to develop coils for big clouds.
Mesh Coils for Cloud Production
These SMOK TFV16 coils use between one and three mesh strips to achieve their cloud production.
Mesh coils have overtaken traditional coils in popularity because most people agree that they’re better than in every way. Using a strip of mesh rather than a round wire makes it possible to create a coil with high surface area and low mass. Mesh coils have incredible cloud production. They operate quietly. They even last a long time – and all of those benefits come with very reasonable wattage requirements. Learn more about the benefits of mesh coils.
Multiple Wires for Cloud Production
These SMOK TFV12 Cloud Beast King coils use multiple wires to achieve their cloud production. From left to right, these coils have 12, eight and six individual heating wires. Note the much higher wattage requirements compared to the mesh coils above.
The other way to make a cloud chasing coil is with round heating wire – but not with just one wire. A cloud chasing coil uses two or four wires twisted together, and that’s just a starting point. Some coils have as many as 12 individual heating wires all working at the same time. You can get some very impressive cloud production with a coil like that, but the power demands of such a coil will be high due to the metal mass involved. You’re not likely to get good performance out of a coil of this type unless you have a dual-battery mod with a wide power range.
Best Tanks for Big Clouds
We’ve reached the point of the article that you’ve been waiting for. Learning how vape tanks produce those enormous clouds is lots of fun, but what you really want to know is this: What’s the best vape tank for cloud chasing? When you read the vaping forums, you’ll see a lot of people debating this very topic, and there’s a good reason why there is no consensus in the vaping community about which tank is the best on the market. It’s because they’re all so good!
If you buy any modern vape tank, you’re going to have a wonderful experience – so there’s no need to stress out over your purchase. There are a few tanks, though, that stand out above the rest.
Freemax M Pro 3
Freemax earned fame throughout the vaping community for creating the world’s first mesh coil tank, and the company has never looked back since then. You can expect every new tank from Freemax to have the most extreme mesh coils on the market, sometimes featuring up to four mesh elements all firing at the same time. The Freemax M Pro 3 is the latest member of the Mesh Pro product line, and it’s every bit as much of a cloud beast as you’re expecting.
Using Freemax’s new FM COILTECH, the Freemax M Pro 3 has heating elements made from military-grade stainless steel along with a brand new 3-D mesh coil pattern that unlocks the full potential of your favorite vape juice with deeper flavor saturation than ever. For increased coil life, the M Pro 3 coils use a proprietary new wick made partially from tea tree fiber. The overall result is that compared to the previous generation of vape tanks, the M Pro 3 offers up to 50 percent greater vapor production and flavor quality.
Uwell Valyrian 3
The Uwell Valyrian 3 is proof that a vape tank can be great for cloud chasing and can still be fashionable enough to draw eyes wherever you go. Available in five gorgeous colors, the Valyrian 3 looks absolutely spectacular when paired with any vape mod. It’s what’s under the hood that counts, though, and the Valyrian 3 has everything you could ever want.
Compared to some other cloud chasing tanks, the power requirements of the Valyrian 3 are a bit more modest. You’ll have a good experience with a device that operates in the range of 80-100 watts, which means that the Valyrian 3 will work well with most single-battery devices. With every puff, the Valyrian 3 adheres to Uwell’s flavor-first design philosophy. You’ll enjoy huge clouds with this tank, but rich flavors will always be at the forefront. If you can’t choose between flavor and clouds, this is the vape tank you want to buy.
SMOK TFV18
In the early days of cloud chasing, SMOK was always in the lead with its incredibly complex and demanding coils that used several wires all working in tandem to produce enormous clouds. The problem with that style of vape coil, though, was that it required a high-wattage vape mod and drew an enormous amount of power. SMOK has fully joined the mesh coil revolution at this point, and the TFV18 is the result of the company’s labor.
Using up to three mesh elements working in tandem, the SMOK TFV18 produces insane clouds – and to help keep the coils cool, it also features much larger airflow vents than SMOK’s previous tanks. The SMOK TFV18 also has much more modest power requirements compared to the last few tanks in the TFV series, although it’s still best if your mod is capable of operating at 100 watts or higher.