How to Clean Your Bong

One of the key components to having the perfect medicating session is getting a great tasting rip out of your pipe. It doesn’t matter if it’s in flower or concentrate form, your goal should be to get as satisfying of a pull as you can in both the amount inhaled and how it feels coming out.

These favorable traits can be diminished with the use of dirty water and glass which hasn’t been properly maintained to avoid such build up. There’s no way your average stoner would say they go longer than a few weeks without cleaning their piece while still feel they’re getting the best hit that they can. So, let’s learn how to clean a pipe.

Determining the right time to clean your piece is dependent on a few factors. One, how often the piece is being used. Something that you hit only once a day can forgo a cleaning longer than a month if the water is regularly changed. Other times, your daily driver might get clogged up twice as fast as it usually does if you’ve recently increased your intake, so you should apply your tolerance to the equation. Some pipes will stay resin free for a considerably longer or shorter period of time because of different internal workings that filtrate the smoke with water and holes to pass through.

You might find that some parts of your collection take a very short time to clean, whereas others require several baths in a liquid abrasive to remove the sticky remnants from the glass. Percolators like honeycombs or fritted discs can be extremely annoying to work with but will get spotless eventually. If you’re looking for something that won’t give you any hassle, try out your average straight tube and see if that’s something that would work well for everyday use.

If you want to avoid cleaning as much as possible, be sure to switch out the water in your pipe as frequently as possible. This will keep stale tastes and dirty walls at bay as you elongate your cleaning supplies.

Now to the good part! Resin that builds up from its raw form can get rather nasty, so cleaning your flower piece can leave your mind blown with how it quickly returns back to it’s original splendor -- and how great your cannabis can taste again.

1. Head to the store and buy 91% (or higher) isopropyl alcohol to break down the resin build-up.

2. While you’re there, buy rock salt as well (Epsom salt works best).

3. Once acquired, fill the piece with a fair amount of isopropyl.

4. Follow this with a handful of salt.

5. Next, plug the joint and mouthpiece with paper towels.

6. Once you are sure that you won’t be covering yourself with what’s inside, start shaking your pipe (carefully) to get the salt and alcohol to remove the resin inside.

7. After you’ve seen that there isn’t any more dark resin to remove, empty and rinse out your bong until the smell and taste of isopropyl is gone.

8. Repeat the process until you’re satisfied and have a glistening “new” piece.

Photo Credit: PotGuide.com