One of the common complaints with the use of vaporizers is the vapor can be hot and it dries out your throat. There are a lot of cooling options out there. Many are for dry use (cooling stems, glass nipple technology) but that only serves the purpose of cooling (and sometimes not even effective at that). They do nothing for moisturizing. Enter some glass and water into the equation!
Using a glass piece such as a bubbler (small hand held glass piece), a larger glass piece or a recycler (water flows through the glass as you draw) serves the purpose of both cooling and moisturizing the vapor.
Now for some tips....
- Use warm water for extra moisturizing (like hottest the tap will allow). It seems counterintuitive but it does a bang up job on dealing with the dryness and you won't feel a noticeable difference in the temperature of the vapor
- Keep your glass clean! This will help you get the best taste from your meds but it can also help avoid funky stuff glowing in your glass.
- What kind of water? Distilled is best for purity and to prevent spots from showing up on the glass. Don't let water sit in the glass. We recommend you dump and refill for every session to avoid mold.
- Glass looking nasty? It's not necessarily mold growing in there but it's best practice to keep your glass clean to avoid buildup and spots that just won't come out. There are a few options here that seem to work best. PBW (Powder Brewery Wash) is a safe environmentally friendly cleaner. Just mix with hot water and soak. Isopropyl Alcohol (ISO) is another common solution. We recommend 90% or better for optimal results. Warming the alcohol and adding salt will help further. There are many alternative solutions available as well but I have not found them to be any better then mentioned above. Also if you want to reclaim the condensed vapor, use ISO only. Once you have cleaned the glass you can dump the alcohol onto a cookie sheet and let the alcohol evaporate (put a fan on it to speed things up). What's left on the sheet is the goodz. A lot people choose to dab it because the taste isn't the best but it sure gets the job done.
- Invest in some glass plugs for cleaning. This helps seal things up nicely so you can shake the solution inside the glass. For exceptionally dirty glass let it soak for a while before shaking.
Thanks for checking us out! We hope this information was helpful and if you have further questions please leave a comment below.
Aaron on Apr 14, 2023
Hey Scott, do you have any opinions on dab rigs versus bongs when it comes to heavy hitters? Do additional percs, recycler chambers, ashcatchers, etc. add much in the way of cooling?
My dream is to be able to hit my elev8r without sputtering into a coughing fit at the end of nearly every hit. Do you have any additional suggestions as to what types of glass will be best at smoothing out the vapor-train that these heavies can pump out?