How To Clean A Bong For Beginners
You don’t eat food off of dirty dishes. So, you shouldn’t smoke weed out of a dirty bong. It’s common weediquette to serve your homies bong rips out of clean glass. A clean piece is the best way to consume your weed. Once a bong gets gunked up the taste of resin will overpower any flavorful terpenes found in your cannabis. Learning how to clean a bong is simple and there are a few ways to do it.
Quick Scrub
Photo by Ab Hanna
Time: 1 minute
Recommended For: Moderate to heavily used pieces.
No time to leave your piece in chemicals for hours? No problem. Anyone can learn how to clean a bong quickly. In fact, there are bottles of chemical cleaners with salts inside that make it easy to scrub a bong clean within a minute or two. You can use Randy’s Black Label or a similar product. Liquid plus salt cleaners are the fastest way to clean a bong.
Make sure you shake well before using either one. Otherwise, when you pour the cleaner into the bong only liquid will come out. Then when you’re out of liquid cleaner you’ll have a bottle full of unused salt. Shaking ensures enough salt is poured out with the cleaner. Squeezing while pouring will shoot more salt out with the liquid as well.
Once you’ve got an even amount of salt and solution in your piece shake hard for about a minute or two. All the resin should have come off your glass. Thoroughly rinse the bong after cleaning. If there is any stubborn resin you may need to deep soak your bong to get it looking brand new.
Deep Soak
Photo by Ab Hanna
Time: 2 hours
Recommended For: Heavily used pieces.
Want to know how to clean a bong that has been left dirty for a long time? A neglected bong will need a deep soak in some powerful liquid cleaner. Dry caked on resin won’t come off easily. With the use of a heavy-duty glass cleaner like Kush Clean, your piece will be clean after about two hours of soaking.
You won’t even need to shake vigorously and risk breaking your glass. Once all the resin becomes one with the solution you can pour it out into another piece that needs cleaning. Rinse the first bong out with hot water to remove any remaining resin and ensure no chemical is left behind.
Kush Clean can be re-used if poured through a coffee filter. The fact that it can be constantly recycled helps make up for the $15 price tag.
Alcohol Wash
Photo by Ab Hanna
Time: 15 minutes
Recommended For: Moderate to mediumly used pieces.
Isopropyl Alcohol is the best way to clean your bong in our opinion. It’s way more affordable than any of the products designed to specifically clean bongs. In fact, it does the job better than many products designed to clean glass. Whether you’re a dabber or smoker isopropyl alcohol will clean your glass.
Much like Kush Clean and Grunge Off, Isopropyl Alcohol can be re-used. However, if you don’t feel like filtering it you can just toss it away. Replacing a bottle of isopropyl should only run you two to three dollars.
Even if you prefer a quick cleaning method you can microwave some isopropyl alcohol in a separate container before pouring it into your bong. Shake it up and the hot cleaning solution will make the resin melt away in no time.
We recommend 91 percent to 99 percent isopropyl alcohol for a more effective clean. You can also use salt as an abrasive to scrub any stubborn caked-on resin off. Since it is inexpensive alcohol should be used to clean pieces after every few uses.
Rinse All Chemicals Out
Regardless of which liquid cleaner you choose, one important final step in our how to clean a bong guide is to rinse all chemicals out. Use hot water to rinse until there is no trace of the cleaning solution left behind. If you still smell alcohol or chemicals in the bong it’s not safe to smoke out of it yet. Keep rinsing until there are no chemical scents left behind.
