How To Clean A Glass Bong?
Steps In Cleaning A Glass Bong
Prep Your Glass
Separate All the Moving Pieces From the Bong
Most glass bongs have parts that could be disassembled from each other. In this way, every glass bong is made to be cleaned easily. A technique in cleaning includes shaking and scrubbing. This step of prepping your glass ensures its safety and protects it at the same time. There are instances that these glasses might break even if they’re made from thick borosilicate glass.
To be sure, separate all that you can from everything else. These parts may include the body, the slide, and the stem. Some people prefer using kitchen gloves in this step to protect their hands from smelling like a bong. Resin smell could be difficult to wash off your hands.
Rinse Out the Pieces in Hot Water
As resin builds up in the crevices of your bong, it would be best to loosen it out first. This could be achieved by submerging the glass bong into boiling water. Let the water do its trick by softening everything that might be clogging up your bong. If you could produce the boiling water to become scalding hot, do it.
But be careful about this one. Any type of glass would shatter upon contact with hot water especially if the glass has a cooler temperature compared to the water. To avoid this, you can soak the glass bong in the water before it boils. In that way, the temperature of the glass bong matches with the water before it becomes too hot. But for those doing routine cleaning, rinsing the bong under running water would be good enough for now.
Knock Off Loose Chunks
All that boiling and soaking might have made something good to your dirty glass bong. Since the goal was to soften whatever residues are left in the bong, it is likely that some of those are ready to be chipped off from the glass by now. You can use a Q-Tip for this step.
Anything that can’t be knocked off by a Q-Tip might need another tool to scrub with. That is where pipe cleaners help you with your concern. Although this is a sure hit, there are instances that stains might be stubborn and might need special attention at this point. You could take your time and gently scrub those off.
Place the Smaller Parts in Resealable Plastic Bags
Doing this step preps the glass bongs into another soaking process. If you have zip lock bags readily available near you, you could use those to put in the glass bongs. The zip lock bags will become the soaking container similar to what we do when we marinate meats. Again, it’s better to be safe than sorry. You would want to keep the pieces separated from each other as they could break upon contact during the soaking process.
Aside from zip lock bags, it is also recommended to use any other kitchen container big enough to contain the soaking liquid along with the separate glass bong parts. Be warned, though. This might leave a bad smell on your kitchen containers so choose which ones you are not using in the future.
Cleaning The Slide and Bowl
Bring Out the Rubbing Alcohol
Isopropyl Alcohol is not only a good disinfectant but it is also a good tar and resin remover. Prefer 90% Isopropyl Alcohol over 70% whenever it is available. Either way, both solutions are easy to find. Fill up the zip lock bag with the alcohol that you have until every piece is submerged. Although this might seem like a waste of product, alcohol disinfects and deodorizes the parts during the time it is submerged. This will produce a cleaner and an easier to scrub glass bong. If you prefer stronger, more professional soaking materials, check out the link at the bottom of this post.
Salt It Up
No, we are not seasoning the glass pieces. We are using salt as a cleaning agent in this process. Salts do not easily dissolve in alcohol compared to how it dissolves in water. We are still able to use the salt as an abrasive against the glass bong. This will not damage your glass. In fact, this would help in removing unwanted discolorations in and out of your bong for a squeaky-clean look. Shaking would be the best option for this step because the alcohol and salt will reach the tiniest spaces of your bong in this way.
Soak It Up
The last process might have removed most of the stains by now. But there are stains that are so stubborn that it needs some soaking. Do this step if there are still visible stains on your glass pieces. You can leave the zip-lock on top of the counter for a while. Let it marinate in its own juice until it becomes the best thing again. After a few hours, come back to it, and give it a final shake. This is a step that’s not necessary, but to be sure.
Rinse It Up
Discard the contents of the ziplock in a place that you’re sure it wouldn’t smell. A kitchen sink would be a bad idea since the discarded liquids there often get stuck in the pipes. It would smell over time and it would stink up your sink. After that, run through hot water the glass pieces to rinse them up. Make sure that you reach every part of the pieces to ensure that the alcohol and salt are washed away from them. For the last step, towel-dry your materials and ensure that it is completely dry.
Cleaning The Bong
Alcohol, Again
Now that the glass pieces are done, we go straight to the bong. The first thing to do is fill up the glass bong with Isopropyl Alcohol. There is no exact measurement for the amount of alcohol needed because every bong has a different capacity than the others. What’s suggested is to eyeball it. The rule is to put alcohol until where you would put the water when you use the bong. In that way, every part of the bong gets at least a splash of alcohol.
Salt It Up, Again
Add 2-3 tablespoons of salt. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fine-grained salt or large-grained salt. But what is preferred is that coarse salt works better every time as it is more abrasive and could easily scrub the walls of the glass while shaking. Before shaking the bong for cleaning, make sure that you close out any opening using your hands. Make sure that during the time you’re shaking the glass bong, it does not spill alcohol anywhere around you. Hold it well and begin to shake. The more vigorous shaking, the better. But also keep the way you hold the glass bong steady. Take time to shake it so it wouldn’t slip off, fall, and break.
Final Soak
Again, to be sure, you would have to run the bong under hot water and completely rinse off the alcohol and salts. Afterwhich, you could continue to soak them in hot water to eliminate the more stubborn stains, discoloration, or smell that your bong might have. Then all you need to do is to towel-dry your glass bong.
Cleaning a glass bong is easy and is a hygienic thing to do. If alcohol, water, and salt don’t do well enough for you, here’s an article I wrote about the best professional bong cleaning porducts.