If you’ve been vaping with any regularity, you’ve probably realized that you’re going to occasionally need to clean your tank. Good maintenance practices are key to keeping your shiny new device looking good and operating at maximum efficiency – and we want that, because no one wants their vape juice to taste weak or feature the ghosts of delicious flavors past. The good news is you can prevent problems and keep your juice tasting great by simply cleaning your tank. Today, we’re going to show you 7 ways to clean your vape tank.
How To Tell It’s Time to Clean Your Vape Tank
As a general rule of thumb, the more cleaning you do, the better your device will work. A good weekly regimen can extend the life of your e-cigarette, while also making sure every hit tastes delicious.
If you’d rather take a more casual approach, you could schedule cleanings less often – or only when you notice an issue in the device’s performance. Also, keep in mind you’ll want to clean the tank any time you change from one juice flavor to another – or get in the habit of just having multiple tanks and swapping them out. The choice is yours.
Clean Water Rinse
This is the standard method you’ll use for regular tank cleaning. It’s quick, simple, and painless.
Carefully disassemble your device. Really break it down, taking out the O-rings if possible (don’t lose them!). You’d be amazed at how much juice can get gunked up around those rings, so we want to give them a good scrub.
Once everything’s taken apart, rinse each individual component under a stream of water. When that’s completed, fill a bowl with water and heat it in the microwave for roughly 90 seconds. When the 90 seconds are up, carefully remove your bowl of water and set it on the counter. Drop the tank components into the bowl (don’t splash hot water on yourself…) and let them get a good soak. A solid guideline is to soak the parts in the warm water until the water is no longer hot.
Next, remove your components and hand dry them (carefully), then allow them to air-dry completely before reassembling them. If you’re in a hurry, you can use a blow dryer to speed up the process. A word of warning, though – if you go this route, you can potentially damage your O-rings by exposing them to high heat. So, blow-dry with caution.
If you really want to be an overachiever, you can not only rinse your components, but you can also scrub them with a children’s toothbrush in order to hit all those really hard to reach areas.
When you’re positive everything is completely dry, reassemble your device and bask in the glory of a job well done.
Alternate Rinse Methods
So, maybe you’ve missed a few weekly cleanings – or maybe you just want to do a deeper cleaning on occasion. Here are a few of your options.
PG Soak
If you’ve got some ghost flavors in your tank and the water rinse and soak isn’t exorcising those demons, then a PG soak could be the answer.
There’s no need to rinse anything in this method – instead, you simply fill a bowl with unflavored (because flavored would totally defeat the purpose) propylene glycol and then let the stuff soak. How long you let it soak is up to you, but give it some time. When done, remove the components and let them air dry. Good as new.
Baking Soda, Booze, Dish Soap, and More
Don’t have PG lying around? No worries — you have other alternatives. Some folks love using vinegar, others baking soda, and some will use Ethanol, which is essentially grain alcohol. Don’t get it confused with rubbing alcohol, though – that is not what you want.
If you just want to grab something you almost assuredly have in your kitchen, dish soap is a viable choice. Give the parts a good scrub (the toothbrush will come in handy), then rinse, dry, and reassemble.
Super imaginative folks have suggested trying denture cleaners – the bubbling action of something like Efferdent can get into all those hard to reach places. And when you think about it, it makes sense – dentures go in your mouth, so there’s no danger there.
Finally, if you’ve got a lot of gear and some spare cash, an Ultrasonic Cleaner might be the way to go. These devices are generally used for cleaning gemstones and jewelry, but they work great on vaping components too. They use ultrasound and a cleaning solution (like water…) to get your components squeaky clean. There’s a bigger initial investment upfront compared to the other methods, but the results may be worth it.
A Word About Coils
While this article is really focused on cleaning your vaping device’s tank, let’s take a minute and talk about coils. Coils will get gunky over time, and while you can do dry hits to burn off some of the accumulated e-liquid, it’s often better to just trash them and start fresh.
If you can see a build up on your coils, or you’re tasting burning (hello, Ralph Wiggum!), it’s time to think about replacement. Don’t be penny pincher – just do it.
So, hopefully you now have a better idea of how to keep your vaping gear all clean and shiny and new. Following these instructions will help you enjoy your vape because everything’s going to taste way better when it comes out of a clean tank. Vaping gear isn’t cheap – so why not take the time to take care of it?