Today, I have a very basic guide with advice for how to clean your glass pipe. In the early days of starting my smoking career, I would very rarely clean my bong. It was made of plastic acrylic and felt like a chore to clean.
The act of cleaning a bong seemed to go against the philosophy of using it in the first place. My father had proudly shown me a bong he and my mother had acquired on their honeymoon, a very cool 70s brown ceramic piece resembling a kind of trumpet, with a groove beneath its bowl at the foot of the trumpet to place your ground grass. Because of its age and what could only be referred to as stench, developed after decades of use, he charmingly nicknamed it “the toilet.”
He felt a bong should never be cleaned, under any circumstances it should retain all of its past glory and be passed down from one generation to the next. As a result, my beloved chalice soon became a swampy, gross, organic thing that seemed like it might be a living and breathing organism.
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To help you avoid this, here are a few key methods I’ve found to clean glass quickly, easily, and affordably, as many of us feel it is of utmost importance that we keep the practice inclusive in our community with easily accessible items. You should avoid branded products like soakers, shakers, or anything like that unless you have serious residue to contend with. If you do have to use one, then something like Grunge Off is well regarded in the community, it is citrus-based, and is healthy and reusable.
- Use ISO – All glass must be cleaned with Isopropyl alcohol, which can be easily obtained from most pharmacies or supermarkets at low cost. 71% concentration will work, but 91% is much stronger and cleans the glass more easily with better lasting effect. The lower strength alcohol leaves a build-up and an unappealing brown tint on the glass surface over time.
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- Ensure daily cleaning – One article I read on cleaning pipes put forth this idea: we would not want to eat a meal from a dirty plate, so therefore, why would we want to expose our lungs to smoke from a dirty bong? Left overnight, or for long periods, harmful toxins form on the water surface and your glass. The dirty water will also stain the glass if it is left inside the bong. Bear in mind the easiest time to clean glass is straight after you use it before resins and grease start to build and bond to the surface of the glass. The cleaner your bong is the nicer and healthier for you it will be to use every day.
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- Use hot water – Although ISO is great as a cleaning agent, I rinse my glass under some hot water first to ensure it is heated before putting alcohol or salt inside. This speeds up the chemical reaction of the liquid dissolving the resin and makes the process quicker. You should hopefully spend no more than 15-20 mins on the entire cleaning process.
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- Kosher salt – Once again, a cheap resource easy to come by, it does not need to be Kosher but for some reason that seems to work best in this instance perhaps due to the large size of the flakes and crystals. Use a few teaspoons for each clean, make sure to shake the solution of alcohol and salt inside the pipe, and the texture of the salt will rub off most resin and stains very easily when they are combined inside glass as long as it has been heated first, per the step above.
- Vinegar rinse – Your glass will most likely accumulate a brown tint, over time, this will be due to the water staining, and white hues can be seen (cloudiness, often mistaken for ‘bloom’ which is a fault in the glass being manufactured at the start of its life). Do not fret. This is simply from the calcium levels in our water, and the glass needs to be rinsed properly for a longer period to maintain its longevity.
The best solution is to use white vinegar and fill the piece all the way up. You will need some type of stopper or rubber cap – very easy to find online – to keep the joint covered so you can fill it right to the top with vinegar. Leave it like that overnight and the next day you should see excellent results, and the glass should look like new. If you are still experiencing stains, do another regular wash using hot water, vinegar and salt, which should do the trick.
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Finally, I’m going to say please DO NOT use domestic cleaners, like Zep, which the younger smoking community seems to lean towards. This will leave your glass tainted permanently and tasting like floor cleaner for eternity. Above all else, I believe it is harmful to the lungs.
A good bonus tip for getting very stubborn grease or dirt off glass using natural methods is to use one or two tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice inside the piece, being careful to remove pips so they do not get stuck inside, and shake gently for a few minutes slowly around the problem areas. Afterwards, rinse the piece again with hot water and just a drop of dish soap. This leaves a really lovely sparkle on your cherished glass and leaves it tasting ultra-fresh. The more you clean your glass, the longer it will last you.
Dr. StrainLove is a longtime lover of fine weed and is always hunting for the latest and greatest strains. His search has taken him from the Coffeeshops of Amsterdam to the boutique dispensaries of California, and lots of other places in between. He loves making music, playing video games, and using marijuana to ponder the mysteries of the universe. When he’s not doing those things, he enjoys spending time with his cat.
