Here’s the Best Way to Clean a Bong

How to clean your bong?

Being a bit of a glass collector, I tend to always have a somewhat clean rig or bong in rotation, but I like to keep the rest of my glass nice and shiny. Besides, if you end up getting some sort of stain or resin that just won’t come out no matter what you try, you’ve completely ruined the resell value of your glass, not to mention kind of destroyed a piece of art. Of course this is talking about actual glass functional art. The handmade stuff. Not the cheap Chinese glass you see in a lot of head shops and weed shops today. Those to me, are more of a disposable solution for when you can’t travel with your headies. Obviously you aren’t trying to resell your 60 dollar mothership knock off. I hope.

How to clean a glass bong?

It should be mentioned that using Isopropyl alcohol is perfect for any glass, but please be careful using it on certain plastics and especially acrylics. They don’t seem to like it very much and you will destroy the bong over time. If you really want to see this accelerated, try cleaning a plastic bong with acetone. Actually don’t, that’s a terrible idea. It will melt. So that being said, the best way I know of as far as how to clean glass bong, is to use the highest percentage of isopropyl alcohol you can find. I always prefer the 99% Isopropyl alcohol, especially if you plan on using it to clean out a dab rig, and would like the possibility of recovering all of that reclaim.

If you don’t care, then toss it out. But when you’re done, make sure not to put it down the drain or anything like that. Take that shit outside and toss it in the dirt. Over time, the oil and resin that’s left in the alcohol will clog your drains something fierce. Don’t ask me how I know this. Just believe, sometimes, the struggle gets real as fuck. Speaking of resin. You could actually smoke the stuff if you’re super jonesing, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Resin will get you high but it tastes like shit and it can’t be all that healthy.

A simple overnight soak with isopropyl alcohol is just what the doctor ordered for a dirty dab rig. But if you want to know what do I use to clean my bong, well that’s easy. Same stuff, just add a little salt to it. For flower bongs, the resin is filled with a lot more plant material than with dab rigs. That plant material makes far more of a carbon footprint as far as ash and build up is concerned, not to mention the difference in resin. So sometimes, a simple overnight soak won’t work for a flower bong. Adding salt to the mix gives some grit to the alcohol when it’s getting swished around, thus allowing it to get that resin out of there.

If you still need to do some bong cleaning after all that, you can also heat the alcohol. I know, that sounds counter intuitive, why would you heat something that’s flammable. Well, it’s only flammable if you actually light it on fire, or heat it to the point of combustion. Let’s not do either of those things. You can simply do a warm water bath to bring the temperature of the isopropyl up some. Pour the warm alcohol into the dirty bong and it will have an easier time getting the gunk out.

Of course the best way to clean a bong is to keep up on the bong cleaning as regularly as you can. You don’t have to be as OCD about it as some of us like to be, but changing the water on a regular basis and doing an isopropyl alcohol soak every week or two will cut down on the buildup.

How to clean a bong without alcohol

I’m not exactly sure why you would want to know how to clean a bong without rubbing alcohol, but if you are that person, here’s a couple of tips. Remember, this is only If you absolutely can’t use or find isopropyl alcohol, you can try a few other things when cleaning a bong. Heat is your friend, assuming the coefficient of expansion, also known as thermal expansion, of the material your rig or bong is made out of doesn’t bite you in the ass.

This is how much expansion a solid has when heat or cold is applied to it. Too much expansion can be a really bad thing, especially when talking about glass. So don’t heat a cold rig, rather bring it up to temperature as calmly as you can. I’ve also heard of people just putting their pipes and shit in a pot of boiling water. While this will definitely get the resins out, it will also probably ruin your pot. That resin gets awfully sticky when it’s hot.

There’s also a ton of bong cleaners out there, but again, if you are going to buy something, why not just use isopropyl alcohol? If you have a good reason why we shouldn’t use iso to clean a bong, drop a comment below, I would love to read it.

Can you use hydrogen peroxide to clean a bong?

I definitely don’t recommend it. Just go get some isopropyl alcohol. The hydrogen peroxide tends to leave behind an odd taste, plus it doesn’t work nearly as well. If you are going to try and use hydrogen peroxide to clean a bong, just save yourself the hassle and use hot water, or go get some damn iso.

By Mat Lee

What do you think is the best way to clean a bong? Use a bong cleaning product other than alcohol? Let us know, dude. We’ve got a lot of dirty bongs. Leave all your bong cleaning tips and tricks in the comments section below.