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The Ultimate Bong Cleaning Guide
The most annoying part about owning a water bong is having to clean it every few weeks or so. Otherwise your tokes will start to taste harsh and you won't be able to enjoy your bong hits as much as when your bong was clean. Luckily, cleaning a bong can be simple and not time consuming at all if you use the proper cleaning techniques.
In this article we're going to be covering how you can make a bong like the one pictured to the left as clean as the bong pictured on the right, in under 5 minutes.
Table of Contents
There are a couple different methods that can be used to clean a bong, depending on what type of bong you own.
It also depends on which materials you have laying around your house, and how invested you are in making your bong look as good as new.
I'm going to be covering methods that can be used to clean glass, acrylic, ceramic or silicon bongs.
I'll also tell you how to keep your bong clean so that you won't have to clean it nearly as often.
Let's find which method works best for you.
The Best Way to Clean a Bong
Step #1 - Choose a Cleaning Liquid
If you own a bong made out of glass, acrylic, ceramic, silicone or metal, listen up.
So if you're just looking to remove the nasty black resin on your bong, and don't really care about making your bong as clean as it was the day you bought it, just purchase some isopropyl alcohol, be sure to buy the good kind (higher percent alcohol the better).
If you're willing to spend an extra dollar or two, I'd recommend buying some Orange Chronic. It's hands down the best bong cleaner I've ever used, and will have your glass (or acrylic) looking clean as new. It also removes the nasty odor/taste that is lingering in your bong (something that isopropyl will not do). It will leave your bong smelling fresh like orange.
Bonus Tips - Throw in some table salt or epsom salt, whichever you have laying around at home. This will help break up all of the resin inside your bong. You can also buy a toothbrush to reach some tricky spots.
Watch the following video to see the difference between isopropyl alcohol vs Orange Chronic.
As you can see, Orange Chronic does a better job than just plain old isopropyl alcohol.
I personally switched to using Orange Chronic from isopropyl because I find it dissolves the gunk a lot quicker, and prevents me from having to shake the ever living crap out of my bong to remove tricky bits of resin.
Step #2 - Shake It
The resin stuck to the inside of your bong won't always come out just by adding cleaner to the inside of it. Especially if you're using isopropyl alcohol as I just said.
To remove the stubborn resin, simply plug both ends of your bong either with your hand and one of your fingers (your hand to plug the mouthpiece, and your thumb to block the down-stem hole). You can also use paper towel and elastic bands if you don't want to get your hands dirty (or just put a paper towel barrier between your hand and your finger between the mouthpiece and down-stem).
Step #3 - Cleaning the Bowl Piece & Downstem
The easiest way to clean the gunk inside the bowl is to hold the bowl upside down as pictured to the left, and hold the lighter directly under it for a few seconds.
Hold the bowl at the very top to avoid being burned, and only heat it for a few seconds.
Next, take a piece of tissue or paper towel and scrunch it up inside of the bowl using a twisting motion to wipe the inside.
This will remove most of the resin from the inside of the bowl. However you will likely still need to scrape some of the resin that is deeper inside the bowl.
I like to use a dab tool to scrape out the final bits of residue inside of the bowl, however you can get away with using a toothpick, bobby pin, bent paper clip, or anything you can think of that can fit inside your bowl piece.
You'll also need it to clean out the bottom half of your bowl piece.
This part is strangely satisfying for me. I always try and get the majority of the resin to come out in one glob, and oddly enough it's pretty amusing.
Try it out for yourself.
The last remaining step is simple, just take your bowl piece, put it into a ziplock bag, sub-merge it in some Orange Chronic or isopropyl (and a little bit of salt ideally), and shake it for about 30 seconds.
Then simply do the exact same thing with your down-stem, and they will both be looking clean as new.
Step #4 - Let It Dry
Quite honestly, this part isn't all that necessary. Since the inside of your bong is going to be wet anyways, all you really need to do is wipe the mouthpiece and the bowl piece dry with a paper towel or a napkin.
Once you wipe it dry, you're ready to start enjoying your clean as new bong.
Step #5 - Make It Dirty Again
Now that your bong is clean again, the only thing left to do is to use it and make it dirty again.
Enjoy the clean tasting hits while they last before it is time to repeat the process over again.
All in a stoners days work.
Alternative Methods
How to Clean an Acrylic Bong
If you own an acrylic bong you likely don't want to use isopropyl alcohol. You'll want to use a bong cleaner like Orange Chronic. Anything else will break down the inner lining of your bong over time.
How to Clean a Bong Without Alcohol (or Cleaner)
If you're not wanting to spend money on alcohol, or any cleaner, it's possible to use hot water to clean out a bong. However just a disclaimer, this will not clean your bong as much as you'd probably like.
The best way to use hot water to clean your bong is to heat water in a kettle, and then pour it into the mouthpiece of your bong. Let it sit for a few minutes, and shake it if you can without burning yourself.
You can also add epsom salt or table salt with a little bit of hot water, and shake it around to break up the tricky resin.
How to Use Hot Water & Lemon to Clean a Bong
A slightly better method than the one previously mentioned is to use hot water and lemon juice.
Simply pour lemon juice into your bong and shake it up for a minute or two.
Then pour in the hot water, and shake it thoroughly again.
Let it sit for a few minutes (which will let the acidity from the lemon juice to break up the resin).
After that your bong should be quite a bit cleaner than when you started. Keep in mind, this won't have your bong looking or smelling as clean as a good bong cleaner will make it.
Ways to Keep Your Bong Clean
If you'd like to know how you can prevent your bong from getting dirty so quickly, there are a couple tips that you can try.
Lemon Juice - One trick that I've used in the past to keep my glass clean after many sessions, is to add lemon juice to the bong water. Not only does it keep the glass clean (by dissolving the resin so that it doesn't stick to the glass) but it will also give your bong tokes a lemony taste and make your bong smell better as well.
You can experiment with how much lemon juice to add. I use around 2 parts water to 1 part lemon juice ratio.
By adding lemon juice to your bong water, you'll notice a considerable difference in how much resin with build up inside your bong.
Vegetable Oil - Something else that I've tried is adding vegetable oil inside my bong water. It sounds gross, and if I'm being honest the first time I saw someone do this, I definitely questioned it.
However after hitting my friends bong which he claimed hadn't been cleaned in over a week, I decided to give it a try. It doesn't make much difference to the overall taste of the bong like lemon juice does, but it will keep your bong from getting gunked up.
Anyways, those are all the cleaning methods I personally know of. If you clean you bong a different way, please let me know in the comment section below!
About the Author Taylor
A marijuana enthusiast, vaporizer connoisseur, a frequent user of CBD and he's also the founder of iMarijuanit.com.