Keeping Your Quartz Banger Clean
It’s been about a year since I wrote about how I keep my quartz clean here on the SPOG blog. We’ve all learned a lot in that year, as we should be doing every year, and I would like to revisit this topic. It seems there are two different schools of thought when it comes to quartz. Those who heat up the quartz banger a lot, and wait for a cool down, and those who heat it up a little with the material already in the bucket or banger. Which one are you?
How to Keep Your Quartz Clean
Because my go to day to day quartz is the Jred Diamond Knot, I’m a heat the shit out of it and wait a minute for the cool down sort of fella. But I’m also not paying over $200 for the quartz that I’m using every day. I also know and am ok with the fact that this piece of quartz is something that will be, in the long run, disposable. That sucks to say but it’s just a fact of what we do. I’m totally ok with getting a year or two out of these knots before they really need to be replaced. Sometimes even longer.
What about the more expensive quartz bangers? How do you take care of them?
If you are super worried about the longevity and aesthetic of your quartz banger, then I would definitely go with the low heat no cool down approach. These new Heatmizers are sandblasted by change_glass, and as you can see from the picture, definitely something beautiful you want to keep nice and shiny.
I’m sure there are many ways to do it. Personally I like to put the dab in the quartz banger, put the carb cap on it, then fire up the Blazer to heat up the bottom of the American quartz banger. Once you see the material start to bubble and vaporize, you know you are good to go. Take a dab or two, then reheat as needed. When you are done, simply qtip out the quartz bucket, use a little iso on the tip of the qtip and get it nice and clean, then, as Jacob Meuser, creator of the Heatmizer likes to say, just use water to get out the stuff alcohol can’t.
On Jacob’s Instagram post, he says, “I’ve been trying to spread the word for a while now. Don’t overheat and keep it clean, and it will stay shiny for a long time. It’s unfortunate that the notion that burning quartz clean is good got popular. Or even the idea of long cool downs. It’s really not necessary to get the quartz way hotter than it needs to be and then wait for it to cool down. And cleaning burnt dabs isn’t really that hard. Just remember that water can clean burnt dabs that alcohol can’t.”
Obviously this type of high end handmade American quartz banger is more art than something to use on the daily. But if you keep to the low temp life and stay vigilant with your qtips, you will prevent unnecessary devitrification of the quartz and it will stay clear and hold its heat better for longer. Much, much longer.
There is something to be said about the ritual of taking a dab. We’ve gotten to the point these days where the process takes longer than the high lasts. Some days, I’ll be all ready to take a dab, and I’ll find myself just sitting there, staring off at the glass, or at the dabs. I swear I’ve heated this quartz banger up several times now, and I still haven’t taken a dab. I should really do something about that.
