SWIM bought a VaporGenie (the wooden kind)-- and has wasted a saddening amount of spice in the process of trying to learn how to use it properly.

SWIM is wondering what's the best and proper technique to using a wooden VaporGenie and a torch lighter to successfully vaporize spice without continuing to destroy it in the process.

How far away and where to hold the torch lighter? How long should the flame be used?
SWIM would greatly appreciate all and any info to prevent any more loss!

I believe your supposed to hold the torch lighter flame at a distance from the top, I don't think you want it getting red hot. If you have melted spice inside your pipe I'm sure you could just rinse it back out with some Ipa and evaporate. I'm not very familiar with the wood Vg though I own a glass one .

Also, you want to make a mesh disc of copper chore boy scrubber pad as pictured in this thread.

Make sure to soak the copper disc in some acetone to get rid of any oils that are on the copper.

As far as cleaning a wooden VG, any kind of solvent will tarnish the finish. The only safe way to clean it is by boiling it in water or using some pipe cleaners.

If you use the pipe cleaners you might be able to reclaim some of your spice.

As far as using it, I hold the flame kind of close to the ceramic disc on top and if I can start to feel the vapor, I slowly pull the lighter away just to keep it hot but not too hot.

It's really hard to gauge a hit in the classic vg because you can't see the vapor. Practice makes perfect though. Having the mesh disc is the most important part so your spice doesn't run to the bottom.


Good luck and Welcome to the Nexus!

It's the only way that has worked for me. Couldn't get it locally so I had to buy from ebay.com

I wasted a couple months worth of spice before perfecting my technique (not to say that I didn't get some intense experiences sprinkled here and there during that time), so you're not alone. Also, if you feel you've wasted a lot of spice, there may be a bunch of melted spice in the VG, and as mentioned above you can rinse it with IPA and evap to recover it (for some reason this melted spice tends to be extra potent for me). Alternatively, without loading any spice at all, you can try to all-out vaporize the already melted spice. I remember early on some of my more powerful experiences came from times where I didn't even load anything up and just vaporized the melted spice. Not sure if this applies to the VG, but with the GVG, if the spice is "out of reach" so-to-speak from the heat, you could remove the ceramic filter and carefully apply the flame, and the smoke will plume up

Thanks for all the helpful response, I do appreciate it a lot

I wish I had just spent the extra money and bought the Glass VG, it sounds like it's perfect because you can gauge how far away the flame should be by actually being able to see the vapour from the spice, hmm... I guess for now I'm going to unscrew the ceramic filter (wooden ball) and use my torch lighter to try and evap the already melted spice in the pipe :/

I'll let you know how it goes... damn, now I'm really thinking about that G VG...

Be careful with vaping it without the top piece on. If you burn any spice, it will be damn near impossible to get the stink out of it.

Think the melted spice (on the bottom) would still be able to get vaporized if I left the top piece on?