How Do You Clean an Electric Nectar Collector?

Electric nectar collectors are easily some of the hottest products in the world of herbal vaping today. They’re not as portable as vape pens, but they do many things that vape pens can’t and are ideal for at-home enjoyment. An electric nectar collector is the easiest type of dab pen to use – and unlike traditional dab rigs, a nectar collector works equally well whether you’re using an oil- or wax-based concentrate.

One possibly negative thing about electric nectar collectors compared to traditional dab pens, though, is that they’re often more complicated. A dab pen can be as simple as just two components: a battery and a wax coil. An electric nectar collector, on the other hand, has a heating element on the bottom and a mouthpiece at the top – and in between, the vapor path may include a built-in bubbler to provide extra coolness. Cleaning all of those components is definitely going to be a little bit of a challenge, but we’ll walk you through the process in this guide. Let’s dive in.

Disassemble Your Nectar Collector

Before you can clean your electric nectar collector, you’ll need to disassemble it completely. Depending on the design of your device, it may have the following removable components.

· A ceramic heating element, positioned at the bottom of the device. The heating element usually unscrews for removal.

· A plastic or glass cover for the heating element, which prevents a mess when you store your nectar collector. The cover usually just pulls off.

· A mouthpiece, positioned at the top of the device. The mouthpiece may be glass or plastic. Either way, you can usually pull it off of the device to remove it.

· A bubbler, positioned at the middle of the device. You can usually wiggle the bubbler gently to remove it. If the bubbler still has water in it, you can pour it down the drain.

Clean the Removable Components

In a typical electric nectar collector, the removable components are quite small since the entire device fits in your hand. To clean those components, fill a small bowl with rubbing alcohol and toss the items in. Give the liquid a gentle swish to provide some agitation and let the alcohol work for an hour or two. Alcohol dissolves herbal residues very quickly, and you’ll find that the liquid will start to turn brown after just a little time.

Come back to the bowl after a couple of hours and remove the components of your nectar collector. Rinse them in running water, and you should find that any remaining residue falls right off. If not, give the residue a quick rub with a paper towel. If anything is still dirty, drop it back in the alcohol for another hour. In most cases, though, an extra-long soak isn’t necessary.

Note that vaporizer components made from some materials – particularly ceramic – discolor permanently once they’ve been used for a while. The discoloration is normal and doesn’t affect the performance of your nectar collector.

Leave the items out and allow them to dry completely before using them again. If you clean your nectar collector often, it might be a good idea to buy backups for the removable components so you can use one set of parts while cleaning the other set.

Clean a Large Mouthpiece That Won’t Fit in a Bowl

Does your nectar collector have an extra-large mouthpiece that doesn’t fit in a bowl? If so, you’ll have to clean it another way. Try filling your sink with hot water and dish soap and cleaning the mouthpiece with a soft cloth. If the residue is so stubborn that soap alone doesn’t get rid of it, try wetting your cleaning cloth with a bit of rubbing alcohol. Don’t forget to rinse away the alcohol and allow the mouthpiece to dry completely before using it again.

Clean the Body of Your Nectar Collector

The body of your electric nectar collector is the easiest component to clean because you can’t submerge it in liquid – and the device shouldn’t be dirty enough to necessitate that in the first place. Wipe away dust and fingerprints with a soft cloth. If any sticky residue happens to be on the outside of your nectar collector, you can wipe it away with a cotton swab and a little rubbing alcohol.

Clean the Vapor Path

Your nectar collector may have one or more tiny tubes forming the device’s vapor path, which is the path that the vapor travels through to get from the heating element to the mouthpiece. This area is a little more difficult to clean than some of the other parts of the device since you can’t submerge the device in rubbing alcohol as you can with the removable components.

To clean your nectar collector’s vapor path, you can either use pipe cleaners or cotton swabs depending on the width of the tubes and what you have available. Simply dip a pipe cleaner or cotton swab in rubbing alcohol and run it through the tube to dissolve the residue. You’ll probably find that the cleaning tool will come out very brown. Repeat the process with fresh pipe cleaners or cotton swabs until one comes out clean. Follow with a pipe cleaner or cotton swab dipped in water to remove any remaining alcohol and leave the device out for a few hours to dry.

Give Your Nectar Collector a Quick Cleaning After Each Session

After reading this guide, have you concluded that cleaning an electric nectar collector sounds like an enormous pain? The good news is that, even if you’re a daily user, you’ll probably only have to go through these steps once a month or so. You can extend that time even further by giving your nectar collector a quick cleaning after each session. Here’s what you need to do.

· After a session is over, give your nectar collector several minutes to cool down completely. The element gets extremely hot when you use it, and you also don’t want to remove the bubbler when the glass is warm and potentially brittle.

· Once the nectar collector is completely cool, remove the heating element and bubbler.

· Clean both items in warm, soapy water and rinse them thoroughly. You can also clean the heating element with an alcohol wipe if you like, but you’ll still need to rinse it afterwards.

· Leave both items out for a while to dry before putting them away.