Why Bic lighters suck and butane torches 0wn

[Backward_Z]

I just wrote out this post in another forum/thread (on flushing) and figured a wider audience may appreciate it.

That's surprising cuz I use BIC lighters and I've never felt there's something wrong with their fire. Headaches from the fire? I wonder what sniffing butane will do to you

There's nothing wrong with the fire... until you interrupt the flame.

Try this: get an old coffee mug you don't particularly care about (you may end up cracking it) and a bic lighter.

Spark a flame and hold it under the mug as if to heat it where the flame is positioned so the tip is just not touching. You'll notice the mug gets hot and stays clean. Now, move the flame so that it's touching the mug in the middle of the flame. Notice it's pouring carbon black all over the mug.

Butane is H10C4, 10 atoms of hydrogen and 4 of carbon. When you light your bic, the bottom blue part of the flame is where all of the hydrogen burns up. The remaining yellow/orange part of the flame is where the carbon burns. Carbon cannot burn until it joins with oxygen, therefore if you interrupt the flame the unburned carbon will precipitate.

Whenever you bury your bic lighter in your bowl/end of your joint, you're effectively pouring carbon black all over it. This is what dirties the bowl/gives me headaches. I'm sure you're familiar with the "ass hit" or last hit of a big fat pass-it-around bong bowl. The "ass hit" can be made much, much more pleasant by igniting the bowl through non-combustive means such as a heated glass rod or a magnifying glass solar hit.

Furthermore, using a butane torch alleviates the problem of carbon precipitate. It will introduce a 30% oxygen mixture before ignition, resulting in a much more efficient burn that doesn't leave anything behind. If you take a butane torch to your same mug, you'll notice that not only does it not leave a residue when you interrupt the flame, but it will even burn off the excess carbon the bic left behind!

Useful to know: the torch will burn about 200ºF hotter than the bic, but as the bic is already burning at about 1900ºF, I don't see it as a big deal.

Finally: some advice on properly lighting joints. It kills me to see people sucking on a fresh joint with a bic flame engulfing the end. I've appropriated my technique from cigar connoisseur books I read back when I still had an interest in tobacco.

Use a butane torch and heat the end of the J until it is glowing. You can blow on it (like a birthday candle) and if it glows then it's ready to hit. If not, flame it longer. Now, this is the most important part: WHENEVER YOU LIGHT OR RELIGHT THE J, BEFORE YOU INHALE THROUGH IT ALWAYS BLOW OUT THROUGH IT FIRST. This is the same concept as the carbon mug: when you light the J not only will there be butane carbon if you're using a bic, but there's the carbon that results from simply burning organic material. This will be sitting at the end of your J and when you inhale, you pull it all into the J so it gets lodged in the fresh clean bud and more and more as you pull through the J it will taste like ass. If when you light/relight the J, you blow THROUGH it first, it will dislodge some/most of that nascent carbon so the subsequent drags are clean and delicious.

 

[Stoner Chick]

Whoa, that's a lot to consider for just smokin' a bowl!

I just want to get high, not do chemistry and figure out thermodynamics just to spark it!

I never notice any bad taste, but i am a light hitter. Thanks for the interesting information!

 

[The End Is Near]

It's already been established that hakko ceramic soldering irons give the cleanest hits possible. You're still inhaling butane residue.

 

[Tripsick]

I bought a few torches from a large internet retailer... most suck and you spend a lot of time sending them back or dealing with their crappiness..

Do you have a preferred brand of torch lighters? I end up going to gas stations and to smoke shops looking for torch lighters that work.

 

[Backward_Z]

I bought a few torches from a large internet retailer... most suck and you spend a lot of time sending them back or dealing with their crappiness..

Do you have a preferred brand of torch lighters? I end up going to gas stations and to smoke shops looking for torch lighters that work.

Yes! I do!

I'll preface this by saying my dad, a long time cigar smoker, has gone through numerous and expensive lighters, even into the $100-$200 range. They all break, clog, or otherwise render themselves inoperable within a year.

Go to a hardware store and buy a handheld butane torch there. Should run you $30-$40. Dad's had his for probably ten years and it still works. Mine is going strong at two years of regular usage.

However, you're better off buying butane refills at a head shop. They're both of higher quality and less expensive.

 

[Truthman]

I was just thinking about this but towards people using beeline and saying it's healthier and tastier than a bic. It may be tastier but that is only because the temperature is lower because if you look at the flame it is mostly yellow and no blue meaning low heat but a lot of carbon while a bic has some blue towards the beginning of the flame. Plus on a beeline the flame is usually smaller than a bic and when people use bics they usually use the end of the flame where all the carbon accumulates.

I think a good blue fame torch lighter is best because it is safer than a hakko, it's hot enough to burn the carbon from butane so no taste, and if you hold it away from the bowl far enough it will vape the tastey oils first then burn the rest so you get a cheap & simple version of a vaporizer, solar magnifyer lighter, and a hakko in a small lighter.

Don't get it twisted a vape is the best because you can hit different temps to get specific taste and effects but for a quick, potent and tastey puff a torch cigar lighter is right next to a good digital vape that holds and give accurate temperatures, especially for resins.

 

[Capn]

I think a good blue fame torch lighter is best because it is safer than a hakko

Care to elaborate?

 

[Backward_Z]

I think a good blue fame torch lighter is best because it is safer than a hakko

Care to elaborate?

I would never use a vaporizing medium that wasn't specifically engineered to be used as such. A heat gun for all intents and purposes is a piece of industrial equipment, far from being called anything like "food grade."

Vaporizer manufacturers are generally very careful and even advertise using safe heating elements. When presented with the option of saving some money at the unconfirmed but potential risk to health vs. spending a little more and getting something that is guaranteed to be safe, I'll spend a little more.

Personally, my preferences are as follows:

joint = butane torch
bowl = heat glass rod with butane torch, apply glass rod
hash oil = butane torch if I'm lazy or if not I heat my ceramic filter with the torch and take it through my frozen crushed ice-filled Roor steamroller mmmmmm (also used with my vape)

 

[Truthman]

Care to elaborate?

You can burn something if you drop the hakko and maybe start a fire. Plus who knows what chemicals are added that may leak out overtime that may cause problems to your health as you age.

I will say that I saw one made for smoking that cooled very fast so it won't cause burns but if you use one for taste a cigar jet flame lighter is best because it is so powerful and clean(no taste) that you can essentially vaporize your herb by holding the flame at a different distances to get different temperatures which creates more flavor and high due to less of the chemical being burned by high heat and they all burn at different temperatures.

Here's how you do it. Hold the flame far enough that the bowl isn't touching the flame and the bowl looks like it isn't burning. Inhale while you do this at a medium speed and just slowly bring the flame towards the bowl until you burn everything. You get a high concentration of taste and potency unmatched by any other way but vaporizing and even then you don't get everything because beta-carophyllene vapes at 450-460f and vaporizers don't go that high because cellulose combust at 450f.

The method I just explain was really made for concentrates because they lack cellulose and can handle the heat without combustion so you will get all of the beta carophyllene and no burned plant matter.

With bud the method is still good but just eat the bud after doing it with some nuts, seeds or avocado(good fats) and that gives the body sensations that beta carophyllene gives(you didn't vape this chemical if done right) or save it and do what you want with it.

Make sure you get a jet flame lighter that is bent so you don't burn your finger like using the straight ones.

 

[mrgrowmez]

Just to be picky but Butane's formula is actually C4H10. The "But" means 4

 

[lockehead]

Thanks, thats some good information. However, couldnt we bypass sucking up the carbon by just lighting the bowl with the heat from the flame rather than putting the flame directly onto it? Im talking about using a lighter by the way.

 

[EatMoGrass]

I wanted to add that torch lighters are much more discrete when smoking in the dark as there is no sparking of the flint or bright flame to draw attention when attention is not desired. This is something I have witnessed over the years while night fishing for muskies. When fisherman in other boats smoke bowls the flashes from their lighters can be seen for hundreds of yards, or over 1/4 mile. Not so for torch lighters.

Torch lighters are also much more wind resistant which is beneficial if you like smoking outdoors like I do.

And as already mentioned torch lighters make for a more flavorful smoke than Bic lighters. Maybe not quiet as tasty as solar puffing or my Volcano, but better than any traditional lighter I have tried.

P.S. Only use Colibri brand butane as it is supposedly refined one extra step to reduce contaminants found in less expensive butane.

 

[Backward_Z]

Just to be picky but Butane's formula is actually C4H10. The "But" means 4

D'oh, you're right.

 

[Backward_Z]

Thanks, thats some good information. However, couldnt we bypass sucking up the carbon by just lighting the bowl with the heat from the flame rather than putting the flame directly onto it? Im talking about using a lighter by the way.

Theoretically, yes, but it's tricky to do so because bic flames have a real tendency to want to jump into your bowl.

I've used this method pretty successfully smoking hash with matches, though.

 

[Backward_Z]

P.S. Only use Colibri brand butane as it is supposedly refined one extra step to reduce contaminants found in less expensive butane.

Anything refined 5x should be fine.

 

[MoldyFrogToe]

after using a vaporgenie with a silicon carbide porous filter, you can only sometimes notice this black carbon buildup on the filter, and i figure it's when you use the lighter incorrectly and hold the flame too close, this can b fixed by backing it off a centimeter or so. same can be done with a bowl. but good post nonetheless though

 

[Pythagllio]

Propane torch is much cleaner than a butane torch.

 

[grow1620]

interesting thread, if anyone's interested ...here's a cool little thing that turns a regular cheapo lighter into a torch. I remember seeing one of these years ago that took mini bics and was about the size of a normal lighter...I've been looking for one ever since and plan on picking some of these up.

I always hated butane torch lighters because I seemed to refill them everyday. This design probably isn't as efficient as a regular butane torch but it's nice being able to pick up a new "refill lighter" for it anywhere I go.

 

[Gert Lush]

Hm, I bought one of those cheapo "turboflame" lighter thingies off e-bay a while back, and it's absolutely brilliant.
Is that the kind of thing you mean by "butane torch"?

PS. It cost like £7 IIRC

 

[supermanlives]

i got a bernzomatic propane piezo ingition torch that will melt your bowls. good for self defense too