Hemp Wicking Tutorial

I was thinking I might write a little tutorial on how to wick with hemp. I’ve been using it for a few months and I think it is superior, probably due to the very long, stright fibers, but it has some quirks. If there is interest I will write something up and illustrate a couple of builds. Can I ask for folks to vote with the like button?

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Don’t wait on a bunch of encouragement…just do it man! This is a worthwhile tutorial and I for one would be glad to see it. Down the road it could well be the reference for anyone looking to switch to hemp.

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I agree, go ahead and write one out. I have some somewhere, ill dig it out and give it a go if you take the time to do a write up.

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Oh and no tutorial would be complete without links to where we can get it at a good price :wink:

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I would like to see this as well. I have tried hemp and found it very hard to work with in comparison the cotton but not sure I did it right.

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I’m right there with you…I have some and my lone attempt, the loose fibers charred and scared me off…I would love to give it another go!
C’mon, brother! Lets get it!

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I agree with everyone here. I’m just getting into building coils and I would like all the information I can get on the materials available to work with.

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Wow, I had always kinda felt that there wasn’t much interest. I’ll try and get something up tomorrow. It’s not often that I can contribute here.

It is much stiffer dry, but once it is soaked it’s nearly as supple as cotton. Its nowhere near as fluffy, which also makes it real finicky in certain tanks/builds. It’s a no-brainer for RDAS, though and the lifetime of the wick is very long, at least for me.

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The dry-hits are much smoother!

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Firstly, I agree with @BadBert about dry hits. When non-TC I find it a little easier to detect an impending dry hit and the first many of them on a given wick are not as harsh as cotton. Like anything else though, after so many dry hits hashness comes up and flavor gets nasty.

Due to technical difficulties and laziness, this is now clearly going to be a multi-part thread with just one build tonight, posted from my phone, but I invite anyone with a hemp wick build to post in here. Why not use the knowledge of the collective? I make no claims to knowing what the hell I am doing. I’ve been building tanks now for only a few months.

Anyway, my best tank for flavor is the worst to build, which is the Youde Bellus. She needs a fresh build so I can finally try out @Whiterose0818 MF honeydew.

First thing, I have only tried one brand of hemp, it is called Green Remedy and a bag shipped from Amazon is going to set you back $15.

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Remedy-Natural-Hemp-Vape/dp/B00UGAX4XY

I choose the diameter of my coil to hold enough hemp to clog the channels on whatever tank I am using. Hemp is not fluffy like cotton, so coil size also affect the resistance to flooding because it determines the size of the wicks you can use. The mechanical stiffness of your coils may determine how long it takes to build, as wimpy coils get tweaked due to the initial stiffness of the hemp. In any event, you can’t just cram hemp into the coil, the upper limit is mechanical. But if it fits, it wicks. Tanks like the Bellus and Mutation XT are very prone to flooding, so you need the biggest coils that can fit to accommodate enough hemp to clog the channels.

The deck for the Bellus compared to the size of the channels makes it difficult to build a coil that wicks well, has enough resistance to fire, and doesn’t short to the tank. I love 4x 30ga twisted Ti in this tank. I use 5 wraps on a 3mm jig. For the Bellus, I recommend doing everything mounted on the ohm meter, she shorts easily. By the time I tighten the tank up, my meter is reading 0.04 Ohms, but my DNA200 reads 0.9.

@SthrnMixer has posted about washing your hands prior to wicking, and I recommend that. I also recommend that those new to hemp to wet their wicks with flavored juice. I typically use a tobacco. These wicks have a significant woody flavor for the first few ml of juice. Some say it is terrible and/or strong. I can’t tell you, but it’s definitely there, will go away and IMO is worth suffering through.

I select a diameter that will just fit through my coil and cut a length about 2.5 times as long as I need. This is important as the wicking performance depends on the diameter of the bundle, so using the same bundle for both balances it out. Assuming you are civilized and have a coil jig, you should get maximum performance from a well balanced atty.

Wet the tip of the wick with a juice that might be good with an earthy, woody, and slightly floral flavor. I sometimes enjoy unflavored base, but I wouldn’t break this in on a MF flavor if you know what I mean. Fold the tip over, twist it tight on use a twisting motion to force the hemp through the coil. Wet the whole coils worth of wick, fold to measure the length and cut.

Now, wet the tip of the remaining wick and guide it through the second coil. At this point, the longer you can let the hemp soak, the more pliable the fibers will become. That said, I recommend wetting the coils manually and firing, repeating until the smoke detectors are about to go off.

Once the room is all fogged over, work your wicks into the channels. The Bellus is a naughty one, so I usually have to put the tank on and off many times to get wicks that fit, while the tank is “clicked” onto the deck, without shorting. I do it all on my Ohm meter. If the wicks keep forcing your build to short, due to the stiffness of the hemp, keep manually wetting and firing and manipulating on the Ohm meter. Eventually the wick is as supple as cotton, but it is far from that for the first few hours soaking. I am not sure how long it takes, but eventually they will look like those shown below on my Billow V2, which has seen daily, multi-fill use for the last several weeks and still wicks and tastes great.

I have a picture of the thick, dense clouds this Bellus chucks. It is not a leaf blower like the TFV4, but the clouds are dripper dense. On TC, the flavor of this tank rivals my Plume Veil with a big chimney on it. I’ve posted elsewhere that built with Ti/hemp and on TC, the flavor is just dirty it is so good.

This has taken a few hours more than I had anticipated due to difficulties with getting all this pictures and the edits to save. I am not even sure now if it reads coherently as I have cut and pasted so many times. I will do another writeup on another build. I’ll throw out that I have the following atomizers,the last two are in the mail: TFV4 (tf-r2), Advken Ohm ega, OBS Crius, Mutation XT, Aromamizer and Goblin mini. If you want me to build one of those throw out a request, for the last two please throw out a coil build too as I have not even seen one personally yet.

I hope this answers most questions, but if I missed anything or you’d like any further information just let me know. I apologize if you got any of the intermediate machinations of this post. . .it was pretty painful to get on the site for some reason.

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well??? did you try the honeydew???

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Good tutorial and thanks for doing it. You already know from another thread I did try hemp that I got from a guy at the local B&M. I did it on the Lemo tank which is much easier to wick than the one you did here. I had no issue with the way hemp actually worked my issue was with the taste. I used a different brand than you use so now you have me wondering if the woodsy taste goes away quicker with the brand you use.

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Have you ever tried this…I’m just daydreaming here? Maybe use a Unicorn bottle or some other skinny bottle. Or maybe even like a small Tupperware container. Something you can seal. Place a bundle of hemp inside and then fill with PG. Allow it to sit for…well…however long you want so that the hemp becomes pliable on its own. I can imaging doing this in combination with some amount of heat (light microwave or stovetop perhaps?). Also would any amount of rinsing, washing or anything help to minimize the woody quality of the material?

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I can vouch for the brand and that the woodsy taste went away within one or two fills of a Magma. Not sure how much that holds, but it went away pretty quickly. It wasn’t even that woodsy to me. Of course, YMMV depending on your sensitivity.

@SthrnMixer I was thinking the same thing. I might try it. :slight_smile: I really like the hemp, especially in drippers. I’ve not had a ton of success using it in my Crown RBA yet, but I haven’t given up. The biggest problem I’ve had is getting it full enough that it doesn’t leak when I top fill, but not so full that it won’t wick properly.

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This is the deal breaker for me with hemp as I re-wick way to often to contend with a strange flavor for more than a few draws

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I did, I vaped half a tank of the honeydew and caramel both. The rest are safely steeping.

The honeydew is really good. I like it a lot. Still not sure I could pay for it, but maybe. I like honeydew and haven’t tasted any others. The caramel is a little weak to me, but one of my ADVs is a hard-core caramel crafted to suit my tongue, so I may be biased. Did you try the caramel? I know it was new to you when you shipped to me. In any event, I thank you very much for sharing. I was going to PM you, but life occurred. It is even as I type.

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I was thinking I should try to presoak some. I believe it would work. If VG can soften my facial thicket then it should do the same for the hemp without much work. Getting the flavor out is something I hadn’t really thought of, but it’s worth a shot. Maybe I will have time over the holiday. I’ll be sure to post results in here. I hope to get another build up soon too.

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Thanks. Did you share where you get it from? I missed it if you did.

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Yeah, it’s the weird looking amazon link/button at the top. I am on my phone, so it looks pretty weird I think.

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Any particular reason why you rewick so often? If it’s due to switching flavors, I’ve noticed with the hemp that it doesn’t seem to ‘hold on’ to flavor quite as much as the cotton so the old flavor clears out pretty quickly. I definitely don’t think it’s for everyone, but it will be what I use in my dripper from now on. I tried to switch back to cotton and it was a big enough difference that I pulled it out and redid it with more hemp.

My method isn’t nearly as refined as @therabidweasel’s…I just pull some off, cut off a piece, twist it up and stuff as much of it through the coil as I can. Then I shove it down in the juice wells on my magma, squirt some juice on it and let it soak for a second, and vape away. Of course, I do single coils so I don’t have to worry too much about having equal amounts or anything. :stuck_out_tongue:

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