Clean Your Volcano! How Often?
How often you take apart and clean your Volcano depends on frequency of use, and personal preference.
One often overlooked fact is that the parts dirty at different rates. For example the bottom screen of the filling chamber takes a long time to clog up, because the air is blowing through, not the vaporized plant material. Knowing this you can spread out some of your cleaning tasks to make it less of a burden.
For me, the first part to always go is the top screen of the filling chamber. I clean it once a week by itself. If it’s left dirty it seriously impairs the effectiveness of the herbal extraction.
The second part is the solid valve itself. If allowed to get too gummy, it requires a lot of pressure to take a hit, and it may not properly seal the vapors in the bag. I clean this and replace the bag with a freshie every 2 weeks.
Then every third week I’ll clean the bottom of the filling chamber.
Whenever the vacuum is in the same room, I vacuum the screen at the top where the hot air comes out of the base.
Here’s a link to photo illustrated instructions to take apart and clean your Volcano.
February 25th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Take your used volcano bag…the longer the better for this project.
Pour in a couple ounces of 99% isopropyl alcohol.
Crimp or do what you need to do to seal the bag.
Shake all the color off the sides and into the alcohol.
Pour it into a glass pan.
Evaporate the alcohol. (I set the pan ON TOP of a toaster oven set to 350 degrees near an open kitchen window…the top of the oven gets hot and eventually you can see little clouds of vapor drifting off the top of the alcohol…be careful!)
You will be left with a red/amber oil. It is awesome. I got a gram from a well used bag.
Scrape it off the pan with a razor blade.
August 6th, 2009 at 1:49 am
LOL at the previous comment!
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 am
@WhereYouAt85 WOAH! that sounds a little too junkie for me lol….
December 27th, 2009 at 6:48 am
Hey junkie jenni, that junkie residue harvesting shit is most likely pure active ingredients. Thanx for playing though.
December 28th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Sounds like a very nice idea, WhereYouAt85. Considering what has been accomplished cooking with other forms of alcohol in the culinary arts, I’m not inclined to dismiss this arbitrarily. Like these other doubters.