^^^ It is perfectly acceptable to prefer a round bottom over the titty…we all have our preferences...
You deserve serious pot brownie points for brilliantly seeing what was in front of us all!
BTW is your handle a nod to Tribes?
So need some help with my Rio. Noticing my concentrates are running up the walls of my banger and I need to let the flame run for longer than I think I should be to get good hits. Any ideas why? I’ve tried heating with my carb cap on and off. Seeing the same results.
Being a novice myself, please take this with a grain of salt, especially since we have different style bangers. However, thanks to the extra delicate nature of the Watermelon Gelato live resin that is already sadly almost gone, I feel I've made a lot of progress in the learning curve of the RiO with the stock core banger in the past few days. I've achieved really efficient, very potent doses using half of what I was before without becoming uncomfortably inebriated almost to the point of nausea nor not dealing with lung pain or congestion after. Furthermore, I deep cleaned the banger several days ago to perfection and it still looks like it did the moment I finished, no running up the walls and zero build up or residue with everything from live resin, shatter, crumble, etc.
I've also found that quantity is more important than I would have realized as too small of a dab and it will burn very quickly, too much and I'm going to destroy my very capable lungs and feel sick trying to get it all before it burns and it probably still will. I'm probably using about .1 - .15 instead of closer to the quarter grams I was likely using before just because it's so easy to toss a big chunk into the banger vs making little BBs for the wax pens. I just feel it's unnecessary and wasteful when moderate amounts work better and provide a more balanced effect.
Utilizing the RiO for cold starts exclusively, I think the most important method I've adopted has been to using the torch exclusively on its
lowest setting. The only way you really have control with the RiO, since it's not like there is a digital reader to monitor the temperature, is to maximize the range of steps in your margin of error, but obviously not too much. However, when you use the flame on a medium or high setting even for a second, it flares up the sides of the banger and I suspect this is what causes concentrates to run up the side more and especially to leave a caked-on, black residue behind. Kind of like a small pot on a gas stove, you have to keep the flame smaller to prevent it from running up the side of the pot and scorching what you're cooking. I feel now I'm getting the most tasty and medicinal effects when only heating the core with the tiny pinpoint of the smallest flame and holding the banger into the light, watching closely for the signs to turn the flame off completely and take the first hit.
What I've been doing is placing an ideal amount of concentrate on the side of the core, capping with the carb cap, firing up the torch and reducing the flame to the point that I know any further adjustment will cause it to self extinguish and watching carefully just until I see not only mild bubbling but also small plumes of vapor puff up in the banger and take the first hit while turning the cap, which is so tasty now it's hard to believe- but also provides a decent cloud vs my previous methods always being mildly flavorful but having little to no "body" to the vapor. I usually take another hit and continue to turn before firing the torch back up to the lowest setting again and watching, repeating the same cycle several times, usually by about the 3rd or 4th starting to achieve really dense clouds without any off flavors or burning in the banger. By the 5th or 6th, the session is over and a quick wipe with both ends of the Q-tip is all it takes to remove any remaining residue.
BTW, I recall others mentioning that the core banger is a PITA to clean with Qtips because the space between the wall and core is just small enough to prevent a Qtip from typically slipping in. This is the case but there is an easy fix, you simply grab the tip of the cotton on the end and twist it out a bit, essentially reducing the overall circumference of the swab and leaving a soft, little bit of extra fluff at the end. This way it slips right in between the core and the sides and seems to do an even more thorough job cleaning with the excess of cotton hanging off the end.
That said, I think I'm still going to invest in a round bottom banger with a ruby pearl and a spinner cap soon as I want something as a backup anyways and it would be nice to have another method to use of course.
