This super-compact, multipurpose set gets your pieces cleaner, faster.
Because of the wide spectrum of unique shapes and sizes of cannabis smoking accessories, cleaning can get a little wild, especially when things get really dirty. Sealing a bong up with your fingers and shaking some rubbing alcohol around for routine cleaning is fine, but what about when it needs a soak? A basic, sturdy pipe can make it through the dishwasher sometimes, but it just takes one wrong move for it to break. There’s always the worst option of all: Just never cleaning your pieces, which is not only gross, but leads to dulled taste and harsher hits. An intricate dab rig looks great on your coffee table—but it can be a total headache making sure every chamber is sparkling.
Hemper, a fine purveyor of smoking accessories & subscription boxes, stocks everything from the basic bong to sculptural dab rigs, so they developed top-of-the-line cleaning accessories to keep even the most complicated pieces ready to show off.
Their Hemper Tech cleaning liquids, brushes, and wipes all make things easier—but the new Hemper Tech Plugs + Caps Pro, an improvement on their already-handy stoppers, is the real game-changer.
Why you need stoppers in your cleaning kit
Plugs and caps might seem optional, but they really tie a whole cleaning kit together. You can go through way too much rubbing alcohol—or worse, fancy cleaning liquid—by repeatedly filling a piece or by soaking it in a bag or larger container. The right set of plugs and caps can help make your piece watertight so you can shake all you need to without worrying about keeping your thumb in place.
It also means that if your piece needs a longer soak, you can just fill it up and leave it without worrying about it leaking into a plastic bag or evaporating out of a bucket. This makes the cleaning process efficient and helps your other cleaning products work even harder.
How Hemper Tech’s Pro Plugs + Caps are different
Hemper Tech’s original plugs are still great: Two smaller plugs and one large one all double as plugs and caps and feature tapered designs to fit most pieces. But upgrading to Hemper Tech’s new Plugs + Caps Pro, made of medical-grade silicone, is like night and day. They’re easier to use, create tighter seals with more malleable material, and get more done.
Plugs + Caps Pro, available in green, black, purple, and blue varieties, comes with three plugs. Two small combination plugs and caps fit almost every ground joint (male or female), mouthpiece, or pipe. The larger plug is a universal stopper for larger pieces that doubles as a secure cleaning container for bowls, bangers, downstems, and any other small accessories. It’s soft enough to keep tiny items from breaking, but sturdy enough to shake them up for cleaning, and seals up with a secure screw-on cap.
Testing Hemper Tech’s Pro Caps + Plugs
Pro tip: The smaller plugs can fit completely in the larger one for compact storage and convenient portability.
This writer got a chance to test out the new caps and plugs on a pretty gnarly ongoing project: A small, angled-neck bong with opaque tar buildup that had been sitting around, uncleaned, for more than a decade. A little progress had been made soaking it in containers and lightly shaking it, but only the base below the downstem opening looked anything approaching clean.
I sealed up the base with one of the smaller Hemper plugs and filled the bong up with rubbing alcohol, added some sea salt, and plugged the mouthpiece with the other small plug. The seal was almost too good and made the other plug want to jump ship a little bit, so it needed to be held in place when placing the second one.
“It only needed another little shake for the base to be completely, 100% clean.”
Holding that bottom plug in lightly, I was able to vigorously shake the piece while moving the salt around to target different areas. The plug held everything in for a couple of days, and when I poured out the liquid, large flakes of tar went right with it. It only needed another little shake for the base to be completely, 100% clean.
The downstem and bowl piece were new and didn’t need cleaning, but I put them in the cleaning container anyway for safekeeping. In addition to glass accessories, the container came in handy for smaller, submergible parts of portable vapes, like PAX screens, mouthpieces, and concentrate inserts.
The bottom line
Hemper Plugs + Caps Pro is a simple but transformative tool to add to any cleaning kit, and because they pack small and together, they’ll fit right in with whatever else you have—and they’re cute enough that you could keep one on your piece when it’s not in use to limit the chances of bong water getting on your carpet.
You can buy them right now for $29.99—and they pair perfectly with Hemper’s subscription and theme boxes, which feature pieces of all shapes and sizes at a steep discount. Hit the button below to browse these and other Hemper highlights.
