Arizer Solo

The Solo is never packed directly. Material goes into a borosilicate aroma tube, either the curved one or the 110mm straight tube, and that tube is the only part that gets genuinely dirty. The stainless steel oven below it collects loose crumbs rather than resin, and the ceramic element under that should never meet liquid at all.

1. Let everything cool first. The original 2011 manual asks you to switch off and wait about two minutes before handling glass, and warns that cold water on hot borosilicate will crack it. Glass sits outside the Solo's two year warranty.

2. Empty and brush the aroma tube after each session. Tap the spent material out and run a small brush down the bore. Clearing residue before it hardens is Arizer's own routine, and it spares you most of the deep cleaning.

3. Soak the glass parts in isopropyl. The curved tube, the 110mm tube and the glass aroma dish take the same treatment: a minimum of half an hour in 99 percent isopropyl alcohol, a warm water rinse, then a full dry. Arizer also clears these parts for the cutlery basket of a dishwasher. A spare tube lets you rotate stems instead of waiting on one to dry.

4. Leave the built-in glass screen alone. Every Solo aroma tube has a glass screen formed into its mouthpiece end, which is why Arizer recommends whole or coarsely ground botanicals and no metal screen. The optional Air and Solo screen packs make vapour harsher, and a metal screen that starts restricting the draw is meant to be swapped rather than scrubbed.

5. Clear the oven dry, never wet. Run the Solo on level 7, the top of its seven presets at 210C, for ten minutes; it shuts itself off at twelve, so restart it if needed. Power down, run the stainless steel stirring tool round the inside of the well to loosen anything baked on, then invert the body and shake the debris free. A barely damp isopropyl swab deals with film on the walls. Nothing gets poured or dropped into the well, and the manual is blunt about not filling the heater and not immersing the unit.

6. Warm a tube that will not seat. Arizer's fix for a tight fit is to power on, select maximum, heat for a minute or two, then push the tube home.

7. Look after the shell, caps and battery. A dry microfibre cloth is all the anodised aluminium body needs. The silicone stem caps wash in warm soapy water. Charge only with the supplied barrel adapter, and if the Solo is going into storage, leave its internal battery partly charged rather than full or flat.