Tempest

Vapour leaves the Tempest's titanium cap, passes the bed of 2.5mm zirconia balls and drops straight into a short stem, so resin collects on the bowl screen and inside the cooling spiral of the airflow tube long before the balls themselves look dirty. Mad Heaters also warn that finger oil bakes onto the steel of the cap under torch heat, so handle it by the stem.

1. Deep clean at 100 bowls, and before the first one. Mad Heaters ask for a full soak on a brand new device. Put the assembled Tempest, minus the cap and the wood sleeve if fitted, in a zip lock bag of 99% isopropyl for at least 30 minutes, shaking it periodically. Drain, rinse the parts in the bag with warm water, shake for another minute in fresh IPA, rinse under hot water, then dry everything.

2. The cap can be submerged, but not left wet. Cap, indicators and balls all tolerate cleaning solution. Shake the liquid out immediately afterwards and heat the cap once on an empty bowl to drive off what is left. Between deep cleans a Q-tip through the cap covers most of it. The visual indicator strips down for cleaning, but its spring bends permanently if pulled, so leave it unless you have fine tweezers.

3. Quick clean at 30 bowls. Spray IPA onto the cooling spiral with a paper towel held underneath, then twist the spiral off and back on a couple of times. Use an IPA soaked Q-tip on the inside of the sleeve and on the bowl screen from below.

4. Balls roughly every 300 bowls. Tip them into a mesh tea strainer and torch them until they come clean, going easier on borosilicate or quartz than on zirconia. Concentrated sugar soap left overnight and then shaken is the alternative. Refill to just below the screen threading, flatten the ball retaining screen before fitting it, and stop tightening while the balls can still shift slightly.

5. Treat the o-rings and screens as consumables. They are FKM, rated for both IPA and heat, in 7x1, 6x1 and 5x1mm sizes, and the kit ships spares. Do not leave the heat shield o-ring bone dry after a clean, or the shield is very hard to push over it. The stainless bowl screen sets the bowl size at two positions and comes with five spares; replace one once it stops rinsing clear.

6. Two things to avoid. Never soak the wood sleeve. Clean only its inner metal liner with a Q-tip or pipe cleaner and wax the wood occasionally. Keep the mouthpiece out of an induction heater as well, because its POM bearing will melt into the coil.