It has happened to all of us: we grab our vape, take a long puff, and instead of tasty soothing vapor, we get a nasty burning taste and an awful throat feeling. Burnt hits are one of the worst things a vaper can experience. And it can happen with almost any vape, from disposable vapes to cloud-chucking sub ohm tanks! It can ruin your day, and even worse, steer you away from vaping. While there are many reasons for a burnt hit, the good news is that most can be avoided.

Let’s examine some of the most common causes of burnt hits and find out what you can do to prevent them.

Although most vapers use these terms interchangeably, they are in fact two separate things. While dry hits are not pleasant, they are far less shocking than burnt hits. A dry hit will make its appearance as soon as the wick of your coil dries up a bit. You will get less flavor and exhale less vapor, without the nastiness and coughing that come with a burnt hit.

But keep vaping on these dry coils and you are in for a surprize… Think of a dry hit as a warning signal to pay attention to: don’t disregard that dry, flavorless vape you took! The burnt hit is coming soon. But why is it happening?

While the idea is always the same, the process of priming your coils varies depending on the equipment you’re using. Here’s a look at how to prime some of the most commonly used vapes.

All vape tanks that come with replaceable coil heads have more or less the same structure and require the same simple steps to get primed. You will need to repeat this process every time you replace a coil.

• Take a new coil out of the box
• Drip some e-liquid on the wicking holes and inside the coil head (3-4 drops will do)
• Assemble your tank and fill it with ejuice
• Screw your tank on your mod and set aside for 10 minutes
• Inhaling on the tip of the tank without firing will speed up the process
• For vape mods with wattage adjustment, start from lowest recommended wattage and raise gradually until you find your sweet spot

Take note that you might experience a bit of spitback on the first puffs, due to the extra bit of liquid that may’ve pooled inside the coil. If it doesn’t go away and you are using a variable wattage mod, try raising the power a bit for a couple of puffs—but make sure you don’t exceed the upper wattage limit of the coil, as this will most probably burn it.

Refillable pod systems will usually arrive without e-liquid in the pod. The process is even simpler for this kind of vape, as you will not be able to remove the coil from inside the pod.

• Fill the pod with e-liquid.
• Let it saturate for 10 minutes.

Inhale a couple of times on the pod itself, not while in the battery (just in case it’s draw-activated). This will push some liquid inside the wicking channels and give you some extra safety against dry hits.

When you first begin vaping on a pod, try and take shorter puffs to begin with. Some of the smaller coils need to be broken in a bit before being pushed. If you take really long hits to start, even if the wick is fully saturated, you could get a burnt hit. Think of this as somewhat like slowly raising the wattage on an adjustable power mod.

That’s it. You may now start vaping!

After a nasty burnt hit, your coil is probably ready to be binned. If you managed to catch it early, you can still give it a go and see if the burnt taste disappears after a couple of puffs. Unfortunately, chances are you’ve already burnt some of the cotton inside the coil, and it will need to be replaced. That taste will not leave if it’s truly burnt!

Burnt hits aside, if you have properly primed your coil and you’re sure that it is adequately fed with e-liquid, you might be wondering why you keep getting a burnt taste out of your vape. While burnt hits are the most common culprits behind a throat burn, they are not the only ones. A coil might be burnt due to a number of reasons, and while the sensation is not as pronounced, you sure aren’t getting the best out of your e-liquid.

Coils go bad. Unfortunately, they don’t come with expiration dates: the time your coil head will last depends on a variety of factors. Even if you never had a dry hit, a coil will eventually “burn” after extensive use and taste bad. There is a number of parameters that you will need to consider when trying to estimate the expected lifespan of your coils.

Consumption
A coil is generally good for up to a certain amount of e-juice. The more you use it, the faster it dies. Coil life is sometimes calculated in days or weeks, but the most accurate way to calculate it is in mL—some people vape only a couple of mL per day, while others will consume 10-20 mL or more.

E-liquid ingredients
If you want your coils to last, try to avoid sweeter juices—especially the ones that come in high-VG ratios. Sweeteners are notorious for clogging coils and reducing their lifespan, and the thickness of VG only makes things worse.

Wattages
Vaping on the higher end of the recommended wattage will strain your coils and reduce their lifespan. In effect, your coil is “getting tired” and starts flirting with burnt hits. Vaping on the lower recommended wattages is not ideal either, as it might reduce the life of your coil due to residual accumulation—e-liquid that doesn’t get vaporized might caramelize your coils after some time. Try to stay somewhere in the middle for the best results.

While there is no universal rule in place, most properly primed coil heads will generally last anywhere between five days to two weeks. Coils in mouth to lung tanks tend to last a bit longer than sub ohm coils, due to the smaller amount of e-liquid that passes through the coils in a day—although there are a lot of exceptions to that “rule.”

If you are using your tank regularly and haven’t noticed a flavor drop after a week or so, consider proactively changing your coil. Flavor and vapor production might diminish very gradually and might go unnoticed. In the meantime, you will be vaping on some low-performing coils—get a new coil in the tank and you will be amazed with how much better it tastes.

If you have properly primed your new coil, but it is giving you a burnt taste—or any weird taste for that matter—replace it. Chances are you got a dud. Not all coils are made equal, especially when you consider the large numbers that are getting produced every day. Some coils are bad out of the box, maybe due to a production error that caused a bad fit or a loose connection. Luckily, it’s fairly rare these days for large-scale “bad batches” of coils to be on the market.

That said, if you ever do get a bad coil that didn’t perform how previous ones did, it’s likely that you’ll get more bad coils from that pack. To safeguard yourself from not having any good coils, consider buying more than one box of coils when you re-up. If you can, think about buying the same coils from another shop because it’s a better chance the batch will be different.