Hot drop must-stop! How to prevent spitback when vaping

So, what is spitback? Doesn’t sound good, does it? Well, no and, well, no (again); it isn’t. Basically, it’s the term that’s becoming increasingly used to describe those uber-hot drops of e-liquid you may find shooting up at you during an otherwise happy and enjoyable vape. Indeed, if can often be accompanied by popping sounds (and seen when firing an RDA coil device). The drops spit out in all directions, like it or not, and for those unlucky, one or more of them are bound to end up in the mouthpiece. Bad news.

What causes e-liquid’s pretty simple: it’s when these drops are pooled up on the coil and so are effectively ‘cooked’ instead of being vaporised along with the rest of the e-juice. Additionally, the problem’s often associated with flooded coils. So then, how to prevent spitback in the first place? Well, don’t fear, for here’s our handy cut-out-and-keep guide (so to speak)…

Why not fire before you inhale?

If you’ve primed or dripped too much e-juice, a very simple solution for spitback is merely to hit the fire button a couple of seconds before beginning your inhaling routine. Following the fading away of the popping sounds very quickly after the firing, you can rest easy now’s the point to start puffing away. Easy-peasy.

Re-wick your RTA’s coils

Suffering from spitback when using a rebuildable tank atomiser (RTA)? If so, the issue may be with the wick. Wicks tend to be on top form when it comes to RTAs, which means that should you not make a habit of blocking that gap between coils and your device’s tank with enough wick, too much e-juice’ll get into the chamber, resulting in flooding and spitback. The solution then could well prove to be re-wicking your coils, in order to cover the channels leading from the tank to the chamber but not totally blocking them with heavily-packed wick.

Soak up juice from the chimney

Yes, flooding’s the most common culprit of spitback, but it can be worsened thanks to e-juice collecting in the chimney of a device’s tank, thus, returning to the coil. An easy fix here, though – simply, using rolled-up tissue paper, remove the drip tip and insert the tissue down into the chimney to soaks up excess e-liquid (whatever the e-fluid you’re talking here and its consistency; i.e. premium Pocket Fuel e liquid or that of any other brand).

Soften your inhale

Inhaling too, well, strongly could result in flooding, as you pull in more e-juice than necessary into the chamber. So, to prevent this just smoothen your inhale – do it more softly, so you let the coil and wicking carry the weight rather than your own ‘pull’.

Move to a higher-VG

PG’s thinner in consistency than VG, it’s a fact. That means higher PG-ratio e-juices will more likely flood an atomiser than higher VG-ratio liquids. So, should you be experiencing spitback, moving over to a VG-dominant vape juice may solve the issue as it’ll likely slow down wicking.

Cover over the drip tip

If everything else fails, there is still a pretty fool-proof step you can take to avoid spitback: cover your drip so juice can’t possibly spit back up there. You could cover the tip with a paper towel for a low-tech solution, but many vapers cut down pipe screens so they fit into the drip tip. Indeed, many tank and atomiser manufacturers are incorporating anti-spitback measures like this into their designs because of how effective a counter-measure they are.

Are spitback’s days numbered?

If you’re consistently having problems with spitback, the important thing to remember is that you can fix it – and it doesn’t matter how high-quality a device you have may be (like, say, a Smok Stick V8 UK) or whether yours is a cheap and cheerful starter effort. You may not be very happy about having to cut down a pipe screen as an issue solver; but hey, at least manufacturers are waking up to the issue and seeing it for it is – a problem now, right? So, as anti-spitback measures become more common, hopefully – fingers crossed! – we may now be genuinely approaching a spitback-less era of blissful vaping!