Arkib Grd Ku

Ok boys and girls, let’s talk simple physics and chemistry for a little bit. I’ve been observing how you cook your crystal for a while now, and whereas some of you impress me with your results, others need to take a moment and think about what they’re actually doing when they’re “smoking” meth.

First off, you’re not smoking a damn thing. You’re vaporizing it. The melting/boiling point for these sparklies is right between 170 and 175 degrees centigrade depending on how it was manufactured. Keep in mind that this temperature will seem higher or lower depending on the amount of cut your sack contains, as the two agents commonly used to cut crystal boil a bit higher and a bit lower. The significance to this temperature is that once it reaches the melt point, it will start convert into vapor, a phenomenon called “evanescence”, and the key to being a badass is to get it right to that melt point and keep it there.

If you go over, you burn it. Plain and simple. It’s very much like cooking - hamburgers, for example, can’t be cooked on the highest heat, or the fat in the meat will char as it reaches the boiling point too fast. So you have to kinda ease it in there. For our needs, this is why typically the more proficient will tell people to get it right to where it starts to vaporize, then flat out remove the flame entirely to ensure nothing gets burned.But…you don’t have to. You can be awesomesauce and learn the ways you can keep that bowl rolling with a heat source!

The one most employ is the whole “rolling” technique that likely half of the tweakers out there do without even knowing what they’re attempting to accomplish. The easiest way to explain how this works is the ole “OH SHIT PIZZA TOO HOT MOVE IT MOVE IT” in your mouth thing. You dance that pepperoni and molten lava sauce in your mouth and it lessens the pain versus just letting it sit there and scald you. The same can be said of rolling the pook : you’re moving the puddle to an area that is currently NOT being directly heated in an effort to control the heat it is receiving. You just keep dancing it around in that little sphere trying to keep it safe, but the heat WILL build up to burn levels eventually. I suggest instead of just tossing it around like a crazy person because you saw your friend do it and you want to be cool too, learn how to deftly flick it back and forth in the bowl such that it spreads evenly along the bottom ¼th, and doesn’t touch any particular area for any extended period of time. They’re spherical for a reason boys and girls :)

Another tactic is to use a lower source of heat that is capable of vaporizing it, but not so overwhelming that it will cook it horrifically fast and ruin your dr00gs. I light adjustable flame lighters for two reasons : You can control how much blue there is (the hottest part), and they’re quite cost efficient when paired with sales on butane that Amazon seems to run constantly. Don’t go ham and buy expensive ones, just find ones that look akin to the same mechanism on a Bic and try them out. You’ll find a brand you like eventually, then you’ll be pals for life :) Anywho, torches seem great because you just get it done so fast. But the danger there is that whole “fast” word. Tweakers tend to want to … well yeah, go fast … wayyyyy tooo fast. Patience in regards to the application of your heat source goes a LONG way in making your supply last longer, taste better (mine tastes like nothing, and u?), and hit you harder. If you start to taste anything, you’re burning it or it is all cut. So when it gets that warm and kinda icky taste in the middle of the hit, just back the lighter down an inch, roll it slightly faster, blow a little out, and keep going - you’ll know if it tastes less shitty you succeeded, and if it doesn’t, just stop and try again in a minute or two. PATIENCE!

Lastly, the amount you put in your bowl  matters quite a bit. You don’t want to overload, because then you’ll have uneven heating. After your initial crackback, you should have a coating that looks more flat than chunky. If it is chunky, you’ll end up cooking the crystal on the bottom of the pile faster than the top, causing the bottom to burn at bit while your heat source works to reach that stuff on the top. No one said you had to pack it all in one bowl! Know your pipe such that you have a  decent idea of how much to put it, and just do that all the time.

Bonus round : KNOW YOUR PIPE! They’re all different, because Walmart isn’t making them on an assembly line. SO many factors to consider in what makes one work well, but if you know your shit, you can use any of a variety of different types and overcome their weak design flaws. Too-thick glass is a wench because you have to heat the fark out of it to get to the goodies inside, and then it cools down far slower because of that. Too thin glass is wildly difficult to control in terms of how hot they get (very fast), and you end up burning your dope constantly because you’re not fucking Spider-Man. You’ll know what’s good through trial and error here, but just be observant. I also recommend using nothing shorter than a 6" pipe as the little 4" nightmares tend to do a number on your fingers, hair, etc. You’re just too close! The 6" jobbers are the sweet spot for me, but you may prefer slightly longer or shorter. To each his/her own :)