Burnt Taste When Vaping

12th Aug 2019

If you are new to vaping don’t worry, A burnt taste is not normal and thankfully can be fairly easily avoided. There are a number of burnt taste causes when vaping. Here are the main ones and instructions on how to avoid burning.

First up, we have to impress upon you how nasty the burnt taste when vaping really is. Imagine burnt toast plus that awful smell/taste you get when you burn a pan handle and amplify these. This is not something you want to be inhaling. That’s a taste that lingers. The burnt taste isn’t something that should worry you risk-wise though. Pure unpleasantness is the result of not following these vaping top tips.

That Nasty Dry Hit

The most common cause of the burnt taste is an easy one to avoid. The burnt taste comes from a burnt wick, found inside the atomizer coil. The way this mechanism works is that the wick soaks up your favourite flavoured e liquid directly from the tank. This is then heated thanks to a powerful lithium battery and turned into the vapour your inhale and exhale. If the wick is not completely covered/saturated or is allowed to run dry you experience what is commonly referred to as a dry hit. We call it blooming awful.

To avoid a dry hit simply ensure that your tank doesn’t run dry or too low and give your wick a few extra seconds to soak up that delicious flavoured e juice before you start vaping.

Avoid a Burnt Coil

Coils are vaping consumables. This means that eventually they will need to be replaced. How often coils last depends on the type you use, how you vape, what you do when you vape (I.e. do you take lots of quick puffs at a high temp?) and your preferences. Some vapers change their coils weekly, some bi-weekly, some wait a little longer. Once burned there is nothing you can do to get rid of that burnt taste so don’t waste energy on that. The only way forward is to just replace the coil, clean the tank and remember to replace before burn out occurs in future.

We look at the main two causes of coil burnout in more detail below.

Chain Vaping Causes Coil Burnout

Chain vaping, i.e taking lots of draws in quick succession not only uses up your e liquid quicker, it boosts the risk of your tank running dry faster (you use more e liquid) and shortens the life span of your coil. Try and resist this practice as it is pretty much guaranteed to lead to that telltale burnt taste when vaping eventually. Take longer draws, savouring the taste of the vapour and fewer drawers overall to get the most out of your vape. If you aren’t finding this to work it may be that you would benefit from a higher nicotine strength in your eliquids or perhaps one with more PG which offers a firmer throat hit.

*When increasing your nicotine strength do this gradually. Too much nicotine or more nicotine than you are use to may well result in nausea, vomiting, headaches and generally feel unwell. Slow and steady increases are best.

Lack of Coil Priming Responsible For Burnt Taste

Patience is a virtue and when it comes to waiting for your coil to prime this patience pays off. It is worth the few extra seconds or so to avoid a mouthful of burnt tasting yuckiness. In order to prime your new coil you basically just allow the wick to be completely covered in e liquid and then give it the few seconds necessary to allow the wick to become full saturated. This avoids wick burning and overall coil burnout. You also get the best out of your e liquid flavouring when you wait a minute so we’d say just hold your horses for a minute and wait it out.