Hey guys, I finally have some news that is geared more toward a positive experience, and this is about the Smokin' Crow Pre-Built Hemp Wicked CE5 by Mountain Vapors.
As my method usually is, I took my product out of the shipping package, and I noticed that, like I tend to do myself, Mountain Vapors had the CE5 and additional head contained in a zip-lock baggy inside the bubble-wrapped package. I thought this was a funny touch, and just from that, I knew I was dealing with a product that, as described, is rebuilt in-house by the single owner/operator of Mountain Vapors, whom I talked to on the phone, and he was a very friendly, honest guy. I can tell that Mountain Vapors is a very dedicated Mom & Pop-type shop, at least from my experience so far, and I really appreciate that.
Anyway, to the product. As always, I do a few tests on the product before I load it. First off, with the hemp wicks, I've been told that hemp A. Has a slight undertone taste of burlap or reed, B. Wicks a bit less well than Silica, and C. Even if it burns, it tends to recover its taste pretty well. As you guys know, dry hits and burned hits have been an absolute curse with me, right out of the box, so what I do first with one of these heads is I get out my juices and drop a drop on the "fly-away" wicks to see what truly wicks best. I noticed right away that my prized Candy Bar by Velvet Cloud Vapors does not soak into the wick well at all (it's %100 VG), and that my thinnest juice, Captain Ron by Indigo, only wicks about so-so. It takes a little bit to truly soak in, not long, but a little longer than silica.
So I fill my tank up with the Captain Ron (a rum flavored juice) and I let my tank sit while I take a smoke break. When I come back inside, to my astonishment, the CE5 is leaking from between the plastic and bottom plate just like my iClear 30 did! I do not have a strong grip when it comes to tightening, so I was very shocked. Then, lol, I noticed that I had installed the plastic part of the tank upside down. I wouldn't think this would matter because both ends are exactly the same, but then I took the annoying labor to empty the tank, correct it, and re-fill it, and guess what - for the moment, it seems the problem is solved. However, my iClear 30 seemed resolved too, yet started leaking again 6 hours after it sat, so who knows yet.
Now, for the grand result, to the performance. I let the tank sit awhile to wick, and I kept taking the drip tip off and shining a flashlight down in there to see if the wick looked nice and wet. It did, so I go to vape at 3.3V's. To my astonishment, I get an extremely clean, fluffy, pure vape. I literally had an expression of "Wow..." on my face, and I could not believe hemp could give such an astonishing taste. The taste of the juice was quite muted, as this was a juice that has given me several taste problems and I am almost positive that it is simply too weak a juice, but the flavor was clean. If I concentrated enough, I could indeed taste a slight layer of undertone that did taste like a sweet burlap, but this was so miniscule that absolutely no one would notice unless they came in expecting a hemp wick.
After two puffs, I decide that, yes, 3.3V's and a 2.4 head with a hemp wick is giving me very weak vapor, and not enough flavor, so I bump it up to 3.5V's. (Not much.) Here's where a problem started. Instantly, the vapor tasted a lot dirtier, and not in a burlap fashion, but actually more in a mechanical, bland way. Gone was the crisp, clean flavor I was getting, and it was quite starkly replaced by a flavor that really didn't taste like rum at all, and actually did taste somewhat mechanical. I shine my light down the head and notice that my wick has turned very dark, and I start to wonder if my battery is truly heating up my wicks and coils way more than normal - it would explain the problems with every tank I've had.
Now, here's where the better news comes in. I do keep vaping on it for a few puffs to test it out, and while the clean flavor does not come back to where it was so far, the thing I can say about this hemp wick is that it refuses to make my stomach churn, it refuses to taste acidic, and it refuses to hurt my throat when it seems a heated, drier hit is happening. This wick simply tastes so much healthier than silica that it is truly astonishing. A negative though is that, surprisingly enough, I swear that, even on the first clean hit, I could feel hemp particles brushing against the back of my throat in the vapor. Anyone who's been around burlap a lot will know what I mean. It did not hurt, and it did not feel overwhelmingly scratchy, but the slight feeling as though particles were hitting the back of my throat was very mysterious and noticeable. It's a different kind of feeling than I've ever gotten in any vape.
Dialing my battery back down to 3.3V's seems to clean up the taste slightly, but there's still a dirty vape going on. It's just a very dull vape, and the flavor seems a bit thickened and run over with a slight mechanical taste. I'm slowly dripping a little VCV Candy Bar in the tank, combined with a little extra distilled water, to see if it slowly starts tasting a lot better (Candy Bar is the only juice in my stock that I know, flavor wise, truly isn't faulty at all.) I'll keep vaping on it, doing some tests, and trying to see what works.
In the meantime, if anyone has any advice concerning hemp wicks, and what I could do to improve this situation, it would be a great help, as this hemp wick tastes a lot healthier than silica, and I trust that Mountain Vapors is indeed wrapping a good coil. I'm a little concerned with the "dusty" texture that the hemp wick seems to give the vapor too. Any feedback is highly appreciated, as I'll be updating this review as a continue to figure out what I can do to improve this.
Update #1 - I called up the owner of Mountain Vapors, walked him through my steps, and explained that I was getting a dirtier vape despite an initially very clean hit. I asked various questions such as "Maybe my juice is still too thick?" or "Maybe something's wrong with my battery." but he was very honest and upfront, stating, "Nah, what it sounds like to me is that I simply wrapped the coil too tightly. That's exactly what happens when these mistakes happen, and I'll be happy to send you out a new one. We do make these by hand, so these things do tend to happen a lot, so I'll get you a new head to try out on Monday." Great, great service, and a really honest guy. I couldn't be happier knowing that this guy knows the issues up front, and is willing to help me.
In the meantime, I'll be testing the 2nd head I already have!
As my method usually is, I took my product out of the shipping package, and I noticed that, like I tend to do myself, Mountain Vapors had the CE5 and additional head contained in a zip-lock baggy inside the bubble-wrapped package. I thought this was a funny touch, and just from that, I knew I was dealing with a product that, as described, is rebuilt in-house by the single owner/operator of Mountain Vapors, whom I talked to on the phone, and he was a very friendly, honest guy. I can tell that Mountain Vapors is a very dedicated Mom & Pop-type shop, at least from my experience so far, and I really appreciate that.
Anyway, to the product. As always, I do a few tests on the product before I load it. First off, with the hemp wicks, I've been told that hemp A. Has a slight undertone taste of burlap or reed, B. Wicks a bit less well than Silica, and C. Even if it burns, it tends to recover its taste pretty well. As you guys know, dry hits and burned hits have been an absolute curse with me, right out of the box, so what I do first with one of these heads is I get out my juices and drop a drop on the "fly-away" wicks to see what truly wicks best. I noticed right away that my prized Candy Bar by Velvet Cloud Vapors does not soak into the wick well at all (it's %100 VG), and that my thinnest juice, Captain Ron by Indigo, only wicks about so-so. It takes a little bit to truly soak in, not long, but a little longer than silica.
So I fill my tank up with the Captain Ron (a rum flavored juice) and I let my tank sit while I take a smoke break. When I come back inside, to my astonishment, the CE5 is leaking from between the plastic and bottom plate just like my iClear 30 did! I do not have a strong grip when it comes to tightening, so I was very shocked. Then, lol, I noticed that I had installed the plastic part of the tank upside down. I wouldn't think this would matter because both ends are exactly the same, but then I took the annoying labor to empty the tank, correct it, and re-fill it, and guess what - for the moment, it seems the problem is solved. However, my iClear 30 seemed resolved too, yet started leaking again 6 hours after it sat, so who knows yet.
Now, for the grand result, to the performance. I let the tank sit awhile to wick, and I kept taking the drip tip off and shining a flashlight down in there to see if the wick looked nice and wet. It did, so I go to vape at 3.3V's. To my astonishment, I get an extremely clean, fluffy, pure vape. I literally had an expression of "Wow..." on my face, and I could not believe hemp could give such an astonishing taste. The taste of the juice was quite muted, as this was a juice that has given me several taste problems and I am almost positive that it is simply too weak a juice, but the flavor was clean. If I concentrated enough, I could indeed taste a slight layer of undertone that did taste like a sweet burlap, but this was so miniscule that absolutely no one would notice unless they came in expecting a hemp wick.
After two puffs, I decide that, yes, 3.3V's and a 2.4 head with a hemp wick is giving me very weak vapor, and not enough flavor, so I bump it up to 3.5V's. (Not much.) Here's where a problem started. Instantly, the vapor tasted a lot dirtier, and not in a burlap fashion, but actually more in a mechanical, bland way. Gone was the crisp, clean flavor I was getting, and it was quite starkly replaced by a flavor that really didn't taste like rum at all, and actually did taste somewhat mechanical. I shine my light down the head and notice that my wick has turned very dark, and I start to wonder if my battery is truly heating up my wicks and coils way more than normal - it would explain the problems with every tank I've had.
Now, here's where the better news comes in. I do keep vaping on it for a few puffs to test it out, and while the clean flavor does not come back to where it was so far, the thing I can say about this hemp wick is that it refuses to make my stomach churn, it refuses to taste acidic, and it refuses to hurt my throat when it seems a heated, drier hit is happening. This wick simply tastes so much healthier than silica that it is truly astonishing. A negative though is that, surprisingly enough, I swear that, even on the first clean hit, I could feel hemp particles brushing against the back of my throat in the vapor. Anyone who's been around burlap a lot will know what I mean. It did not hurt, and it did not feel overwhelmingly scratchy, but the slight feeling as though particles were hitting the back of my throat was very mysterious and noticeable. It's a different kind of feeling than I've ever gotten in any vape.
Dialing my battery back down to 3.3V's seems to clean up the taste slightly, but there's still a dirty vape going on. It's just a very dull vape, and the flavor seems a bit thickened and run over with a slight mechanical taste. I'm slowly dripping a little VCV Candy Bar in the tank, combined with a little extra distilled water, to see if it slowly starts tasting a lot better (Candy Bar is the only juice in my stock that I know, flavor wise, truly isn't faulty at all.) I'll keep vaping on it, doing some tests, and trying to see what works.
In the meantime, if anyone has any advice concerning hemp wicks, and what I could do to improve this situation, it would be a great help, as this hemp wick tastes a lot healthier than silica, and I trust that Mountain Vapors is indeed wrapping a good coil. I'm a little concerned with the "dusty" texture that the hemp wick seems to give the vapor too. Any feedback is highly appreciated, as I'll be updating this review as a continue to figure out what I can do to improve this.
Update #1 - I called up the owner of Mountain Vapors, walked him through my steps, and explained that I was getting a dirtier vape despite an initially very clean hit. I asked various questions such as "Maybe my juice is still too thick?" or "Maybe something's wrong with my battery." but he was very honest and upfront, stating, "Nah, what it sounds like to me is that I simply wrapped the coil too tightly. That's exactly what happens when these mistakes happen, and I'll be happy to send you out a new one. We do make these by hand, so these things do tend to happen a lot, so I'll get you a new head to try out on Monday." Great, great service, and a really honest guy. I couldn't be happier knowing that this guy knows the issues up front, and is willing to help me.
In the meantime, I'll be testing the 2nd head I already have!
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