Last fact-checked 30 April 2024
There’s nothing worse than a burnt hit. Just when you’re expecting a delicious draw of your favourite vape juice, you’re treated to a repulsive burnt taste that fills your mouth and renders your coil unusable.
Burnt hits are horrible ...they’re also completely avoidable. In this week’s article, we’ll explain what’s going on inside your vape when you get a burnt hit, and explain the steps you can take to avoid burnt hits from happening in the first place.
What is a burnt hit?
A burnt hit is where you fire your e-cigarette and draw a cloud of burnt-tasting vapour. Burnt hits happen inside the atomiser part of your vape device, specifically when the heating coil singes the wick. A burnt hit can only happen when there is no e-liquid on your wick for your coil to evaporate. Dry wicks are either caused by an empty e-liquid tank or a blockage in your atomiser (a build-up of gunk, for instance). It's a common problem for new vapers who are still learning how to vape.
What’s causing the burnt vape taste?
Inside the atomiser part of every vape device, there’s a heating coil and a wick. The wick is made of absorbent material (usually cotton), which draws up a small amount of the vape’s e-liquid and brings it into contact with a heating coil.
When you fire up your vape device, any e-liquid that’s touching that hot coil is vapourised. This evaporated e-liquid is the vapour you’re drawing on when you vape.
If you activate your vape device and your wick is dry, then the heating coil in your atomiser will have nothing to evaporate. Instead, your super-heated dry wicking material will start to crisp up and eventually burn.
Can e-liquid catch fire or burn?
E-liquid doesn’t burn. Vape juice is not flammable, and it won’t catch fire in an e-cigarette. Having said that, some vape juices boost your chances of getting a burnt hit.
If you chain-vape high-VG e-liquids, especially some of the sweeter flavours, two things will happen:
- First, high VG e-liquids are less runny than high PG e-liquids (see our VG/PG guide for more info). This means that wicks take longer to absorb high-VG e-liquids. If you chain-vape, there's a higher likelihood that your wick will run dry.
- Sweet flavoured e-liquids can caramelise on your coil. When your coil gets a thick coating of caramelised e-juice, or ‘gunk’, it can't evaporate e-liquid properly. You’ll end up firing your e-cigarette more frequently just to get a good draw of vapour, and this in turn increases the risk of dry patches developing on your wick.
You could probably save yourself a few replacement coils if you stick to high-PG juices, but for me personally, I love the sweet flavours. A few extra replacement coils per year is worth the sacrifice as far as I’m concerned.
What is the difference between a dry hit and a burnt hit?
Burnt hits are foul — they completely spoil a vaping session — but they usually only happen after you’ve had a few dry hits.
With a dry hit, you’ll notice that you get a much smaller cloud of vapour than normal. You’ll also struggle to taste the flavour of your e-liquid. This is because the wicking material in your coil isn’t holding enough moisture, so your heating coil can’t evaporate enough e-liquid.
As soon as you get a dry hit, the best thing you can do is stop vaping for a few minutes. You’ll either need to refill your tank or give your wick more time to soak up more e-liquid. If you keep vaping dry hits, the surface of your wick will run out of e-liquid completely. That’s when you get a burnt hit.
How to avoid dry hits
The best way to avoid burnt hits is to avoid dry hits. The three tips we’ve listed below all stop dry hits from happening because they keep your wick well-soaked in e-liquid:
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Prime your coils correctly
If you’ve only just added your e-liquid to the vape device, the e-liquid probably won't’ have soaked through the wicking material yet. You can give your atomiser a head-start by dripping a few drops of vape juice directly onto your coil. This won’t work for every device (some pod systems make it impossible to get anywhere near the coil), but it can get the ball rolling for most of us. -
Wait a few minutes
You would be amazed at the difference just pausing between puffs can make. Try to put your vape down for a few minutes and give the e-liquid a fair chance to fully soak through to the heating coil. Your patience will be rewarded with a full, rounded mouthful of delicious vapour. -
Adjust the power and temperature settings
If your box mod has adjustable wattage and temperature settings, try dialling back both settings slightly. Your coil will vapourise less juice at the lower settings, which will help your coil to stay moist. You’ll get smaller vapour clouds at the lower wattage ranges, but you’ll increase the lifespan of your coils and cut your chances of getting a burnt hit.
Will a dry hit break my coil?
The occasional dry hit won’t do any lasting damage to your coil, but a burnt hit will render your coil unusable.
Technically speaking, the coil itself isn’t ‘broken’ by a burnt hit (the metal circuit is still intact). The problem is that the wicking material that touches the coil has burnt, and that’s something that can’t be undone.
You might have seen that some box mods (specifically RTA and RDA devices) allow you to replace just the wicking material and keep your coil. That sounds good in theory, but it’s not a popular choice. Most people just replace the whole coil, as it's a lot easier.
Is a burnt hit dangerous?
Inhaling smoke, whether that’s tobacco smoke or fumes from a singed cotton wick, is unhealthy. There’s no getting around it. But based on my own personal experience, when you taste a burnt hit on your tongue the last thing you’re going to want to do is inhale those vapours.
If you do accidentally inhale a little of your burnt hit, don’t let it worry you too much. We’ve done some research into the dangers of burnt hits, and we can confirm the following:
Some online articles have suggested that, if you inhale a burnt hit on a cotton wick, you’ll risk getting a rare lung disease called byssinosis. This isn’t true. Byssinosis is an occupational lung disease that affects people who inhale cotton dust all day (cotton mill workers, for example).There are very few cases of byssinosis in the UK.
We’ve also heard the rumour that coil wicks made from silica will expose the vaper to dangerous levels of a chemical called aldehyde. The PHE (Public Health England) tested this and reported on it in their 2018 evidence review of e-cigarettes.
What the PHE report found was that "e-cigarettes can release aldehydes if e-liquids are overheated, but the overheating generates an aversive taste."
In Summary…
Hopefully this article has explained what’s going on when your vape tastes burnt and has shown you how to avoid burnt hits and dry hits in future.
Stay safe and happy vaping!
John Boughey