How to Prime Your Coil in 3 Easy Steps

Every time you replace your coil, you’ll need to prime it first. Here, we’ll explain how to prime your coil in 3 easy steps. Say goodbye to that horrible burnt taste!

If you’ve ever popped in a new coil and vaped straight away, you’re probably familiar with the horrible, charred, chemical-y taste of a burnt coil. If you don’t prime your coil correctly, you risk burning it along with whatever money you spent on it.

Don’t worry: you’re not alone.

It’s incredibly easy to prime your coil—once you know how to do it, you’ll be able to prime every coil in the book.

Why do you need to prime your coil?

Imagine you’ve got a kitchen sponge—one that’s so dry that a drop of water would take several seconds to be absorbed.

Now, imagine you hold that sponge over an open flame. Instead of steaming up as it would if it were damp, the sponge will likely just catch fire.

This is essentially why you must always prime your coil the first time you install it.

Inside your coil, you have something called a wicking material (for the sake of the analogy, think of it as the sponge), which is an absorbent substance that sucks up the E-Liquid from your tank or vape pod. When put in contact with the wiring inside your coil, the E-Liquid absorbed into the wicking material is then vaporised.

But if your wicking material is dry, or if it hasn’t had enough time to be properly saturated, it’ll burn. And once you’ve dry-burnt a coil, there’s no saving it. You’ll have to replace it, even if it’s brand new.

This is why it’s imperative to prime your coil every time you replace it with a new one, as an undersaturated wick will burn and ruin the entire coil.

Can you over-prime your coil?

While you can obviously under-do it when it comes to priming your coil, you can also overdo it.

If you over-prime your coil, you risk upsetting the vacuum inside your tank or pod, which serves to keep the E-Liquid inside (where it belongs). Over-priming your coil can have some nasty results, including leaking issues and spitback from your mouthpiece, which can leave you with an unpleasant mouthful of hot E-Liquid. Yuck.

To avoid overdoing it, follow our instructions and don’t apply the E-Liquid too liberally. You shouldn’t have any issues if you keep your priming to a minimum.

How to Prime Your Coil

Let’s get into the 3 basic steps for how to prime your coil.

It’s important to note that even if we don’t cover your specific vape kit or replacement coils in this article, the rules will apply to just about every coil out there. Once you’ve got the basics down, you’ll have everything you need to start priming away.

Step 1: Wet the Cotton

First, take your new coil out of the packaging, and open the bottle of E-Liquid you plan on filling your tank or pod with.

Along the outside of your coil, you should see a few holes with exposed white material: this is your coil’s wicking material.

Take the opened bottle of E-Liquid and place one or two drops maximum on each hole you can see. You’ll notice how quickly the wick begins to absorb those drops—soon enough, with one or two more steps, your coil will be ready to go!

Step 2: Wait 5 Minutes

Waiting is the hardest part—we know.

But the best way to ensure that your wick is fully saturated is to let it sit in a filled tank or pod for at least 5 minutes before you start using it. That way, it gets a chance to absorb as much E-Liquid as it can before it comes in contact with the heat of the coil.

It’s best practice to do this with just about every coil out there, from the coils built into Elf Bar Mate 500 Pre-Filled Pods to sub-ohm tanks. Regardless of what type of device or tank you’re using, you should always give the coil time to saturate before you use it.

Step 3 (Optional): Pull

This step is optional—but if you want to speed up the priming process, or if you’re having trouble getting your wicking material to saturate just by simply letting it sit in the juice, you can try this step on top of the previous steps.

Now, it’s very easy for this step to go wrong (to misfire, if you will). To ensure you don’t accidentally fire your vape and burn your coil in the process, make sure that you turn it off first—or better yet, remove your pod or tank from the vape battery and set it aside. You won’t need it just yet.

To help prime your coil with this method, ensure that your vape is turned off, place your lips against the mouthpiece, and inhale somewhat sharply. If your device has adjustable airflow, keep it almost fully closed while you do this step. It’ll feel odd to draw on it without producing any vapour, but there’s a reason this trick works.

Remember how we mentioned that there was a vacuum inside your tank/pod? When you inhale on the mouthpiece without it being connected to the power, you’re helping to draw the E-Liquid into the wicking material faster.

Doing this a few times will speed up the process of priming your coil. If you do decide to try this method, ensure that you’re not pulling hard enough to bring any E-Liquid up through the mouthpiece—which, as we mentioned, can lead to leaking and spitting from your vape.

This method alone is usually not enough to prime your coil. You’ll have to do this in conjunction with the previous steps—especially step 2—to ensure that your coil is fully saturated, but this step will certainly speed up the process.

Summary: No More Burnt Coils!

So, now you know the three basic steps it takes to prime your coil. You’ll need a few drops along the exposed wicking material on the outside, and you’ll need to let it sit in a filled tank afterwards—but if you’re feeling impatient, you can also speed up the process with a few quick inhales (but make sure you’re doing it with the power turned off).

Every coil works differently, and some may take longer to saturate—which is often the case with sub-ohm coils using thicker E-Liquids like shortfills.

If you’re still struggling with how to prime your coil, feel free to contact our customer service team for some expert advice.