You don’t always have the time to smoke an entire cigarette or whatever other herb you like to smoke. Also, even if you did, there’s just something about rolling your own cig and not paying $15 or more for a bag of smokes, right?
So, what do you do to avoid all this hassle and inconvenience? Well, you use a dugout – preferably a wooden one.
However, there’s one thing we’ve come to notice over time, and that’s that people don’t really know how to properly use a dugout. And, since they don’t know how to use it – they’re scared of it.
Well, today, we’re going to help you overcome your fears. Every fear comes from the lack of knowledge, so we’ll teach you how to use a dugout, and who knows, maybe you’ll learn a few other things in the process.
If you’re ready – let’s light it up.
What Is A Dugout?
A dugout is essentially an all-in-one solution, around four or five inches tall, and it serves one purpose and one purpose only – to store one-hitter pipes and herbs you’re hitting on.
A dugout is an excellent choice for anyone that likes to come out for a quick hit and doesn’t want to or doesn’t have the time to smoke for 15 minutes or more.
Every dugout has a few separate compartments and parts, and while they differ in shape, type, material, and design, essentially – they’re all the same thing.
So, let’s check out a standard dugout, like the one you can find at https://smokea.com/collections/dugouts.
A standard dugout format would be a wooden box with a swivelling or sliding top, covering the three separate compartments housed inside of the body of this neat little device. Once you open up the top (the swivelling thing), you’ll notice three separate compartments or chambers – however you want to call them.
The first chamber is a slim, narrow chamber that’s just big enough to store a one-hitter pipe. Usually, you’d find a little pop-up spring at the bottom of this one because you can’t quite fish the pipe out of this snug compartment, so you have to push it out with a spring.
The second chamber is slightly wider, and this one’s actually the namesake of this entire device – the dugout. This one’s used to store ground, dry tobacco or other herbs of your choosing.
The third chamber is the one housing a cleaning tool.
And, that’s it!
How To Properly Use A Wooden Dugout?
Now that we know exactly what a dugout is and we’ve gotten familiar with its parts – let’s learn how to use one. Shall we?
Grind The Herbs
First things first – you have to grind your herbs. While you may not need to fine grind your herbs if you were to just roll them up and smoke them, it is absolutely necessary for you to grind the herbs if you want to fit them in a dugout.
There are two reasons you will want to do this.
The first reason you have to grind down your smoking herbs is pretty straightforward, and it’s to fit more of it in. While larger chunks might look more appealing, they’re not quite space-efficient. So, if you don’t want to refill your dugout too often – just grind down your herbs.
The second and arguably more important reason to grind down your herbs is for them to better fit the head of a one-hitter pipe. You see, the larger chunks can’t quite fill up the tip nicely. There will be too much air and unused space if you try and fill the tips with the chunky herb. Also, the finer the herb’s ground, the easier it is to smoke.
Fill Up The Dugout
After you’ve ground your herbage down – it’s time to fill up the dugout.
This will be a bit harder than it seems, but you’ll get the hang of it in just a few tries.
First of all, forget about sprinkling the herbs down the chamber. You will spill the spice all over, and it will take you a long time to fill up the dugout. Instead, try this instead.
Grab a piece of hard paper and fold it in half. You can use something like a business card, but if you don’t have hard paper – any piece of paper will do.
Anyway, fold the paper in half and fill it with herbs. Then, carefully, slide one end of the folded paper onto the dugout opening and slowly pour the herb in. You may dab the herb down the chamber a bit so you can add more, but don’t overdo it because if you do – you won’t be able to get it out.
Fill Up The Pipe
After the dugout’s been filled with the spice of your choice – it’s time to fill up the pipe.
Filling up the pipe will be very easy and fast. All you’ll have to do is pop out your pipe, grab it, and slide it down the dugout head-down. The tip or the head of the pipe will have a small cavity that holds the spice.
As you’re pushing down the dugout, twist the pipe simultaneously. This should help you fill up the head of the one-hitter pretty evenly.
Also, don’t be scared to put some pressure on the pipe while you’re twisting. Don’t overdo it, as you don’t want the herb to be too tightly packed, so you can’t smoke or clean it afterwards, but still add some force to it.
Light It Up
Now, for the fun part – lighting it up.
To be fair, we don’t really have to teach you how to do that, right? Just light it up, take a puff and enjoy your 30 seconds.
Clean The Pipe
After you’re done smoking, you’ll have to clean the pipe immediately. You don’t want to keep any herb inside your pipe. Not only is it unsanitary, but also, if you don’t clean it right away – it’ll stick.
Remember, the head of the pipe is really small, so if anything sticks to it, it’ll be very hard to clean it out.
Use tools you have in the third chamber to clean the pipe, and just give it a good blow from the other end to really clear things out.
Then, you just have to repeat the process!
Conclusion
There you go. Who knew smoking could be so fast, easy, and satisfying?
We think we’ve made it pretty clear how convenient wooden dugouts are and how easy they’re to use. Hopefully, you agree.
