The Storz & Bickel Crafty+ is simple to use right out of the box, and comes with some of the best instructions in the industry. We spent some time beating up the vape and app, and have some tips and tricks you won’t find in the manual.
Keep it simple
Out of the box and without the app, the Crafty+ is one of the easiest vaporizers to get started with. Storz & Bickel has programmed it with three temperatures that perfectly scale the vapor spectrum, so you don’t have to use the app to get everything out of your herbs. A single push of the power button heats to 356° F (180° C). Double click the button to increase to 383° F (195° C), and triple click it to finish things off at 410° F (210° C). After weeks of fiddling with the settings, we landed on the stock settings for almost all our sessions. Turns out you don’t need the app for the perfect session.
Reward your impatience
You won’t fall asleep waiting for your Crafty+ to heat up, but it’s not lightning fast by any means. If you’re in a hurry, you can load it while it’s heating up to save some time. Try hitting it while it’s heating up, for some super tasty, invisible vapors.
Any grind will do
The Crafty+ will vaporize any grind you throw at it, so don’t spend much time fretting over how coarse or fine your grind is. We prefer a medium grind to keep the screens from clogging. For a real treat, don’t grind at all. The Crafty+ is excellent with whole flowers. It’s tastier, easier to load, and can produce stronger sessions!
Get used to the shutoff feature
The auto-shutoff programming in the Crafty+ is some of the best. It watches for your hits, and resets the timer whenever it detects one. It doesn’t detect very gentle hits, so get a feel for how hard you need to pull to trigger the reset. If your hits aren’t spread apart more than a minute, you can stretch your session as long as you want without any fuss at all. If you want even more time between hits, use the app to increase it up to five minutes.
Where’s the battery meter?
The Crafty+ doesn’t have a quick-check battery meter, but there is one on the Android smartphone app, and this web app for iPhone users. When you power off the Crafty+, it will blink blue to indicate the current charge level. The faster it flashes, the lower the charge. You can also plug the Crafty+ in to charge, and see how fast it blinks.
Keep it clean
The Crafty+ bowl will get dirty after a few uses, especially if you leave the herbs in there after a session. Keep it clean by dumping out the bowl and brushing it out within a minute after each use. You can also use the dosing capsules to keep it clean, even if you forget to empty the bowl. Brush the bits off the mouthpiece screen, or blow through the mouthpiece to get them off.
Reclaim!
The Crafty+ cooling unit is a vapor honey factory! If you open it up after several sessions, you’ll see it building up inside. When you clean it, scrape this goo off first, and vaporize it later. It’s very potent, like concentrate, but not as tasty. If you do this regularly, put a fine screen in the mouthpiece to keep bits out of your honey.
Use the smartphone app
Apple banned all vaporizer apps in 2019, so the smartphone app for the Crafty+ is currently only available for Android phones. Storz & Bickel recently launched this web app for the iPhone. The Crafty+ is a fine vaporizer without the app, but with it you can customize the shutoff timer, fine tune the temperatures, adjust alerts on the vape and phone, and dim the Crafty+ lights. You don't need it, but it's nice to have.