Storz & Bickel Crafty+: The Complete Guide

The 30-Second Version

What it is: Storz & Bickel's pocketable session vape. Same hybrid convection-conduction heater as the Mighty+, same German engineering, same PEEK cooling unit, wrapped in a smaller shell with a single battery instead of two. Three on-device temperature presets, 1°C precision via the S&B Web App, 135g in your jacket pocket.

Who it's for: Light-to-moderate users who want desktop-quality vapour in a pocket device. UK medical patients who need reliable extraction and S&B's medical lineage. Existing Mighty+ owners who want a travel companion with an identical vapour signature. Festival-goers and outdoor types who need S&B quality that fits in a jeans pocket.

Who should skip it: Heavy users who need six or more bowls in a day without a charging break. People who want on-demand sipping (this is a session vape, full stop). Buyers who want the 3-year warranty extension that Mighty+ owners get — the Crafty+ is explicitly excluded from that programme. Anyone who considers £186.99 a bit rich for a device with middling battery life.

The honest truth: For the 4–5 bowls you get per charge, the Crafty+ genuinely outplays anything in its price class. Identical vapour to the Mighty+, German build, medical-grade materials, and a form factor that actually disappears into a pocket. Then the battery dies and Stockholm syndrome is real — you accept the charging ritual because the vapour is that good.

I've been rinsing one of these for the better part of two years. I've lost two O-rings down the kitchen sink, killed the battery mid-session during a Sunday roast, and accumulated an embarrassing collection of USB-C cables in every room of the house. It's not a perfect vape. It's a very good one that demands you meet it halfway — and the rest of this guide is how you do exactly that.

Before You Start — Authenticity, Break-In & Storage

Is Yours Real?

Counterfeits are more heavily documented for the Mighty than the Crafty+, but the clones exist and eBay is where they mostly live. Five quick checks before you touch the herb:

• The serial sticker — on the back it should be semi-gloss, perfectly centred, with crisp black print. Off-centre, matte, or lighter-shade black is a fake tell.
• Country of origin — the box should say "Made in Germany". A "Made in China" sticker anywhere on the packaging is game over.
• The vibration — genuine units vibrate strongly and distinctly on heat-up; fakes vibrate weakly or not at all.
• Unit toggle — the genuine Crafty+ switches between °C and °F in the Web App; some counterfeits are stuck in one unit.
• Holographic cap lock — the cooling-unit cap lock should carry a 3D S&B logo that shifts when you tilt it. A flat black sticker is the fake giveaway.

There is no official S&B serial-number authentication page. Your best protection is buying from an authorised UK distributor — HerbVape.co.uk or another authorised UK retailer — and registering the device at storz-bickel.com/registration within four weeks of purchase.

Breaking It In

This is non-negotiable. Before you load a single flake of herb, charge the unit fully (it ships at around 80%), then triple-click to engage Super-Boost (210°C) and let the device run empty until it auto-shuts off. Repeat at least once. If any plastic or rubbery odour lingers, the O-rings in the cooling unit are the usual culprit — rinse them in hot water, dry thoroughly, and run another burn-off cycle. Skip this step and your first real session will taste like the inside of a Tuttlingen factory.

Storing It Between Sessions

Store the Crafty+ upright, at room temperature, away from direct sunlight. Lithium-ion hates heat, and the Crafty+'s battery is already the weakest link — leaving it in a hot car on a July afternoon is the fastest way to knacker it. If you're not using it for more than a couple of weeks, store it at around 50–60% charge rather than full or empty. And for the love of everything, take the herb out of the chamber when you're done. Leaving a loaded Crafty+ sitting around does nothing for flavour and everything for cooling-unit gunk.

Full Specifications

First Impressions

The Crafty+ arrives in that matte S&B cardboard that feels like it should contain a surgical instrument, and in a sense it does. The device itself is reassuringly dense for its size — 135g sounds light on paper but feels heavier in the hand than the spec sheet suggests. The plastic is the same matte polymer S&B uses on the Mighty+, slightly grippy, entirely unshowy. One button on the front, the S&B logo on the side, and that's the lot. No screen, no RGB, no gimmicks. It looks like something a German engineer designed on a Wednesday afternoon and called done.

The first time I pulled mine out in a pub garden, a mate asked if it was a hearing aid case. That's the aesthetic. The Crafty+ is inconspicuous in the way expensive tools are — nothing about it screams cannabis or even electronics. Slip it into a jacket pocket and it disappears in a way the Mighty+ simply can't. This is the entire reason the Crafty+ exists and the entire reason people keep buying it.

The cooling unit is where the build quality really lives. Unscrew it from the top of the device and you're holding a piece of precision-moulded PEEK plastic with eight individual O-rings inside. Eight. I know because I've counted them, and I've counted them because I've lost two — one down the kitchen sink during a cleaning session, one into the void of my living room sofa never to be seen again. S&B ships spares, but you will become intimately familiar with those O-rings whether you want to or not.

What Makes It Tick — The Engineering That Matters

The hybrid heater (same as the Mighty+): the Crafty+ is not primarily a convection vaporiser, even though every marketing sheet implies it is. What S&B builds is a hybrid heat exchanger that is conduction at rest, convection on demand. The chamber walls pre-heat the herb while the device sits at temperature; when you draw, hot air is pulled through the bowl and convection kicks in. This is meaningfully different from a convection-dominant ripper like the TinyMight 2. The upshot: full extraction is efficient, the device isn't technique-sensitive in the way pure convection devices are, and the temperature shown is oven-chamber temperature — the vapour at your lips arrives significantly cooler, which is why Super-Boost at 210°C still feels comfortable.

The PEEK cooling unit is a labyrinth of channels moulded from the same medical-grade thermoplastic found in surgical implants and aerospace components. It survives repeated heat cycles without off-gassing and cools the vapour so effectively that a Super-Boost hit at 210°C feels close to body temperature on the lips. The flip side: that same labyrinth is ruthlessly good at trapping resin. Within 10–20 sessions of normal use you'll notice draw resistance climbing and flavour dulling — that's the cooling unit asking to be cleaned, and the process involves all eight of those O-rings. Welcome to the ritual.

The single battery is one 2800 mAh cell running at 3.7V nominal — about 10.4 watt-hours, which matters if you fly. It charges via USB-C in about 90 minutes, with fast-charge getting you to roughly 80% in the first half hour. Unlike the original Crafty, the Crafty+ does not support pass-through charging: plug it in while it's heating and the heater pauses. S&B made this change deliberately to protect battery longevity. It's the right engineering call, but it means you can't vape and charge simultaneously. My own unit lives around 4 bowls on a good day.

The ceramic-coated chamber (2021+ only): every Crafty+ sold from 2021 onwards has a ceramic coating over an aluminium substrate. Pre-2021 models had a bare aluminium bowl that picky flavour chasers felt could taint the vapour. Buy new from an authorised UK dealer and you're getting the ceramic version; buy used and you should ask, because it's the single most significant improvement the Crafty+ has received since its 2019 launch.

What's not in the box (and should be): no case. You get a spare screen set, a cleaning brush, a stir tool, a USB-C cable, and a short manual. For a £186.99 device with a delicate cooling unit, it's mean to ship without a protective case. Budget another £22 for the official S&B carry case if you actually plan to move the thing around.

The Knack — How to Actually Get the Best From It

Every device has a knack, and the Crafty+'s is all about draw technique. If you come to this device from combustion or a bong, you'll instinctively pull hard and fast, and the Crafty+ will punish you for it. The heater is working harder than on the Mighty+ because it only has one battery to power it, and a fast draw drops the chamber temperature faster than the element can compensate. The LED ring flips from green back to red, vapour thins, and the common new-owner conclusion is "this vape is weak."

It's not weak. You're just drawing wrong.

1. Watch the LED during every draw. Keep it green. If it flips red, slow down or pause the inhale for a second, let the heater catch up, then resume. Within two or three sessions this becomes automatic.
2. Mind the auto-shutoff timer. The Crafty+ shuts down two minutes after the last detected draw by default. Most people fall foul of this mid-conversation. Bump the timer to 5 minutes in the Web App, or press the button briefly during pauses to reset the countdown.
3. Load while heating. The Crafty+ takes around 60 seconds to reach 180°C from cold. Press the button first, then grind and pack while it comes up. By the time you've tamped the bowl, the double vibration arrives and you're ready. Wasted downtime is the enemy of a small-battery device.

Experienced owners can tell the difference between a green-lit draw and a red-lit draw in the density of the first exhale. Get The Knack right and the vapour comes out dense and consistent — get it wrong and you'll blame a device that was doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Grinding for the Crafty+

Medium grind, consistently, every time. Think coarse sea salt or ground coffee — not powder, not whole nugs. The Crafty+ is a hybrid heater with a small chamber: convection needs airspace between particles to carry vapour, conduction needs surface contact with the chamber walls, and a medium grind is the compromise that lets both work. Too fine and the herb clogs the screens or falls through into the heater assembly; too coarse and you get uneven extraction with dry pockets that never fully cook.

• Brilliant Cut Grinder (medium plate) — £70–£90 — interchangeable plates, threadless latch, and the grind it produces is uncannily consistent. The gold standard if you've got the budget.
• Santa Cruz Shredder 4-piece (2" or 2.5") — the default mid-range recommendation across the community, with a lifetime warranty on the teeth. The one most owners end up on.
• Any quality 4-piece aluminium grinder — around £15 — the Crafty+ is forgiving enough that a decent budget grinder from a reputable retailer won't hold you back.

Pack the bowl to the rim but don't compress it. A light tamp with the flat end of the fill tool, not a pestle-and-mortar squash. Over-packing is the second most common new-owner mistake after drawing too fast — it restricts airflow, extracts the top layer while the bottom stays raw, and generally makes the device feel less capable than it is. Fill, light tamp, done.

Temperature & Strain Guide 40–210°C

Three-stage stepping I run daily: start at 180°C for the first four or five draws; when the vapour perceptibly thins, double-click to 195°C for another two or three hits; triple-click to 210°C for the final one or two draws to clean out the bowl. Dump the ABV into a tin for edibles later. Never stir mid-session on the Crafty+ — it breaks the temperature ladder and wastes heat. The three factory presets are designed to be stepped through in exactly this order, and you don't need the Web App to do it.

Advanced Techniques & The S&B Web App

The Crafty+ does not receive firmware updates — worth stating upfront because it confuses people coming from the Venty. The S&B Web App can update firmware on the Venty and Volcano Hybrid, but not the Crafty+. It's a sealed-firmware device: what it shipped with is what it stays with.

What the Web App does give you is genuinely useful: full 1°C precision across the 40–210°C range, an actual battery-percentage readout (the device itself has no battery meter beyond the LED colour), adjustable auto-shutoff from 1 to 5 minutes, and a "find my device" vibration alert. On Android, install the native S&B app from the Play Store or use app.storz-bickel.com in Chrome. On iOS you need a workaround — Apple removed all vaporiser-related apps from the App Store in late 2022, so the fix is installing a Bluetooth-capable browser like Bluefy (£1.59) or WebBLE, then using app.storz-bickel.com through that. It works, but it's more friction than iPhone users expect.

Honestly, after the initial setup — bumping the session timer to 5 minutes and maybe nudging the LED brightness down — most experienced owners rarely open the app again. The three factory presets cover 95% of real-world use. The app earns its keep mainly for medical users who need precise temperature targeting, or for flavour chasers running experiments at 160–175°C.

The water pipe adapter: if the Crafty+ is your home device and you own a glass piece, a 14mm or 18mm WPA turns the vapour experience into something else entirely at higher temperatures — around £15–25 from herbvape.co.uk. Water cools and filters the vapour, letting you run at 205°C with no harshness. It also pins the Crafty+ to one spot, which is the opposite of why you bought it, so treat it as a home nice-to-have.

The stainless steel cooling unit (around £59) replaces the stock PEEK unit with a metal vapour path and usually a glass or titanium mouthpiece. It reduces plastic in the path, improves cooling further, and is dramatically easier to clean. If you're sensitive to plastic flavours or just want the cleanest possible vapour, it's the single best upgrade you can make to a Crafty+.

Cleaning, Maintenance & Warranty

Right, here's where we get properly honest. The Crafty+ cooling unit is a resin trap — the price you pay for that silky vapour, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

• After every session: while the device is still warm, wipe the chamber with a cotton bud dampened with 91%+ isopropyl alcohol. Twenty seconds, and the single most effective habit for keeping the Crafty+ performing like new. Warm residue comes off easily; cold residue requires a full disassembly.
• Every 10–15 sessions: strip the cooling unit — unscrew it, separate the top and bottom halves, remove the mouthpiece, push out the screens.
• Screens and O-rings: consumables — replace every few months with regular use. Spares are in the box.

The deep clean: soak everything except the O-rings and the holographic cap lock in a small jar of IPA for at least two hours. The O-rings get a hot-water rinse only — alcohol degrades the rubber compound over time. The cap lock stays out of the IPA entirely because alcohol dissolves the adhesive on the hologram sticker. Rinse everything in hot water, dry thoroughly, reassemble, and run a burn-off cycle to drive off any residual IPA. Clean on a flat surface over a white towel and count the O-rings before and after — I once lost two down the kitchen sink in a single session because I was cleaning next to an uncapped drain.

Warranty — read this carefully: the Crafty+ carries a 2-year warranty, and here's the part almost no affiliate review mentions: the Crafty+ is explicitly excluded from the 3-year registration extension that applies to the Mighty+ and Volcano Hybrid. If a retailer tells you "register within four weeks for a free third year," they're wrong about the Crafty+ specifically. S&B's support documentation was updated in January 2026 to make this exclusion explicit. You get two years. That's the whole story.

This matters because the Crafty+'s most common failure mode is battery degradation, which tends to become noticeable between 1.5 and 2 years of heavy daily use. Register your device immediately, keep your receipt, and keep an eye on battery performance during year two — a claim inside warranty usually results in a full unit replacement. To start one through herbvape.co.uk, email info@herbvape.co.uk with your order number, serial, and a short description.

Real Talk — What Actual Owners Say

Accessories Worth Buying

• Dosing Capsule Set (40 pcs, ~£13–17) — perforated stainless steel capsules that sit in the chamber, reduce effective capacity to 0.10–0.15g, and keep the chamber dramatically cleaner. Compatible across Crafty+, Mighty+, and Venty. Pre-load at home, drop one in, vape, discard. Roughly doubles the time between deep cleans and makes microdosing practical.
• Spare Cooling Unit Set (~£8 for a 3-pack) — you will need spares. The O-rings get lost, the PEEK eventually needs replacing, and a clean unit ready while one soaks keeps you operational during cleaning cycles.
• Stainless Steel Cooling Unit (~£59) — third-party metal replacement with a glass or titanium mouthpiece. Cleaner vapour path, easier cleaning, better flavour. The single biggest upgrade you can make.
• Water Pipe Adapter (~£15–25) — turns the Crafty+ into a home bong companion, cooling and filtering vapour at high temperatures. Best for home sessions.
• Crafty+ Carry Case (~£22) — semi-hard shell for travel. Should have been in the box. Since it isn't, buy one.

Skip: concentrate pads if you're primarily a dry-herb user (the Crafty+'s strength is flower — concentrates are messy and cleaning-intensive on it), and generic "universal" WPAs from unknown third parties (the cooling unit has a precise locking ring that cheap adapters can strip). Stick to reputable sources.

How It Compares

If you're weighing the Crafty+ against the obvious alternatives, here's the short version. The Mighty+ is the same vapour with double the battery and a bigger body — buy it if you need more than five bowls a day or want the 3-year warranty extension. The Venty is the natural upgrade for owners who've outgrown the session limit: faster heat-up, adjustable airflow, a bigger bowl, and firmware updates, for about £118 more. The Arizer Solo 3 is the flavour purist's pick with an all-glass path and longer battery life, but it's fussier about draw technique. And the Veazy is S&B's cheaper pocketable if you want to stay in the family for less.

The honest answer versus the Mighty+: same vapour, bigger battery, bigger body. Buy the Crafty+ if pocket carry is non-negotiable; buy the Mighty+ if you need more than five bowls a day without a charging pause or if the 3-year warranty extension matters to you. The vapour signature is genuinely identical — don't let anyone tell you otherwise.