Month: July 2007

Name your biggest Hookah Hassle

Take a cigarette out of the pack, light up and smoke, your finished. If you are a chain smoker you only need one match to light 2 or three packs in a day, you just light the end of your first cigarette butt to the next ciggie in the pack.

¬† With a cigar its hard to do that so you’ll¬† need to light each one as you smoke (no major hassle there).

A pipe smoker has his things to prepare  and fix as he smokes like packing the pipe well, tamping it down, and sometimes re-lighting.

In hookah smoking the preparation takes longer the mainteience also while you smoke and the cleaning up afterwards. (That’s simplified of course).

So what is your biggest problem, your pet peeve, your hookah hassle?

Mine are usually anything to do with the coals. I’m using lately a charcoal brand which is quick lighting type, leaves a bit of charcoal taste sometimes, smokes, sputters and smells bad when lighting it up, dirties the room with soot and often not will explode into 2¬† flying pieces if I’m lucky. Sometimes even more and I have to run quickly to pick up 4-5 or moor pieces of burning coal.

That’s bad enough. The simple solution is to get another type of coal, but the company that I buy from which has great service and really quick shipping¬† is often out of the high class quick coals or only stocks that one kind while they are very big in variety when it comes to shisha tobacco and hookahs and the service is great with cheap competitive prices.

Still I’m left with the coal problem

With sparking or exploding coals I just fashioned a 10 inch ring  around the coal burner and the top open to let out the smoke. This keeps flying sparks and pieces in and my floor is cleaner.

Playing with the metal tongs sometimes is a hassle. The coal first burns well at the top and I either need to wait a bit about a minute for it to burn all over evenly, or turn it upside down which I find is tomuch wrist action for¬† me with one hand using the tong. So simply use two ,one in each hand.(Don’t try flipping it like they do when making pizza or an egg omlette.) While I used to be great flipping an egg omlette in the¬† air about 5 feet high and catching it cooked side up with a spatula, don’t try it with a burning coal).

Another peeve is when I’m toward the end of the session and I’m getting little¬† smoke. Is there any shisha left to burn? Or maybe I need to add a half coal, or what? Would be great if the tobacco bowl would be clear but even then you wouldn’t be able to see if its cooked shisha or fresh down left at the bottom.

I’ve mentioned things to do in these situations in previous posts.

You’ll have to experiment. Usually if the tobacco is high class premium¬† they smoke 15-25 minutes longer than the regular type brand, you should know to add coal.

Hookah 1

How many holes in your foil to punch?

There are many, many opinions about how many holes to puch in your foil or where to punch.

It depends on what you are punching with. A needle will make the tiniest holes, a tooth pick a bit bigger and what is usually used is the attatchment to the hookah tongs, the metal long needle like thing. Those make even larger holes.

The problem with holes too small is that they can be blocked as you smoke by ash. For that, some people just make that many more  holes just in that case, but you could be defeating your purpose ifthey do NOT get blocked.

Also, how big is your bowl? Are you using a double 2 headed bowl which has¬† a very narrow diameter? Then you need to puch less holesfor sure in each foil. Maybe you area few friends smoking on a multi-hosed hookah and using one of the very,very big “party bowls” which Smoing-Hookah.com sells. You’ll need much more holes for that baby.

The “normal” sized bowl should have as many holes punched so that you get a good suction when you pull. Too little amount of holes and your shisha tobacco could burn. (You’ll see the smoke rising). Or too many holes and you’llhave poor suction.

Play around, experiment. Each tobacco bowl has its own needs. Suction is the key. Make sure that as fun as it may be to puch a lot of holws in the foil that you don’t do so many that you will have a weak suction.

Where should the holes be? The biggest percentageshould be in the very middle since the sides of the bowl are not as deep as you go further to the edge. I’ve often punched holes¬† on the very outside, but found the shisha burns there and thesuction weaker.

Punch more in the middle and out toward the sides but not to the edges. Again, experiment and see what is right for you.

Hookah 1

Make your own Filter DIFFUSER

A water diffusser is a filter inside your water bowl attatched to the very bottom of the shaft stem.

Heba company makes a great one which you can buy online.

A diffusser does a few things.

It filters the water fromany small particles which came down the shat as a result of pulling pressure from the pipe and would otherwise go into your hose or mouth.

It also filters nicotine and tar , just like the water does itself, but even more so.

As a result, using a diffusser you will see that the bubbles are smaller when you suck, the noise is much less and the suctionpull is more even.

Want to make your own?

Buy a pack of drinking straws- only the kind that bend will do.

First you must cut the straws to size.

Put as many straws (3-4) as will comfortably fit into the bottom of the metal shaft . (Put the small,bottom side) into the shaft as many as will fit snugly and then cut the other size according to the size of your bowl so that you may bend them each in a different direction inside the bowl .

Keep in mind that the straws have to fit inside of the water bowl¬† at the top where you have less room than inside the bowl. Also, don’t cut themso that as you put the sft into the bowl upon adding water that they hit and mash on the bottom of the bowl.¬† You want them to lightly hit the bottom and branch out. I got four small straws in, but keep in mind the size of your hokah bowl and the shat. 2 could be fine or even 3.

Its fine if you want each straw to bend as far as the sie glass of the bowl.

Add water, assemble your hookah and smoke. Of course the straws will not filter any nicotine or tar, but they will filter any small pieces in the water.Its a great idea if you want a more even pull onyour toke, or want to cut down on the size of the bubbles made along with its noise.

Hookah 1

Result:

I just did this. Upon adding the straws, I found them too long and cut a bit more so that they hit the glass bowl bottom and splay outward.

The end result…

I see a major change. The suction is stronger than ever I’ve felt, the bubbles are smaller and the noise of them is down, but there are many small bubbles as the pull is coming from the very bottom of the bowl. Its great.

The water is not bouncing up as high toward the rubber grommet and the two holes where it could get into the hose.

I feel that the shisha tobacco taste is even better than before.The smoke is also much thicker.

Try it.

Hookah 1