Licorice flavor out + tobacco import!?!

[wyteboy]

sorry to be annoying but do you guys also use lemon juice for the stem and the base??

[cypress]

Yep

[joemartin]

I use oxyclean to get out the tough/gross weirdness goop
 

[NERV]

you sure oxyclean is safe? btw does the lemon juice leave a lemon
taste? cuz my hookah is getitng old and worn and when i pull at it with
nothing in it i get a decently strong flavor of everything mixed which
ends up tatsing kinda like tea and tobacco

[John Deere]

Same here, my hookah is really old, and it particularly tastes like anise and dates (?) after I clean it, most likely from several decades of those flavours being smoked in it. I have used lemon juice but the flavour never seems to leave, I think it might be permanently impregnated in the metal. But I dont mind because I like anise, I think I would actually smoke plain anise ma'assel.
Yeah...I'm not so sure oxyclean is safe to use for that, I could be wrong.

[cypress]

Has anyone tried formula 420?

[King Mo]

I tried that stuff. It had a distinctive smell which in my opinion ruined things and certainly f'd up my hose.
Nothing beats standard washing up liquid used for washing dishes (for cleaning stem and base)
 
 

[MR Bubble]

What about a baking soda mix? maybe make a past out of it and water, brush it into the shaft and leave it over-night. Maybe? Or did someone suggest that and I missed it?
I'll try it.
M Bubble

[Seandoo]

Yeah my friend Martin suggested a few things to clean out your hookah to get rid of any tastes...

Plug up a sink or bathtub, depending on the size of your hookah. Fill
it with hot water until it submerges your hookah (oh yeah.......take
out the ball.....). Put everything in
there, completely broken down...like even take off all the grommets
(especially that top one that gets all nasty after each and every
friggen session), and soak your hookah. Don't put your tongs in there
or your ashcatcher - you'll have a fun time making them look nice
again. He tried pouring baking soda down his tube first as well as
filling part of the base with it and water...really seemed to work. I
soaked my hookah for like 3 days and it worked like a charm before I
even realized that maybe I should use baking soda since it might help.
Tried it again with bakingsoda but didn't really put that much effort
into it...soaked it for maybe 2 hours or so, and it seemed to work
alright. I still can't get that weird smell out of my base. It's kind
of disgusting...maybe because it's almost impossible to get all of the
water out of my base (looks just like the stargate base).

Anyway I've never thought about the hose getting smellstained, but I suppose it could be logical.

Also, being a trumpet player, Martin suggested getting a trumpet snake,
which is this bristly brush thing at the end of a plastic wire...it
works wonders for getting all of the gross stuff out of your pipe =)

So there's my 2 cents...

-Sean