Somethings Wrong Here...

[tsm29]

Hello HF,

I got my package from HS yesterday. Since the order was over $200 they threw in a mini Mya Acrylic. I figure I might as well start off with the Mini Mya as these two are my first hookahs. I go to a local hookah bar frequently and thought it was time to buy my own.

Last night, I loaded up some Nakhla Double Apple in the standard Mya bowl. Put the foil on, poked some holes and fired up a 40mm Golden Coal. The coal was red hot (with some dark grey ash on both the top and bottom) when I placed it on top the bowl. It sizzled and I drew from the hose. It produced a good amount of smoke however there was little apple taste. It was more of a licorice flavor with plastic... disgusting, yes I know. I smoked for about 15 minutes and was about the hit the floor, it was harsh as hell. I took off the coal, put it in a glass of water, unwapped the bowl and cleaned all the tobacco out. I did empty out all the water however I did not clean the hookah after this except for the bowl which I rinsed under water and washed with a paper towl.

Tonight, I tried again. I figured I might as well try the AW After Nine so I cleaned the hookah to get any grime or taste out of it from the session the night before. I used a Social Smoke cleaning kit and cleaned it for about 15 minutes (the shaft, downstem and the base). I didn't clean the hose due to the "rusting" stories I hear about the Mya hoses. I instead blew through it for a good 2 minutes. I loaded up some After Nine, put some foil on top and sparked another coal. It took me awhile but I finally drew some smoke. It was not thick in least bit and tasted like ass. I still got the apple/licorice taste, the plastic and now, a chemical taste (I do have Stargate Finger Coals but chose to use the Goldens as a convience). There was only a slight bit of mint chocalte. I stopped after 15 minutes. Put the coal in water, took off the foil but I didn't remove the tobacco, it's still sitting in the bowl on my table. Here's some pictures of the bowl after the coal was removed and the bowl with the foil taken off.




As you can see, the wholes are not tiny yet not large. The shisha is black on top but I can tell its still moist as hell on the bottom. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong here. I surely don't want to load up my Floweret with Starbuzz and have that screw up and taste like crap. I am looking for an experts help here, how can I improve these sessions. I'll answer any questions to the best of my ability. Thanks.

- Tyler Edited February 15, 2008 by tsm29

[Allia22]

A bit more 'baccy, 2 layers of foil, and break your coals up (before you light them! ). Try to catch a burning bowl early, you may be able to save it. If you know for sure it's too late, don't douse your coal, put it in your tray and repack a bowl! You're attempting to smoke, right?

The plastic taste may be attributed by new hoses, or maybe your shisha's old. Check the date on the stuff, first.

[SafeSearchOff]

i agree wit hte more tobacco and another later of foil, and breaking up the coals... lol

what do you poke hte holes in the foil with?

also, nakhla Dubs Apple has more of a licorice flavor than apple, thats what double apple flavor really is, like super candied apple...

[Calcartman]

I dont think you need more foil, but definitely more tobacco.

[tsm29]

Thanks for the imput guys and gals

The base actually does smell like burnt shisha as well as the stem. It's quite stinky. I use the piece on the end of the tongs as the hole poker. Wondering, how can I get the smell out of this little fella? I poured water down the shaft and downstem and just put the cleaner through them both about 10 times, back and forth. It might have cleaned out some of the grime, but the smell still remained.

Not doubting you guys, you seem to know your stuff, but what exactly does breaking the coal do? Should I use the Stargates instead?

Lastly, should I give this another go tomarrow night and wait on any use of the Floweret until I get this down? I'd like to learn how to actually use these damn things before I attemp to smoke a massive pipe. Again, thanks for the replies.

- Tyler

*EDIT* The date on both the Nakhla and Al Waha are 11/06 - 11/08. I beleive the Starbuzz is the same, maybe a tad fresher. I'm looking forward to trying X on the Beach and Tropical Fruit in the Floweret but I'd really like to get down the simple stuff first. Edited August 11, 2007 by tsm29

[SafeSearchOff]

breaking the coals helps distribute the heat more, and thusly less a chance of burnt shisha. it also helps it burn more evenly, and get more smoke since more shisha is being heated.

edit: also, how are you packing your bowls? are you doing it by hand? are yo ubreaking up the shisha as you load it in? Edited August 11, 2007 by SafeSearchOff

[tsm29]

Correct, it's by hand.

I take out a large chunk, break it up and drop it in the bowl. The same way I would smoke Dunhill out of a pipe really, I also pat it down gently, not too tight but not too loose. How far should the bowl be filled? It seemed if I filled it anymore, it would hit the tinfoil resulting in a burning of shisha, but, I already accomplished that...

Should it be even with the rim of the bowl?

[Allia22]

Try running vinegar through your stem and swishing it around your base, it does wonders for nasty hookah smells!

And I forgot to mention, if you think your bowl's starting to burn, you can take a piece or two of coal off of your bowl and let it recover a bit.

Having your shisha touch the foil isn't entirely a bad thing, you just keep in mind that there's shisha right on the other side of the foil and you're more careful about the amount of coals you put on. Which is good Edited August 11, 2007 by Allia22

[tsm29]

Alright, cool.

I'm about to head off to bed right now however I'll pick up this topic as soon as I wake up, I want to get this down pat! Again, thanks for all the help, I'll post pictures tomarrow of my first success or third failure. Good night everyone

[SafeSearchOff]

shisha touching the aluminum foil is not a problem, its how I pack all my bowls, and i get great smoke. whenever my shisha starts to get the slightest bit harsh, i immediately stop pulling and take off the coal. i have really think/wide tongs which are also flat, and i just kind of put them on the bowl to smother the shisha. after about max 1-2 minutes its ready to go again.

[The fabulous Ian]

Maybe it's just the light, but it looks like there's a divot in the foil, like after you put your coal on you pressed it downward, forcing it closer to the tobacco? If you did, you're probably burning it with too close a heat source. If you didn't...then you might consider two quicklights, one leaning over the other, to get things started. Once it starts puffing, take one off. Nakhla's also notriously dry, try adding a few drops of water and a drop or two of honey to your tobacco before packing the bowl.

When I was first getting the hang of heat management, I also found out about the foil ring trick. It gets kind of useless once you know what you're doing, but it might be a good place to start. See the youtube video of it here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=j8cpNKW0_QE

Have you tried your Floweret yet?

Also,
Cocoa Puffs ftw. Edited August 11, 2007 by The fabulous Ian

[SafeSearchOff]

also to add, it seems like alot of oyur foil holes are centralized and there are few on the outside of the bowl. try different hole combos.

[eventer289]

Another thing that works really well at removing the nasty smells out of the stem and base are to use pure lemon juice (like the little bottles you buy at the store). If you pour some of that down the stem and pluge the other end, you can dump it back and forth to clean it out. You can also use a lemon juice/water mix in the base and let it sit for a bit. That always freshens everything back up.

[Sonthert]

Double apple flavor is very sticky. Use beer. Tell your mom you need a 40 of beer to clean your hookah and drink the last 32 Oz you don't need to clean the hookah.

[lilbrownindian]

Double apple flavor is very sticky. Use beer. Tell your mom you need a 40 of beer to clean your hookah and drink the last 32 Oz you don't need to clean the hookah.

lol

[pbpredator]

Double apple flavor is very sticky. Use beer. Tell your mom you need a 40 of beer to clean your hookah and drink the last 32 Oz you don't need to clean the hookah.

hrm maybe i could convince my parents i need vodka to clean the stem... give them some sort of garbage that vodka cleans brass well? without being toxic... or something...

[tsm29]

Another thing that works really well at removing the nasty smells out of the stem and base are to use pure lemon juice (like the little bottles you buy at the store). If you pour some of that down the stem and pluge the other end, you can dump it back and forth to clean it out. You can also use a lemon juice/water mix in the base and let it sit for a bit. That always freshens everything back up.

Cool, cool.

So just drip some down the shaft and downstem then kinda scrub it with the cleaning rod? How should I rinse it afterward? I've alread put water down the shaft and then shoved the rod through it but I'm worried about it rusting. Is there a way I know that ALL the water is out?

Also, what about the hose? It still smells like burnt apple/mint/chocolate shisha.

Double apple flavor is very sticky. Use beer. Tell your mom you need a 40 of beer to clean your hookah and drink the last 32 Oz you don't need to clean the hookah.

I already have beer, and I'm not wasting it.

[nicayotte]

I think one whole coal is too much, it is apparent that you are burning the shisha....

[ASUSEAN1]

double apple is an anise flavor.. that is probably why you tasted very little apple and a lot of licorice..

fill up your base with some lemon juice (its like 99 cents), fill the rest up with some water.. let it sit for a few hours.. shake it.. noo smell. you can clean mya hoses.. run water through.. spin it, then hang it up to dry after each use. dont leave it on the hookah, it will last a lot longer if you do it this way


you will have a lot better smoke when you give the hookah a good scrub down

[Sonthert]

Double apple flavor is very sticky. Use beer. Tell your mom you need a 40 of beer to clean your hookah and drink the last 32 Oz you don't need to clean the hookah.

hrm maybe i could convince my parents i need vodka to clean the stem... give them some sort of garbage that vodka cleans brass well? without being toxic... or something...

Clever plan...don't be greedy, just go for the 175mL bottle...you can use it mixed 8:1 with water, so a shot should be enough to clean your pipe.

[tsm29]

double apple is an anise flavor.. that is probably why you tasted very little apple and a lot of licorice..

fill up your base with some lemon juice (its like 99 cents), fill the rest up with some water.. let it sit for a few hours.. shake it.. noo smell. you can clean mya hoses.. run water through.. spin it, then hang it up to dry after each use. dont leave it on the hookah, it will last a lot longer if you do it this way


you will have a lot better smoke when you give the hookah a good scrub down

So will the water take the smell out of the hose? I don't think the cleaning brush will go through the hose...

Also, about the shaft, just run lemon juice through it and scrub, then run water through an scrub?

[tsm29]

Alright, I got a 8 oz thing of "Real Lemon" lemon juice at the store. How much should I put into the base with the water?

*EDIT* So I let the base soak with lemon juice and water, it smells alot better; like fresh lemons. I put lemon juice down the shaft, put the brush through a whole bunch, put water in and scrubed it again. Then I put more lemon juice down it, and more water just to make sure it was nice and clean. The smell is pretty much all gone. However, I took my Surefire and shinned in down the shaft. It seems its not all silver and about an inch from the top, inside the shaft is what looks like a light brown rust. It could be part of the material used to contruct the shaft, but it looks like some roughness... Edited August 11, 2007 by tsm29

[tsm29]

*Update*

I just finished up my third session. It was a little better than the last too, but still really shitty. Although I cleaned it throughly with the lemon juice, it still has a "burnt" taste which leads me to believe I'm burning it again. I put a little more water in the base as well as I poked smaller holes and a few more of them. I used only one layer of tinfoil.

Heres the start, both hookah and coals...




I can taste the mint and chocolate a little better but it still tastes AND smells like burntness...
Maybe I just don't react well to mint flavors, this is my first time smoking a mint shisha and I'm use to fruity stuff so this may be one of problems. The mint seems so harsh, like a menthol cigarette and I friggin' hate those things with a passion...

The session lasted about 30 minutes and I took the coals off. Just like before I get this insane headrush, it's a shitty buzz and I just feel like crap. I took some more pictures of the coals before I took them off and the bowl. Upon taking the tinfoil off, I noticed some of shisha (which you can see in picture two) was stuck to the tin foil. At my local lounge, they use washed tobacco's, are the unwashed ones much stronger? I didn't think this should be a problem as I smoke cigarettes (Bali Shag) from time to time and get no headrushes, nothing. This just sucks...




I'm so confused still as to what the problem is. I've heard these Mya bowls aren't so great so it could be that. Maybe I should try my Stargates as these Golden Coals smell like chemicals throughout the whole session. I have a small Tangiers Phunnel with a mod and I'm wondering if I should just pop that onto the Floweret and try some Starbuzz, I'm sick of this After Nine crap. You can't tell in the picture but I did fill up the bowl with more tobacco, to the rim, very even and nice and neat. It seems as it's just a combonation of things causing this... the quicklight chemicals, burning of the tobacco. Is hookah smoking supposed to be stressful? CHRIST.

[haunt1]

I would try switching bowls and breaking your coals in half. Heat Management is a difficult thing and all sorts of things can cause issues. I've been having issues with it lately myself, and I have to keep experimenting. Have you tried a different brand of tobacco? I had some bad After Nine that burnt something fierce everytime I tried to smoke it. I'd try the Phunnel if I were you, poke lots of small holes using a toothpick and break your Goldens in half. Place one on one side, one on the other. If it starts getting harsh, take the coals off and give it a bit. If you have to stir the baccy, then do it after it cools for a couple of minutes. Be sure you pack enough Mu'ssel in the bowl toward the top though.

[SafeSearchOff]

still seems to me like its underpacked... (the bowl)

i'd got for the phunnel and the SB. up to you weather you use hte floweret or not.