Burn Baby Burn

[DeeBee37]

Hey guys,
So maybe i'm a moron, I dunno.
Everytime I smoke a bowl, I seem to always end up burning my shisha.
I've been using mostly Romman and Al Waha shisha. I have a standard bowl that comes with orders at HS.com. I have both 33 and 40 golden coals. I've used both tinfoil, and a screen, with a windcover, and without. I don't know what i'm doing wrong!!
If anyone could give me some advice on how to stop burning it, or how to properly pack a bowl, or anything that might help, I would appreciate it so much!
Thanks in advance.

[mattarios2]

Hey guys,
So maybe i'm a moron, I dunno.
Everytime I smoke a bowl, I seem to always end up burning my shisha.
I've been using mostly Romman and Al Waha shisha. I have a standard bowl that comes with orders at HS.com. I have both 33 and 40 golden coals. I've used both tinfoil, and a screen, with a windcover, and without. I don't know what i'm doing wrong!!
If anyone could give me some advice on how to stop burning it, or how to properly pack a bowl, or anything that might help, I would appreciate it so much!
Thanks in advance.

Well first off you could just be having bad luck b/c of the tobacco, I personally don't like either of those brands so that could be your issue num 1. Secondly, do you rotate the coals often at the beginning of the bowl to heat the entire bowl up? You don't want to plop the coals on and then let them sit, that will aid in burning that spot of shisha. You wanna move it around alot in the beginning to heat the entire bowl. Also I prefer Naturals over QL's. Since you are using QL's crack the coals into pieces and put pieces on opposite ends of the bowl. Some crack into 1/4's and some 1/2's. When i smoked QL's I did 1/4's 1/4 on each side opposite from eachother.

Hope this all helps.

[hookah hippie]

All in the technique my friend

take your tobacco and loosely fluff it in the bowl and cover with foil

screens are crap

then poke holes in the foil with a toothpick add a coal and if that is too hot try splitting the coal in half that might help

practice makes perfect

[ryno]

I'll see what I can do to help you..

Don't have the coal in the middle, keep it on the edges.
I've never had Romman so I dont know there, but I've had AlWaha, and I used 2 33mm 3Kings and it never burned.

When packing the bowl, don't pack the shisha, just fluff it in there. Don't make your holes too big in the foil, I use either a toothpick or a thumbtack. Don't use a screen

[KingTaco]

I always assumed I'd done a poor packing job when my shisha burned. I find that when I tend towards less shisha burning is never an issue. I use a screen, a medium size bowl and am admittedly lazy about shifting my coal. I've also been making more of an effort to spread the shisha out and keep it "fluffy".

[imfantabulous]

sounds like your problem lies in packing the bowl, try putting less tobacco in there without letting it touch the foil, in some cases when the tobacco touches the foil, heat management doesnt even matter.

[ilikemyusername]

and how many coals are you using, because i smoke Al Waha and i've noticed it almost CANT burn.
like everyone else has said, fluff your shisha into the bowl, no packing it in there, this will only make the shisha fluff up later and smush into the foil and burn.
lots of small holes in the foil, i mean alot, when you think youve got enough, poke it some more!a few large ones wouldnt hurt either, but you'll end up making big holes naturally if you do enough small holes. remember, the more holes in the foil the better the shisha can cool down.
as far as screens go, i don't have much experience with them, but i do have one around here someplace......aah here it is, ... yeah, i wouldn't use one!
as far as the coals you have, i would suggest breaking 1 in half and placing both halves on the edge of the bowl.
if its not enough heat to give you those thunderous cumulonimbus clouds of alwaha throw on another.
and remember if you use a windcover, unless its REALLY tall you have to play with those too, let it stay on for a couple minutes, off a couple etc.

good luck and i hope you have a great session today.

[DeeBee37]

Hey guys,
Between fluffing the tobacco (I was packing it, didn't even think that it would fluff itself up in the smoking process), breaking the coal apart, and poking more holes, I have had a highly more enjoyable smoking session.
Thanks for all your help!

[ilikemyusername]

thats what we do.

[ronald_dooley]

...

Getting your sessions to last long with lots of flavor is an art. These forums can give you guidance and ideas, but ultimately there is no "silver bullet" for all situations. You really do have to "wing it" and find what works best for you. A few things do help: a quality hookah with good airflow, a wide hose, a phunnel bowl, and quality coals.

If I had to guess, I'm guessing that when you remove the foil, you have burnt shisha on top, but wet shisha on the bottom after an hour? This shouldn't be happening.

For me, lately I've been using a method that works very well for me. I have a small phunnel, and I smoke wet shishas. My faves these days are Potion and AF. What I do is I make three rings of small, toothpick sized holes. Two full rings around the edge that are fairly close together and one sparse ring of five holes around the main hole, like so...

[attachment=1877:phunnel_..._cocos_2.JPG]

I didn't draw all the holes because I have a life, but you get the picture. I use three cocos, like so...

[attachment=1876:phunnel_...es_cocos.JPG]

After it gets warm and I start getting smoke, I take very short, hard pulls. Before taking another pull, I purge and then take another short, hard pull. This seems to get me huge, flavorful clouds. It allows just enough heat to build up for one second, to get good clouds.... but it cools down before your shisha heats up too much. Then you purge and your shisha is ready for another pull. I rotate the cocos every five mins or so to prevent any one spot from getting too hot. With this method, I can go through 2 sets of 3 cocos for a few hours and never get bad smoke. Full, flavorful, vaporous, face-hiding smoke! When I take the foil off, the top layer of shisha is blackened and crisp, but the bottom layer is fairly dry, too. To me, this is the sign of a successful session.

I've watched all the vids from snoopy, voski, codename067 and others, and for me, the holes they use are too big. As you can see... your mileage may vary. It really is an art and a very individual one at that. Just my 2 cents.

- Ronald

This is probably a better place to put the above post.