underlying theories for ma’assel

[dizzing]

I thought that perhaps we (as the English speaking internet community's primary resource for accurate and specialized hookah information) should compile a thread of discussions about ma'assel.  Humidity Shock theory (and explanation), addition of glycerine or honey, types of molasses, types of tobacco, recipes, proportions, and the theory behind the interaction of the various constituents of the ma'assel.  It would be very interesting to try and compile all of this knowledge into one place and have enlightened debate regarding it, thus expanding the scope of the, uh, ma'assel paradigm(?).I guess I'll kick it off with a question.  If one were to make their own ma'assel, what would be good proportions of molasses:glycerine:honey to use, and to how much tobacco?  And, more importantly, why are these proportions ideal?  What would changing them accomplish, and how would it affect the smoke?

[yashman19]

Eh..making your own ma'assel is not  an easy task from what I
hear... I remember reading another guys try at it, and he was using
pipe tobacco mixed with honey, fruits and a few other things, and he
said it ended up being smokable, but not worth the time/money/over
taste compared to regular brands..

I only remember one other thread asking this question, but it was a while ago. I'll try and dig it up.

[yashman19]

Ok..Heres that guys website I was talking about. Read through it, and
maybe you could get some ideas:
[url="http://www.snarkdreams.com/hookah/recipesearch.html"]http://www.snarkdreams.com/hookah/recipesearch.html

And here are the two threads that I could find on it. Enjoy rumaging
through them, and I hope you come up with something for us

[url="http://hookahforum.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1676&KW"]http://hookahforum.com/forum/forum_posts.a...asp?TID=1676&KW[/url]://http://www.snarkdreams.com/hookah/r...TID=1676&KW[/url]://http://www.snarkdreams.com/hookah/r...TID=1676&KW =making+ma%27assel
[url="http://hookahforum.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1546&KW"]http://hookahforum.com/forum/forum_posts.a...asp?TID=1546&KW[/url] =making+ma%27assel://http://hookahforum.com/forum/forum_...king+ma%27assel

[Sonthert]

The logic I used when I first started trying to figure this all out "women in the Middle East figured this out and would make it at home for their husbands." So I started to try and think like I was making it in a kitchen (which I was, actually). I started by trying to make a good "foundation" or unflavored sheesha. Worrying about flavor would come later. I came to find out all the stuff you read about fresh fruit are wrong...doesn't smoke well at all...too much water. You have to cook the tobacco, and dry it out. I had always envisioned a "middle-ground" that was generic, the foundation. All companies use artificial/natural flavors for their sheesha. Everybody. Using real fruit doesn't work anywhere near as well, unless you're a PhD in Chemistry.Those links Yash...there procedures are disturbing to say the least. Icky...can't see that it would ever smoke well.

[yashman19]

Yeah, I personally think the idea of making my own tobacco would just
be a hassle, and that I should just leave it to the pros. But I thought
I would give dizzing information which has been passed around this
board.

The guy who gave step by step to his procedures though...pipe tobacco?
Eww...I don't think it would matter how much stuff he added to it, I
don't think my throat/stomach could take inhaling pipe tobacco...

[Sonthert]

The tobacco is only responsible for about 10-20% of the flavor, the rest is in the flavoring.Pipe tobacco doesn't make a difference.To amplify a previous post I made:Category A:Modifiers to the tobacco:   Molasses, honey, corn syrup, maple syrup, water (Things that change the signature of the tobacco, whether thermal, flavor, density or humidity resistance)Category B:Performance enhancers: glycerine, Propylene glycol (Things that change how well a tobacco will smoke)Category C: FlavoringsWhen you make some tobacco, you will be using one from list A and water, glycerine (from list and something from the "open-ended" list C. Glycerine is NOT in the same functional category as honey or molasses.

[yashman19]

[quote name='Tangiers']The tobacco is only responsible for about 10-20% of the flavor, the rest is in the flavoring.Pipe tobacco doesn't make a difference.[/quote]

Pipe tobacco does make a difference....Pull on a hookah using typical
ma'assel. Then pull on a pipe. Which one do you think you can handle
easier in your lungs...?

I wasn't arguing your methods and saying pipe tobacco is the key to
making ma'assel..I was saying pipe tobacco is very different in the way
it is prepared as opposed to the way the tobacco in hookah ma'assel is
prepared, and that pipe tobacco is a bad idea.

[dizzing]

yashman, the major difference must be recognized as the actual METHOD of smoking.  first of all, a pipe combusts the tobacco and .. pipes .. the smoke into your mouth quite directly.   you are definitely NOT supposed to inhale that stuff because it can make you sick in such direct concentrations.  in fact, a pipe is sipped delicately and the smoke is gradually coaxed through it in manageable proportions.  a hookah, on the other hand, simply heats the tobacco until it is just barely smoldering hot.  this releases a TOTALLY different set of chemicals, which are then pulled over a distance around 3x the length of a pipe, bubbled through water, and then piped through a significantly longer hose into your mouth.  by this time much of the particulate matter has condensed either in the stem, in the water, or in the hose, and you are getting nothing more than vapors (as tangiers is fond to point out   hookah tobacco in a waterless regular tobacco pipe has been tried, do a search over the last couple of days and you'll see it's far more harsh than regular pipe tobacco.  this indicates that harshness is not a fair judgement of any qualities of the tobacco itself, but more a judgement of the method.  pipe tobacco is generally nothing more than a blend of various types and cures of tobaccos (unless youre talking the dirt cheap stuff, and even then only the flavored stuff has any additives other than your typical preservatives and smoke enhancing chemicals.  high end pipe tobacco contains virtually NO additives, and is just pure cured /aged/whatevered tobacco.

[Kofod]

Tangiers a little question.Everything you describe is exactly as I my self have come to. The categorization of compounds etc.I don't manufacture or make moassel bussinesswise but I do make some flavours that both myself and my friends (and friends friends) likes and requests or "orders" from me. Must mean that I am doing something right, and that its not only me thinking so. And I think its an ok result since I only started in December and dont use propylene glycol (have a hard time getting food grade, and I dont dare use something that could be intended for antifreeze or likewise).You mention that you cook the tobacco - that interest me. Seems like a way to get the tobacco "emptied out" to get the good stuff easier in afterwards (and you probably would'nt have mentioned it if you did'nt have good results with it ). So I inquire - what are the details with the cooking stuf? As I would be very interested in trying that out to.

[Sonthert]

Sorry, that wasn't very clear, Yash. I was trying to say you could start with pipe tobacco as your source of tobacco, and it wouldn;t make a big difference, you're right, I'm sorry.Kofod: As far as your dilemma with Propylene Glycol...there are three main routes for the genesis of chemicals in the world, extractions, separations and novel syntheses. For an extraction, look at caffeine. It is a waste product produced by the decaffeination of coffee. If its not 100% pure, whats the problem? As for separations, glycerine is mainly obtained by separation (some glycerine is made synthetically, but it is more expensive). If we take fats and chill it, the liquid layer at the top is glycerine, we just take it off...it should be really very pure. Most separations are accomplished by phase changes, in the case of glycerine, the mixture partially undergoes a phase change to a solid while some of it remains in a liquid form. What's the worst that will happen, some fat will get in the glycerine? The final way is a synthetic approach. This is how Propylene Glycol is produced, Propylene Oxide has water added to it. The name of the chemical escapes me actually, its a three-membered ring with an oxygen closing the loop, like a cyclopropane...sorry. Anyhow, a manufacturing plant that makes this chemical isn't going to literally have five different manufacturing processes going on, one for USP, one for food grade, one HPLC, one for high purity and one for technical grade. Its cheaper to make one, standard product and vary only how the product is tested. Literally, the difference between most technical and high purity compounds is only the testing they go through. If you ever go chemical shopping you'll see chemicals, like Propylene glycol, all the different grades are really close to each other. The only source of problems might come from a separation or an extraction where the actual starting material is hazardous. This isn't a concern for something that could be food grade. To be food grade, the process has to be idiot proof so that no error could occur making a food grade chemical poisonous. Thats what us chemical engineers do. Propylene glycol is used as a more expensive antifreeze in dairies and breweries (why we dont use it in cars, to protect people and animals, I don't know) since it is non-toxic and eminantly safe. True antifreeze is Ethylene Glycol. The good one has three carbons, the bad one has two. Apparantly, in the metabolism of them, EG is metabolized to formaldehyde/methanol (wood alcohol) which is very bad for the human body where as PG is metabolized as ethanoic acid better known as acetic acid or 5% concentrations of which in water are called vinegar. As for cooking, cooking is best to remove the water. There's some engineering/basic observation to be realized here. When water is boiling, its temperature is...100C. (at sea level). If I add salt to it, the boiling point will change. If I add a mixture of other things to it, the boiling point probably will go up, but it might go down. It the case of tobacoo, the boiling point is going to change, go up, in fact. Add stuff to the tobacco, cook it. What will be the temperature to cook it to? I can't tell you, because depending on what stuff you put in, your boiling point is going to be unique. If you standardize your process, like I have, I know what to expect...I still use a boiling range andI still come up across surprises. Some tobacco will rise up to the temperature range and still not be cooked. Some will start to burn when it hits the bottom of the range. Realize this...when boiling a mixture, if we were to observe temperature based on time we would find a fairly consistent picture, however...the temperature would increase for awhile and then it would stop and maybe rise a little or even drop a little...but for awhile, the temperature will be fairly stable. Then, the temperature will magically start flying up and then slow down and slow down and come to another stop, where it will hover awhile and then start rising again.What's happeneing is that the mix gets hotter until it gets to the effective boiling point of one the components (lets call it component A), it CAN'T go up until all of that component A has left the pot. Once A is gone, the new mixture will increase in temperature until it gets to the effective boiling point of the next hotter component, B. It will hover and then go up when all the B has turned to vapor. Etc. Until everything has burnt or boiled away. The realtive length of time the temperature will hover is proportional to the amount of either A or B there is. That is if A is ethanol, and its effective boiling point is 190F, but there isn't very much in the mixture, the hovering may be VERY short, almost unnoticeable. If B is water and there is lots of it, the temperature may stay fixed for seconds, minutes or even hours. I cook the mixture until it starts to go back up after the water plateau. Thats the best, in my opinion. This is why, on other threads, I have asserted, that the tobacco doesn't burn, when being used. All of the thermal energy is being consumed in the phase change (Of the glycerine). Until the glycerine's gone, oxidation can't occur. Chemistry is very orderly. The logic works on wet wood, it won't start to burn until you have dried it out...all of the thermal energy is being stolen to boil the water in the wood. Once its dried out, all the extra water is gone, the log will burn satisfactorily. If you smoked a maasel until the glycerine was gone, it would burn to ash. As long as the glycerine is still present, no burning.

[pimpy]

Wow... making your own... little too advanced for me...

[Kofod]

Thx Tangiers.Being a chemical engineer myself I did know most of the issues concerning Propylene glycol - the stuff I have found I am just not sure if the manufacturer could have put any additives to it depending on what they want to use it for.With regards to the cooking tobacco I follow you so far that you basically try out to gain emperical knowledge since you can't tell when an "unstudied" tobacco will cook (water boil of). So you look for the phasechanges revealed by the temperature profile, makes sense - but how do you monitor the temperature of tobacco, I would presume it would only work for liquids? Can you really get good temperature readings on an amount og cut tobacco?I guess my next step is try the cooking out using your advise. Going for the "house keeper" approach (I share the same philosophy of thinking out of the kitchen) I will take a small deep pan, a termometer, a stove heat source and some tobacco and just go ahead with it.Thx again.

[pimpy]

Hey Kofod... since you're a chemical engineer... can you explain why the smoke that sits in the chamber gets "stale" and harsh if you don't clear it out?

[pavlakos_politakos]

i personally see it all as a waste of time.last time i tried making my own moassel i got sick.i mixed pipe tobacco with vanilla extract and honey and just prepared my arghileh like normally and it was ok until about 5 pulls later when i was ready to pass out and puke.

[Kofod]

Pimpy - thats a good question but also with a very "open" answer since it could depend on a wide range of factors and happen for a ton of different reason. So I can give you some of the reasons - maybe some of them will seem likely for the coditions you have with your own hookah.Temperature/exposure to cold. Hookah smoke (as we want it) is formed under specific conditions, especially the right heat. Smoke is an emulsion (specific mixture and arrangement of components) of gas and solid particles - it will change at other temperatures, some solids will "fall out" and in the end all components will part to their own phase, and the emulsion is gone. Similarily milk is a is an emulsion of water and fat - you know what happens when the milk is put under a temperature that is "bad" for the emulsion/milk - it parts (and other uncool changes occur).An alternative "drainage" of the good stuff in the smoke is the prolonged exposure time to the water surface - going from the smoke to the water phase is time dependant.The last one is not about smoke that has gone "old and bad". This happens if the cooking process of the tobacco alter when not puffing. Lack of airflow in the head can cause the same part tobacco and surrounding air to get over cooked. So if the harsh taste is still there a few puffs after evacuating the chamber you probably don't have stale and old bad smoke but new and bad smoke (or both).

[pimpy]

Wow... I asked the right person, indeed!I can discount the last one, since - when I clear the smoke - I get no stale effect.  It's a nice one, but not applicable to me, I don't think.The second one is problematic to me in that, the exposure to water is what causes the smoke to be less harsh... right?  I mean, we're passing the smoke through the water for a reason... but maybe it is the case that the water has a positive effect in that it cleans out the big chunks of soot that fall through, but too much exposure has some negative effect.  Well, that doesn't make much sense either since there are no big pieces of soot in the water, even after several hookah sessions...The first one is also problematic to me because it seems that adding ice to the water makes the smoke smoother.  Therefore, colder = better.  While it sits in an icey chamber, it would seem to me that it would cool down further, making it better...Maybe the second one makes the most sense in that somehow the moisture that the smoke pics up via the water starts to get absorbed back in the water over time.  Maybe that's what you meant... I dunno.  I'm just a computer guy, so I dunno nuthin about no chemistry.  But at least I have a few theories to posit to my physics friends while smoking now!

[tequila_sunrise]

it probably has to do with heavier particles (possibly flavoring and other stuff) sink into the water, while the harsh smoke still sits... im no chemist, but I think this may have somthing to do with it. I think they are called terpines, and if I remember right, they are water solluable.

[Kofod]

Pimpy - You have found out that its all a balance some time is good some more time can be bad - heath can somehow be good and under some circumstances cold is cool.With regards to your comments on my #1 and the ice - here you have gotta remember that we have (at least) two variables, time and temperature. As I told cooling down will destroy the emulsion - but it takes some time to.When you use ice you have the right chemistry coming to you, meeting the right/wrong physics. Going fast through the chamber your smoke will give the right chemistry (composition, no harsh stuf) and the right physics, because your mouth loves the cold. So the smoothness of the smoke from the ice hookah is a physical result not another chemistry of the smoke.Letting the smoke stay in the chamber with ice will give the physics time to change the chemistry of the smoke - so puffing now will give the wrong chemistry (more or less) and the right physics come to your mouth.Getting back to the milk - you can heat the milk to a high/wrong temperature - but you know that even though you put the milk under a temperature that will destroy it - it will take time before the milk will part and have lumps etc. So aware of the time,temperature function you dare make a glass of warm milk Being only aware of the temperature dependency you dare not

[pimpy]

So the thing that actually makes it good is passing it through cold water quickly... interesting...

[Sonthert]

Terpines are not water soluble. They are soluble in ethanol and benzyl alcohol, which may be used for food use.Kofod: ChemEng, eh? Well done, welcome to the top of the food chain. I also have a degree in chemistry and was pursuing my post-bacculaureate degree in advanced organic synthesis when I just went: Ppptht! Ya all suck n $hit. I went gangsta. Back to being serious. Think about from the economics: why make four "different" grades of chemicals when you could just make one, ultra pure? The separations involved, if not complicated, generally are just as easy to perform to a higher level of purity. When we have to add ANOTHER separation process to increase the purity further (like quadruple distilling vodka, for instance) then the price goes up and you have a split pricing structure. Ethanol is a good example of a chemical that a technical grade would not be safe to use for human consumption, since one of the most common by-products is methanol. Yes, I just use a meat thermometer stuck all the way down to the bottom of the pot. That pot can't ever rise above the temperature of the phase change that is occuring. Even if the temperature is not accurate, we are just using it as an indicator, not for calculations. Candy thermometers work for lower temperatures like blowing off the excess solvent.

[Kofod]

Thx for the feedback on the termometer. So to what extent do you cook it? I made some different runs to get varying degrees of water out more/less cooking. Next phase is to get them through the "grease in" process to se what degree of cooking gives what "grease-ability" and which end result. I think some of the hardest cooked seem i little to dryed out - but time will tell - the procedure of experimenting for the ChemEng.Getting over to that - yes I am a chemical engineer - master of chemical engineering and applied chemistry, profiled in advanced phase equilibria modelling & oil and petroleum recovery and processing. Scaringly long and serious like!! I am currently in the getting out of uni over to something else limbo.