Packing Half A Bowl Of Tangiers In A Phunnel...

[GreatPigHookah]

OK, I was looking for a way to pack a half a phunnel bowl of Tangiers because it' virtually impossible for me and the wife to smoke a whole bowl and I kept feeling guilty wasting so much of that great shisha. I decided to make a little packing aid to help get a good pack on half a bowl. Digging through my wife's craft supplies gave me an idea for making a removable puck I could use to pack the bowl, then remove before final foiling and smoking. The poly clay isn't supposed to be used for food purposes, but that has more to do with the possibility of bacteria growing in it than anything else, as the stuff is non-toxic when cured. I coated them with varnish made specifically for poly clay to seal them a bit as well, and since they are not going to remain in the bowl and be heated, it should be fine. If you're worried, you could always wrap it in some plastic wrap before use.

I made sure to only poke holes in the foil where the shisha was, and left the unfilled portion of the bowl without holes, including the center. I used two 1/4's of exotica across from each other like normal, one was over the portion of the bowl with no shisha in it. It smoked pretty much normal with only half the bowl packed! The smoke was a little thin at times, but most of the time it was great so that was probably more my heat management than anything (I wasn't using my standard wind screen that I normally use). I'm gonna try a few more bowls over the next week or so to make sure, but it looks promising so far! Here are some pics of the supplies (showing 2 brands of poly clay - I used the Kato), the finished puck, foiled bowl, and a partially smoked bowl after removing the foil.

Edited October 6, 2008 by GreatPigHookah

[GreatPigHookah]

More pics.

[untitled]

How does this effect the session? less smoke? less flavor?

[GreatPigHookah]

How does this effect the session? less smoke? less flavor?

Flavor was great...I used Kashmir Peach for the first test run...I love that stuff...smoke was great most of the time, a little on the thin side at times. Like I said, I didn't do my best job of heat management on the initial test bowl. I'm going to have to test it out over the next week to make sure. The puck made it easy to get a good solid pack, which is important with Tangiers, in only half the bowl. You just have to remember to orient the bowl so you can know where to poke holes when you put the foil on...only poke holes where the shisha is packed. I poked them like I normally do for Tangiers, otherwise. The process went like this:

Get some coals going on the burner
Place the puck in the bowl
Fill with shisha like you normally would with Tangiers (I go about 1/4" over the rim)
Pack it down (I use foil over it an pack it down to about 1/8" below the rim)
Remove the foil and puck
Replace the foil, keeping in mind where the shisha is located
Poke holes only where the shisha is, otherwise like normal with Tangiers (all the way to the bottom of the bowl)
Add coals and enjoy Edited October 6, 2008 by GreatPigHookah

[VDDZ]

oh, lol, you literally packed 1/2 a bowl! I thought it was gonna be like a disk that filled the bottom half of the bowl, lol.

[GreatPigHookah]

oh, lol, you literally packed 1/2 a bowl! I thought it was gonna be like a disk that filled the bottom half of the bowl, lol.

Yeah, I was thinking outside the box! I initially wanted to make a food-safe donut you just dropped in and packed on top, but I would have had to go to an actual pottery place that has an kiln or something. I tried doing just that with aluminum foil, but I swear I could taste the foil just a bit, so I tossed that idea, too. I made this cause I had the stuff laying around and it was cheap and easy. Laziness is the mother of invention! Edited October 6, 2008 by GreatPigHookah

[mitchard]

oh, lol, you literally packed 1/2 a bowl! I thought it was gonna be like a disk that filled the bottom half of the bowl, lol.

Same here. Haha.

Great idea. I'll have to try it out sometime. These solo sessions with the med bowl are killing my supply.

[thecyrax]

You know... with the amount of people trying to smoke LESS shisha out of phunnel bowls... I'm surprised someone has yet to make a shallow bowl that holds left shisha.

[agentscot]

scalli put a video out on youtube with something like this. It was a shower drain cover that he cut to fit his funnel, and you just put the shisha on top of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tInRAgp3O0...feature=related

[GreatPigHookah]

scalli put a video out on youtube with something like this. It was a shower drain cover that he cut to fit his funnel, and you just put the shisha on top of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tInRAgp3O0...feature=related

Yeah, I saw that one. I'm not sure it would work for Tangiers, though. Might give that a try too.

I tried it out again last night on a bowl of Pink Grapefruit. Pretty good session. I'm getting the feeling that heat management is a little more difficult with half a bowl, but I definately enjoyed it. The flavor was there, no harshness at all, but the smoke was thick at times then thin at times. Probably spent more time thin than thick. I tried using coconaras this time, which I personally find harder to manage than exoticas for some reason. When they died down a bit I threw on an exotica and I got it going better again.

[Giant Ninja Robot]

I'm thinking that it would be possible to make an insert for the whole bottom of the bowl however since the point of the phunnel is to let the shisha sit in it's own juices i cant see it working too well if it's not completely tight to the form of the bowl. The juices would leak past the "puck" and sit below it.

I think the reason you're not getting alot of smoke is probably that you don't have as much surface area for the coals to reach, and are wasting heat on the empty space in the bowl. You've gotta be losing alot of the heat tangiers will naturally retain since an entire side of the tobacco is exposed to air.

MAJOR PROPS FOR TRYING SOMETHING NEW!

[GreatPigHookah]

I think the reason you're not getting alot of smoke is probably that you don't have as much surface area for the coals to reach, and are wasting heat on the empty space in the bowl. You've gotta be losing alot of the heat tangiers will naturally retain since an entire side of the tobacco is exposed to air.

I think you're right. That's why the heat management is difficult. You're missing a big chunk of shisha that normally would be retaining heat in half the bowl. It works well enough for trying out a new flavor with a smaller quantity, or when you just want to smoke for a short period. I don't think it's as good as a full bowl though. I may try it out with extra coals on the unfilled half, just to see if it will smoke a little better. At that point, you've gone from wasting shisha to wasting coals, but at least coals are cheaper!

[Giant Ninja Robot]

Perhaps if you made an aluminum foil insert/wall to block the side of the shisha? Then after that's placed in and wrapped around the phunnel hole so the hole is only exposed on the sisha filled side, wrap your foil around the bowl thereby only heating up the filled side?

like this

Edited October 9, 2008 by giant ninja robot

[GreatPigHookah]

Perhaps if you made an aluminum foil insert/wall to block the side of the shisha? Then after that's placed in and wrapped around the phunnel hole so the hole is only exposed on the sisha filled side, wrap your foil around the bowl thereby only heating up the filled side?

I think I'll try that this weekend and see how it goes. Thanks for the idea!

[Giant Ninja Robot]

Lemme know how it works out!

[darkone253]

Interesting idea. Good thing I have 3 roommates and a gf I can coax into smoking.

We usually get thru most of it. My roomies have reported that they have lit coals the next morning and gotten a fairly decent smoke sesh with the remaining tobacco too.

[wpw36]

Perhaps if you made an aluminum foil insert/wall to block the side of the shisha? Then after that's placed in and wrapped around the phunnel hole so the hole is only exposed on the sisha filled side, wrap your foil around the bowl thereby only heating up the filled side?

like this

if you have some access to even SS or other good SAFE METAL use that to make more permanent solution

[indian_villager]

Pour in concrete!