Lighting Naturals With Quicklites

[wilarseny]

I was talking about this on the shoutbox yesterday; here's the tutorial. The thing about this method is you have to accept the fact that it's pretty wasteful. In a bit less than two hours of smoking, on a medium phunnel, I burned through two whole sticks of exoticas. You also have to plan ahead, and time each round of coals to be ready to go by when it's time to replace the ones on the bowl. So, here it goes:

Start with two broken-up pieces of exoticas, I split each stick into fourths.


Next, light one QL to get these heating up. I use 40mm 3k, because they burn hot and they burn for a long time. Set this on top of the exoticas when it starts sparking.


Now, it takes a while to get these heated up. Wait to pack your bowl until the exoticas are near-ready. This takes approximately twenty minutes. Here are the exoticas after ten minutes of a hot 40mm ql burning on top of them.


Obviously, not quite ready. After ~twenty minutes from the lighting of the quicklite, they're ready to go.


Now you can start smoking. When you put these two on the bowl, get two more 1/4 block pieces out, and let the QL start heating those.



When these are ready, cycle the two new ones to the bowl, keep one of the now-diminished coals from the first round, and use the other exotica and the QL to light one more 1/4 brick piece.



At this point you have three lit coals on the top, and one + the ql on the bottom. The danger at this point is heating up coals too quickly, which I got very close to doing.


Just make sure to adjust if you're producing too many lit coals, keep cycling through. I waited a bit after this picture was taken to start heating another, and then I only did one.


Anyhow, you get the point. This method is EXTREMELY wasteful, and I learned pretty quickly that it's expensive to lights coals this way more than once every few sessions. Still, it's useful for those times when you, um, actually want to taste your shisha, and there's no heat source around. This works pretty well outside, too, though keep in mind, with coals heating in the tray, a traditional windcover is out of the question; there's just no room for it.

EDIT: I left my fan at my girlfriend's place, but it can help in heating fresh coals. Just keep in mind, using a fan also means the already-lit coals go out quicket as well. It's all in the balance and timing. Edited December 16, 2008 by wilarseny

[wilarseny]

Oh, forgot one thing. You can do the heating with quicklites, if you'd rather waste those; I do this method because 1/4 stick of an exotica tends to be less money wasted than one ql disk. Also this ends up timing out pretty nicely so that if you heat new coals right as you put the just-heated ones on, the new are ready to go when the ones on top of the bowl are ready to be replaced. Timing with the quicklites is trickier since you don't want to put any of those on top; you end up with either too many or too few hot coals on a regular basis.

[Zinite]

Much much easier to buy a coil burner at walgreens:)

[wilarseny]

Much much easier to buy a coil burner at walgreens:)

Yea I need to go do that. But someone was asking for this if I remember correctly, and also it's useful smoking outside when there are no plug-ins around.

[Zinite]

Much much easier to buy a coil burner at walgreens:)

Yea I need to go do that. But someone was asking for this if I remember correctly, and also it's useful smoking outside when there are no plug-ins around.

Very creative though!

The coil burner was the best 10 bucks I ever spent. Throw 3 natural coals on, put a foil cover over the coals, and they're ready in 3 minutes.

[ryno]

Much much easier to buy a coil burner at walgreens:)

Yea I need to go do that. But someone was asking for this if I remember correctly, and also it's useful smoking outside when there are no plug-ins around.

that was my thoughts when I first seen this, could be very nice for outdoor smoking

[wilarseny]

that was my thoughts when I first seen this, could be very nice for outdoor smoking

If Chicago in December weren't so miserable, I totally would've done this all outside, lol

[inino]

you can get one of those mini torch lighters to light them too if you dont have access to a coil burner. start with the corners and work in.

[ColibriDon]

Not a bad method if you don't have a heat source. It's the best use of 3k coals I've seen.

Also, why do those coals look purple? Is it just the camera or is there some coal wizardry going on there? Edited December 16, 2008 by ColibriDon

[wilarseny]

Not a bad method if you don't have a heat source. It's the best use of 3k coals I've seen.

Also, why do those coals look purple? Is it just the camera or is there some coal wizardry going on there?

Yea my phone does some strange things with colors. Sorry about that, left my point-and-shoot at home. I stand as witness that these coals were the normal orange-red

EDIT: wow, I just realized how strange those look. If I start growing tumors I'll let you all know. Edited December 16, 2008 by wilarseny

[indian_villager]

Blow torch.......Best for outdoors!

[Voski]

Hmm I'll share my experience of how I lit 3 coco-naras with a bic lighter and a hairdryer later. But you have the same bowl that used to be my favorite until my friend broke it . RIP =(

[indian_villager]

Voski this story needs to be told asap!

[Voski]

Voski this story needs to be told asap!

Well since you asked I'll put of my final studying.

So my friend calls me up and invites me over and asks me to bring my hookah. So I show up and I have everything except a torch because I was certain he had a grill or stove I could use. I turned out to be wrong, he had no grill and he didn't want me to put the coals over the stove in the house. So at first I put the coals in a pan and put them on the stove. After like 10 minutes of this I gave up because it wasn't going any where. So now with no other choice I grab a lighter and start lighting the corner of a coal. I can't even remember how long it took but I finally got just the corner to turn red. Like one fucking small coco-nara rock. So I go get a blow dryer and I start blow drying the coal. I figured after like 10 minutes I would have lit the whole coal. I ended up being wrong again. In the end I had 3 coals inside a windcover with a makeshift blow dryer stand holding the blow dryer so it would blow air into the windcover. After a good 30-45 minutes we had lit coals. We actually ended up smoking two sets of coals and lit them both this way.

[neffertiti]

Voski this story needs to be told asap!

Well since you asked I'll put of my final studying.

So my friend calls me up and invites me over and asks me to bring my hookah. So I show up and I have everything except a torch because I was certain he had a grill or stove I could use. I turned out to be wrong, he had no grill and he didn't want me to put the coals over the stove in the house. So at first I put the coals in a pan and put them on the stove. After like 10 minutes of this I gave up because it wasn't going any where. So now with no other choice I grab a lighter and start lighting the corner of a coal. I can't even remember how long it took but I finally got just the corner to turn red. Like one fucking small coco-nara rock. So I go get a blow dryer and I start blow drying the coal. I figured after like 10 minutes I would have lit the whole coal. I ended up being wrong again. In the end I had 3 coals inside a windcover with a makeshift blow dryer stand holding the blow dryer so it would blow air into the windcover. After a good 30-45 minutes we had lit coals. We actually ended up smoking two sets of coals and lit them both this way.

Um....wow

Kudos to you for innovation and insane patience

[speed.trials]

Not a bad method if you don't have a heat source. It's the best use of 3k coals I've seen.

Also, why do those coals look purple? Is it just the camera or is there some coal wizardry going on there?

Is anyone else of the opinion that coals that burned purple would be incredibly awesome?

[wilarseny]

Not a bad method if you don't have a heat source. It's the best use of 3k coals I've seen.

Also, why do those coals look purple? Is it just the camera or is there some coal wizardry going on there?

Is anyone else of the opinion that coals that burned purple would be incredibly awesome?

Cool looking? Definitely. Taste like shit? Probably.

[erufiku]

I guess if you really must smoke with naturals but have no other way of lighting them... I would just bite the bullet and smoke with the 3K. Then again I am lazy. Extremely.

[Bulldog_916]

Golden QLs are not that bad. They never give me any sort of off taste when I smoke with them. You guys must have some pretty sensitive taste buds.

[frost91]

ya....try lighting a coconara. might take you a year

[Bye bye now have fun]

Not a bad method if you don't have a heat source. It's the best use of 3k coals I've seen.

Also, why do those coals look purple? Is it just the camera or is there some coal wizardry going on there?

the camera probably has a shitty IR filter

[indian_villager]

Blow torch rules all!

[ColibriDon]

Not a bad method if you don't have a heat source. It's the best use of 3k coals I've seen.

Also, why do those coals look purple? Is it just the camera or is there some coal wizardry going on there?

the camera probably has a shitty IR filter

Hehe I figured it was the camera because I've never seen purple coals anywhere.

They would be pretty cool if they were actually purple but I think you would have to burn a metal to get that color which would be horrible for you...I think.

[chinamon]

Also, why do those coals look purple? Is it just the camera or is there some coal wizardry going on there?

the white balance is off on the camera.