Trouble With Taste! Too Smoky!

[smokie]

Hey Folks, First post here so go easy on me!!

I was in tunisia and got kinda addicted to the old shisha cafe! So decided to buy a "proper" water pipe!(not a silly tourist ornament) When we were in the cafe the flavour was very strong and the pipes lasted a good while (45mins or so). On arriving home I made a few but the smoke wasn't as thick and the the flavour isnt as strong!!! I have bought a few good flavours and a few different brands to play about with but still to no change! After looking through this site, everyone seems to have actual bowls the tobacco goes into where as mines had more of a plate! Ive attached some picture below and if anyone can give me any advice about how to get a good smoke from this pipe could you please give me some intructions? I have both wooden charcoal and the self lighting tablets, the tablets seem to give a more chemical taste so kinda went off them, they'd probably be ok if the flavour was stronger and not as smoky! I hope someone can PLEASE HELP ME!!!

Regards, Chris.

[mattarios2]

To start, welcome to the forum and be sure to read those rules at the top of the forum.

Now, first thing is first, how are you packing the shisha? And how many coals are you using?

So to start explain to us your set up, how many coals you use, and how you are filling that bowl with shisha? sprinkling? stuffing it in there? putting chunk by chunk in there ... or what?

Also are your coals fully bright red when you put them on the bowl? you want to make sure they are fully lit or it can impart some coal taste.

answer that and we can probably help you out more, but definitely order a normal bowl for sure. Egyptian or phunnel

[Victim026]

You've got a Tombeik bowl there, won't work very well if at all with regular shisha, can you remove the bowl at all? If so then you can purchase a replacement bowl that will better suit the tobacco your smoking, if not then you may need to invest in a new hookah.

[srawas89]

well first you need a different bowl. The bowl you have is used for the older style of tobacco (its called Tambuk). The natural coals you have are just fine I have used those natural charcoals and they are not bad at all. Never tried the tobacco u are using but that may be part of it. Do you have any other tobacco? if so what is the brand and flavor? Beyond that I cant really help until I have more info on your setup.

[smokie]

Hi folk,

Thanks for the quick replys!!

To answer your questions...

To start off with I cut the shisha up finely with a pair of scissors and then lightly sprinkle it on top of the bowl! I put a fair amount on, but no too much as the top layer seems to be burnt and the rest seems to be fine and dont want to waste it! Then I put the foil over the shisha trying not to pack it down too much!(this can ofter be hard as the foil has to be tight when peircing the holes) We then put more foil round the sides just to stop any coals from falling off.

I ususally use one peice of coal red hot of reasonable size. Does this sound ok so far?

The bowl can be removed with ease also. We will look into another, can anyone recommend a certail bowl? Will it definatly fit on my pipe? We thought this bowl would be fine as it worked in the cafe very well, but the cafe might have used the correct tobacco to go with the bowl!

The types of tobacco i am using vary, I have al fakher(very oily and it runs down into the water), nakhla(dryer than most imo) and mawared(somewhere in between two, this is my preferred). I use different flavours in all brands i have listed.. Cocktail, orange, lemon, double apple, cherry and coconut

I hope this can help you all to help me!

Cheers, Chris

[Victim026]

Hi folk,

Thanks for the quick replys!!

To answer your questions...

To start off with I cut the shisha up finely with a pair of scissors and then lightly sprinkle it on top of the bowl! I put a fair amount on, but no too much as the top layer seems to be burnt and the rest seems to be fine and dont want to waste it! Then I put the foil over the shisha trying not to pack it down too much!(this can ofter be hard as the foil has to be tight when peircing the holes) We then put more foil round the sides just to stop any coals from falling off.

I ususally use one peice of coal red hot of reasonable size. Does this sound ok so far?

The bowl can be removed with ease also. We will look into another, can anyone recommend a certail bowl? Will it definatly fit on my pipe? We thought this bowl would be fine as it worked in the cafe very well, but the cafe might have used the correct tobacco to go with the bowl!

The types of tobacco i am using vary, I have al fakher(very oily and it runs down into the water), nakhla(dryer than most imo) and mawared(somewhere in between two, this is my preferred). I use different flavours in all brands i have listed.. Cocktail, orange, lemon, double apple, cherry and coconut

I hope this can help you all to help me!

Cheers, Chris

Well it seems like you've got good coals and good tobacco, your main problem is that bowl. I'm surprised that any cafe would use that unless they were smoking tombeik, which is a very strong unflavored tobacco that you don't foil at all. You just pile it on and stick the coals right on top of it. As for other bowls fitting it looks like you shouldn't have any problems with any other bowls fitting. I would suggest picking up a standard egyptian bowl or two(just because they are cheap and good to have around) and then maybe a Tangiers phunnel bowl as well. Either of those bowls would more then likely greatly enhance your smoking experience. Metal bowls such as the one you have aren't very good for evenly cooking the shisha, clay/ceramic bowls will do a much better job and make controlling your heat much easier, although you will probably need to use more coals then just the one your skating by with right now.

[AmunRa]

The bowl you have is very shallow. I haven't ever seen one that shallow before, to be honest. You may not get more than 15 grams of tobacco in there, and if you over pack it then you'll probably burn it and that would explain your smokey taste.

I'd recommend you get a phunnel and try that. There are plenty of threads on here about how to pack a phunnel.

[Canon]

put some traditional tobacco up there, put a coal on top and enjoy. if your wanting to smoke flavored tobacco then youll need a new bowl

[inino]

hookahcompany.com

grab either a regular egyptian bowl or a phunnel.

[jeremyk]

id go with a small tangiers phunnel or a mod bowl i get good sessions out of both

[smokie]

Hi folks sorry for the late reply but been real busy recently!

First of all, id like to thanks everyone for their help with the problem i've had with the smokey taste. I have ordered myself some nice new bowls to have a play about with! I am in the UK and couldnt find a phunnel bowl anywhere so have ordered the bowls below and i recon that even tho they're not phunnel bowls they will still be a drastic improvement! Thanks again to all that helped me out and will let you know how i get on.

Cheers, Chris