Diy Shisha Failures. Advice Wanted.

[Knoxville]

Hey everyone,

So my roommates and I have recently taken a fascination with trying to make our own shisha mixtures.

We have followed a few guides for how to make your own shisha and none of them yield the results we want.

We have currently three types of rolling tobacco.
American Spirit Natural
Drum
Bugle

Below are the two project / guides we have used to try and make shisha.

[b]Project A:[/b]
Bugle Rolling Tobacco
Fresh Watermelons
Honey
Light Corn Syrup. --- In place of Glycerin.

We cut the watermelons up in small pieces and cook half of them on the stove top to get some fluids out.
We made a none cooked batch and a cooked batch.

Followed the guide saying roughly 1tsp Honey 1tsp Corn Syrup along with 75% tobacco and 25% fruit.

Both mixtures smoked about as much as a cigarette drag. Massive buss from the mixture but almost no flavor other than the tobacco.

[b]Project B:[/b]
American Spirit Rolling Tobacco
Butter Flavor Extract
Vanilla Flavor Extract *** The idea here is a "Butter Beer" mixture.
Brandy Flavor Extract
Honey
Light corn Syrup

Following the same guide of 75% tobacco and 25% flavor we added 1tsp of each flavor as well as the honey and syrup.

This mixture smoked a bit more but the flavor was rather none existent.
Still not a thick smoke like shisha but better than Project A.




Any advice on this subject? Are we doing something wrong? Any comments / advice welcome.
I am also willing to film our next attempt and take critiques.

Thanks,
-Knoxville.

[acolorado]

My own attempts at adding flavor all failed. Like you I got the most flavor from the tobacco itself. Not sure how to fix this.

I think the flavor must be added to the syrup in large amounts. I suspect that each company concocts it's own syrup mix using the glycerin and another base such as honey and somehow gets it to soak into the tobacco. I never had any luck doing this myself and think they may cook the mix somehow but I'm not sure. Some people have reported having good luck by using candy flavoring but I didn't ever try this.

Definitely stay away from using molasses. That is a huge fail. Glycerin worked great for me (Veg. Glycerin from Swanson health products on the net) for adding smoke and giving it a good base. Using honey like you have tried worked much better than molasses also. So I would bet you're on the right track by using honey as part of the base.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[K1024]

did you wash and dry the tobacco before hand?

also did you add glycerin (your ingredients dont suggest that you did), glycerin is what makes the clouds.

try doing your mixture with a fruit with more taste than watermelon. I've had good success with using canned peaches, then mashing them up and cooking them...but i idnt use tobacco i used damiana/skull cap/mugwort.

my recipe:
1 can mashed peaches
1/2 cup damiana
1/2 cup skull cap
1 cup mugwort
3-4 tablespoons agave nectar (substitute honey/molasses)

then i cooked this for about 30 minutes until the liquid was mostly gone (think nakhla consistency, but slightly drier)

then i added 3 tablespoons of glycerin. let it sit for an hour and then smoked it. its better the longer it sits, but it was still pretty good after an hour and i had like 4-5 bowls of it.


good luck!

[thatonethere]

^^^ Did you drain all of the liquid from the canned peaches, or do you put it in the pot with the rest of the stuff and let it cook down? Edited May 3, 2010 by thatonethere

[K1024]

yes i drained them

[thatonethere]

Hmmm. I just might try your herbal recipe. Do you have any suggestions for Tobacco? I've heard that using rolling tobacco makes for a yucky smoke. Is it true?

[wayfarinstranger]

[quote name='thatonethere' date='03 May 2010 - 06:50 PM' timestamp='1272930652' post='466523']
Hmmm. I just might try your herbal recipe. Do you have any suggestions for Tobacco? I've heard that using rolling tobacco makes for a yucky smoke. Is it true?
[/quote]

Yeah I've wondered that myself. Is Drum/American Spirit/etc rolling tobacco a good enough equivalent when going the DIY route?

[K1024]

[quote name='wayfarinstranger' date='03 May 2010 - 08:05 PM' timestamp='1272942322' post='466543']
[quote name='thatonethere' date='03 May 2010 - 06:50 PM' timestamp='1272930652' post='466523']
Hmmm. I just might try your herbal recipe. Do you have any suggestions for Tobacco? I've heard that using rolling tobacco makes for a yucky smoke. Is it true?
[/quote]

Yeah I've wondered that myself. Is Drum/American Spirit/etc rolling tobacco a good enough equivalent when going the DIY route?
[/quote]

i dont know as i havent tried with tobacco. if you do it with tobacco you should definitely wash the tobacco and then let it dry for a while, but it could work just as well.

[atina]

oops sorry nthat didnt work !! why do you need to wash tobacco ? american spirit is meant to be pure and surely washing it makes it harder to absorb the liquid

[dizzbizz]

[quote name='atina' date='03 June 2010 - 06:12 AM' timestamp='1275570764' post='470470']
oops sorry nthat didnt work !! why do you need to wash tobacco ? american spirit is meant to be pure and surely washing it makes it harder to absorb the liquid
[/quote]


Nicotine is soluble so washing it removes some of it so you're not knocked out from all the nicotine.

[angekfire]

[quote name='K1024' timestamp='1272782356' post='466345']
try doing your mixture with a fruit with more taste than watermelon. I've had good success with using canned peaches, then mashing them up and cooking them...but i idnt use tobacco i used damiana/skull cap/mugwort.

my recipe:
1 can mashed peaches
1/2 cup damiana
1/2 cup skull cap
1 cup mugwort
3-4 tablespoons agave nectar (substitute honey/molasses)

then i cooked this for about 30 minutes until the liquid was mostly gone (think nakhla consistency, but slightly drier)

then i added 3 tablespoons of glycerin. let it sit for an hour and then smoked it. its better the longer it sits, but it was still pretty good after an hour and i had like 4-5 bowls of it.[/quote]

Sorry for thread necro-oing, but a question on watermelon. Yes, it has little flavour of it's own, but it will absorb other flavours pretty easily. I know people who have made things like vodka-melons, so would it be possible to let the watermelon absorb some other flavours first before cooking it perhaps? I am just curious if anyone has tried that before. If not, I may try to give it a whirl.