Need Advice On A Good Bowl.

[Balkur]

So, I recently purchased my own hookah. With some help from this site I was able to choose the Mya Piccolo. So far I've been very impressed with it. The only issue I'm having with it is the stock bowl that came with it (standard egyptian).

The bowl tends to leak juices down the pipe and all over the grommet, and (I'm guessing because it's fairly deep) there always tends to be some unused shisha left in the bottom of the bowl. I've been researching different bowls, but there's just so many types, brands, and vendors out there that I'm having trouble deciding exactly which one to get.

First, a few facts:
I will be buying all my shisha from a local hookah bar. This bar only sells Romman, Starbuzz, and Al Fakher shisha.
I have a screen that I'm using instead of foil. I would prefer to keep using the screen, but I can switch to foil if it would work greatly better for the bowl.
Price isn't necessarily an issue. I'm willing to invest in a good bowl which will save me shisha and cleaning hassle.

Currently, I'm looking for two different bowls. I would like to have 1 bowl for personal use, with sessions lasting for about 30-45 mins, and one bowl for group use, with sessions lasting 1-2 hours with multiple people hitting off the hookah.

Here's some questions that have come up during my research
1) Glass bowls. How are they different than clay and are they better?
2) Phunnel or Vortex? I've seen good things about both, but personally I'm leaning toward the phunnel myself. Is this the right choice for the brands of shisha I'll be smoking?
3) Size. All of the reviews on this site list the capacity of a bowl, but how does that translate into session duration?
4) Vendor. Is there a particular one I should buy from? What should I look for when buying one? How can I avoid knock-offs?

[MichaelLCP]

1) No Idea.
2) Personally I like the phunnel bowl better. But if you are new to hookah I recommend getting a vortex bowl. They are easier to pack and smoke just as good.
3) Depends on your bowl. Small Phunnel will get you a few hours. A standard MYA bowl should get you about 1-2 hours.
4) Read some vendor reviews. All up to you.

[Coleman]

[quote name='Balkur' timestamp='1305355577' post='509469']
So, I recently purchased my own hookah. With some help from this site I was able to choose the Mya Piccolo. So far I've been very impressed with it. The only issue I'm having with it is the stock bowl that came with it (standard egyptian).

The bowl tends to leak juices down the pipe and all over the grommet, and (I'm guessing because it's fairly deep) there always tends to be some unused shisha left in the bottom of the bowl. I've been researching different bowls, but there's just so many types, brands, and vendors out there that I'm having trouble deciding exactly which one to get.

First, a few facts:
I will be buying all my shisha from a local hookah bar. This bar only sells Romman, Starbuzz, and Al Fakher shisha.
I have a screen that I'm using instead of foil. I would prefer to keep using the screen, but I can switch to foil if it would work greatly better for the bowl.
Price isn't necessarily an issue. I'm willing to invest in a good bowl which will save me shisha and cleaning hassle.

Currently, I'm looking for two different bowls. I would like to have 1 bowl for personal use, with sessions lasting for about 30-45 mins, and one bowl for group use, with sessions lasting 1-2 hours with multiple people hitting off the hookah.

Here's some questions that have come up during my research
1) Glass bowls. How are they different than clay and are they better?
2) Phunnel or Vortex? I've seen good things about both, but personally I'm leaning toward the phunnel myself. Is this the right choice for the brands of shisha I'll be smoking?
3) Size. All of the reviews on this site list the capacity of a bowl, but how does that translate into session duration?
4) Vendor. Is there a particular one I should buy from? What should I look for when buying one? How can I avoid knock-offs?
[/quote]

1) the materials can make the bowl stronger, like Santino's crown bowls are made of some super strong glass that is hard to break.
2) Phunnel all the way
3)Small tangiers phunnel should work fine for up to 3 hours or so. other then size effecting smoke length there is no other effect really, except possibility of unburnt shisha.
4)My favorite sites to order from are hookah-shisha.com hookahcompany.com but some people also like hookahset.com and hookahjohn.com
not sure if hookahset carries them. and hookah-shisha only has knockoffs.

[abzy]

I would say a small tangiers funnel for longer smoke and for the short sessions I would say look at crown hookahs mini bowl.

[ilikemyusername]

everybody missed the most important thing.... CHUCK THE SCREEN AND USE THE FOIL! screens are horrible horrible things, you will have a session at least twice as good if the only thing you change is to CHUCK THE SCREEN AND USE THE FOIL! yes, it makes THAT much difference. you'll love it!

[antouwan]

as said by ilikemyusername - lose the screen and use foil - it's THAT much better.

1) you cannot lump all glass bowls into the same category. there's two types of glass soft glass and reinforced glass (like pyrex). crown bowls are made of reinforced borosilicate glass (what european Pyrex is made from). this glass is practically immune to drastic temperature change (theoretically, you could have it running under cool water and then toss it into a boiling pot and it wouldn't break) this is important because you can take it straight off of the hookah after smoking and clean it without issue.

the difference: clay bowls (especially the 'clay' materials used to make real tangiers phunnels conduct heat very well, translating into less charcoal to heat up the bowl.
crown bowls (and borosilicate glass) do not conduct heat very well (this is how you can be smoking from a crown head and grab the base of the head and it's cool to the touch). this means that the heat is almost only applied to the tobacco where the coal is positioned. it's just the difference in how you would like to smoke. for most tobaccos, it doesn't make a huge difference.

to put it into perspective, it takes me 2 complete coco naras to heat a small tangiers phunnel (which contains about 40 - 50 g of tobacco. it takes me the same amount of heat to properly smoke a crown classic (which probably only contains about 25 to 30 g of tobacco.

2) personally, neither. i started using crown bowls and haven't touched my phunnel in months. and the overwhelming majority of reviews/accounts of vortex users say that it's an inferior product. so i haven't tried one - i don't need to.

3) more tobacco usually means a longer session. as i said above, a tangiers small contains about 40 - 50 g. that enough for about 3 hours or so of any high water content tobacco. for tangiers, a small will easily last about 4 to 5 hours. crown classics hold about 25g and last about 2 hours or so.

4) avoid knock offs by shopping at trusted vendors. look at the banned vendors list, that will help avoid bad service and knockoff products. that being said, hookahcompany.com and hookah-shisha.com sell chinese phunnels. HC calls them what they are, but h-s just markets the phunnels on their site as phunnels - so don't buy from there.

as for crowns, the only place to buy them is from the manufacturer - crownhookahs.com.

for what you're saying this is what i would recommend:

personal use: crown micro. that will last you about 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes hours the bowl probably only holds like 7 to 10g of tobacco and is ridiculously efficient. one coconut coal and some tobacco and you'll be set. from all that i've used, it's the bowl that uses the smallest amount of tobacco that still smokes well.

group use: crown classic 2.0. that bowl will last you about 2.5 hours.

you can get a phunnel, because i think everyone should have one, but personally, i think crown > phunnels. and those that own crowns will say the same for the most part.

the only thing i regret about getting the crown bowls is that i didn't do it sooner. seriously.

[Balkur]

Thanks for all of the advice guys. I'll have to take a look at those glass bowls.

Now, I have another question. When researching about the phunnel bowls, I see a lot of people mentioning a "mod" or something. What exactly is this "mod", how does it work, and is it worth investing in?

[antouwan]

most mods are just made out of a cheap tealight holder. i haven't read about anyone using them recently. they're kind of irrelevant now since the alien mini phunnel has been created (the whole point of the mod is to reduce the amount of tobacco - and also to draw the heat through the tobacco)

[vendetta_revived]

For personal use - a crown micro phunnel.
For group use - A small tangiers phunnel.

And whatever you do, do not get a vortex.

[Chreees]

[quote name='Balkur' timestamp='1305509403' post='509595']
Thanks for all of the advice guys. I'll have to take a look at those glass bowls.

Now, I have another question. When researching about the phunnel bowls, I see a lot of people mentioning a "mod" or something. What exactly is this "mod", how does it work, and is it worth investing in?
[/quote]

Look at my signature, below this post. All about the Phunnel bowl mod.

Antouwan- I still like the small phunnel with mod over the Alien. The Alien bowl is not the correct depth/width ratio to smoke properly, in my personal opinion.

[antouwan]

[quote name='INCUBUSRATM' timestamp='1305550566' post='509628']
[quote name='Balkur' timestamp='1305509403' post='509595']
Thanks for all of the advice guys. I'll have to take a look at those glass bowls.

Now, I have another question. When researching about the phunnel bowls, I see a lot of people mentioning a "mod" or something. What exactly is this "mod", how does it work, and is it worth investing in?
[/quote]

Look at my signature, below this post. All about the Phunnel bowl mod.

Antouwan- I still like the small phunnel with mod over the Alien. The Alien bowl is not the correct depth/width ratio to smoke properly, in my personal opinion.
[/quote]

how old is your alien? the first batch of them was awful. i mean just shitty. and then he started changing them as they went along. i got some rather recent ones, and they produce cloud volume comparable to what i would get with a phunnel or crown classic (not micro)

[pilotghost]

How about choosing between the micro and the alien?

[Arcane]

1) Glass bowls seem to be more for aesthetics. The thermal conductivity of glass is quite low. You should primarily rely on conduction to thoroughly heat your bowl. In fact, as an insulator, I suspect that it would amplify your issue of "unused shisha".

2) I would stick with a standard egyptian. You mentioned you purchased a Mya and incorrectly refered to the bowl as a standard egyptian bowl. The mya bowls don't really perform well because they're too deep, again contributing to the unused tobacco problem. Get a standard clay egyptian, preferably slightly shallow and wide.

3) The bigger bowls smoke longer. More tobacco, more stuff to smoke. Easy peasy.

4) Any vendor is fine. Check out the banned vendor threads to see who you should probably stay away from. Of course, you're free to purchase from them if you want. If things go south, you'll most likely just get an "I told you so".




For a solo session, a small-ish standard egyptian.
For a longer session, a bigger one. Edited May 17, 2011 by Arcane