Weird Aftertaste

[lowoncreativity]

I've been smoking at home for a little while now. I'm not very experienced, maybe 10 bowls total.

Last week I visited a shisha bar for the first time, and realized that I have been doing something wrong at home, but I'm not sure exactly what. I have a limited budget in which to fix the problem, so I thought I'd ask here for pointers.

The difference between smoking at home and at the bar is an unpleasant aftertaste noticed during exhalation at home. I thought it was just a part of shisha, so I ignored it until I found it was glaringly absent at the bar.

The taste is hard to describe, I haven't experienced anything like it before. Hopefully it's pretty common. I'm going to use the adjective 'chalky'. It's nothing like shisha is supposed to taste based on what I smoked at the bar.

The differences I noticed between me and them:

-I smoke AF and they use Nak
-I use round quicklights (always let them ash over before starting), and they use square naturals
-I always let the bowl warm up for 5 minutes before starting, at the bar we started right away
-I smoke a generic 2-hose 30" hookah (I think it was made in Israel), they use single hose hookahs that are about 45" high
-I use generic hoses, they use luxury KM style hoses
-I get a stronger flavor at home, but I also get the bad aftertaste

My guess at the moment is coals, what do you guys think?

[Pull]

hmmm, it happened to me before, I know what taste you're talking about, I am thinking about different reasons:

1- if you put extra water in the base, some of it will escape to the hose during the bubbling (not a lot though), which mixes with the necotine and the builds ups in the hose, so smoking will taste bitter.

2- if the tobacco is extra juicy, the juice will stain the flue and ends up mixed with the water in the base, smoking with be saturated with the juice and will taste bitter.

3- As we all do occationally, we blow in the hose, to get fresher smoke sometimes, if you blow hard, and water reaches the bowl, if the hookah is still smokable, the smoke will taste bitter, unless you let it dry for a while.

Few things that might help, don't put the tobacco juice in the bowl, it messes up everything, the hookah and the smoke (unless you have the phunnel bowl)
When I put water in the base, I put it half inch above the end of the flue (stem).

As the saying goes: life is too short for a bad hookah ;-)

PULL

[rhineholt]

I wouldn't say don't put any of the juices into the bowl. For one, that would be really difficult to separate the juices from the tobacco, esp from a juicier tobacco like starbuzz. What you CAN do is after every session, just rinse out your hookah. You should see the water come out first as yellow water or something. That's some of the juices from the tobacco coming out. NOW, if you really want to go all out, get a stem brush.

[Bawhee]

Dont use too moist tobacco (I wrote about that in another thread just a while ago, check it out yo)! also, it shouldnt be the qls, they do alter the taste but not to the extent that you are describing (I use qls myself as I cant get good nats, there is a difference in the flavor for sure, but no aftertaste should be present). Warming up the bowl or not should only make your tobacco get smoking faster... maybe some of your coal ash gets into the tobacco tho, how big are your holes? Edited August 28, 2011 by Bawhee

[MichaelLCP]

[quote name='Pull' timestamp='1314546966' post='521684']
hmmm, it happened to me before, I know what taste you're talking about, I am thinking about different reasons:

[color=#ff0000]1- if you put extra water in the base, some of it will escape to the hose during the bubbling (not a lot though), which mixes with the necotine and the builds ups in the hose, so smoking will taste bitter.[/color]

[color=#ff0000]2- if the tobacco is extra juicy, the juice will stain the flue and ends up mixed with the water in the base, smoking with be saturated with the juice and will taste bitter.[/color]

[color=#ff0000]3- As we all do occationally, we blow in the hose, to get fresher smoke sometimes, if you blow hard, and water reaches the bowl, if the hookah is still smokable, the smoke will taste bitter, unless you let it dry for a while.[/color]

Few things that might help, don't put the tobacco juice in the bowl, it messes up everything, the hookah and the smoke (unless you have the phunnel bowl)
When I put water in the base, I put it half inch above the end of the flue (stem).

As the saying goes: life is too short for a bad hookah ;-)

PULL
[/quote]
1. Putting more water in your vase will make for a more difficult draw and you will end up with water in the hose. Which you don't want.
2. If this does happen. Make sure you clean your stem after you smoke. Every flavor you smoke after will taste like the previous one.
3. Blowing through your hose in fine to purge your hookah. NEVER blow so hard it puts your bowl out. That won't make anyone happy. Including you.

Just try with natural coals. That's a good place to start.

[kmccoy90]

Get away from QLs. Solved.

[Epoch]

Coals.

Natural coals have less taste than instant-lights.

[lowoncreativity]

Thanks all, a box of coconut coals and some new hoses are in the mail. If the problem persists, I'll make a new thread.