Bowl Pic!

[Mathazar]

Well,  if you did everything correctly,  it should look not
burnt.  If you burnt the tobacco,  then you're doing
something wrong 

[HookahCulture]

Yeah it should be charcoal black, dry and crispy, no ashes.
Well you can TASTE it if you're burning it anyway!
Ideally it should be crispy all the way through, with MINIMAL unused material underneath. HOWEVER......

Here's a trick, time to repost it I guess.

Flip the ma'asell cake about 20 minutes in for a complete burn to
prevent having unburnt material at the bottom. There's a whole strategy
if you're using quick light coals, but it's in one of my posts from
over the summer. Best thing is if you want to read it, do a search in
the forum for the words "flip" and "hookahculture" so you get my post
with the strategy. I wrote a pig paragraph.

Anyway, flip it halfway through and cover the bowl with coals for fresh
blast of flavor to finish the bowl with! You'll know when the bowl is
done too, because you'll just taste it.