Homemade Shisha

[Purdue]

So, I'm somewhat new to the hookah scene, and completely new to the hookah forums scene, but let me explain:

I make EVERYTHING I'm interested in. I make my own beer, I make my own absinthe, I make most of my foods, and I made my own hookah. The next thing I want to make is homemade shisha.

Is there anyone out there that does this, or knows how to? I can't find any reliable information about it and have currently been 0/3 on my attempts. I think it has something to do with my proportions and my molasses type.

Anyways, if you have any ideas, or just want to post, about making your own shisha, here's a spot to post it. Thanks in advance!

Nate

[mushrat]

Well, its been done and its been talked about.

In the upper section of the forum pages there is a search engine. Try "homemade". I did a quick search and this was the first one I saw, but there were several pages to work through you can check out.

http://www.hookahforum.com/index.php?showt...amp;hl=homemade

[486underground]

Yeah it can be a pain. But I hope what I sent you helped you out. I sent it to you on my other user name Scheetz.

[Purdue]

Yeah it can be a pain. But I hope what I sent you helped you out. I sent it to you on my other user name Scheetz.

It definately helped, I've been trying a couple different things. Still haven't gotten it right, but I'm definately closer

Tip #1 for people attempting to make their own shisha: Wash your tobacco! Soak the tobacco in water to wash out the "pipey" taste.

Tip #2: Don't even think about using jam/preserves/jelly. Didn't think it would work, but figured I couldn't know for sure until I tried it. Didn't smoke much at all, and what it did tasted like a campfire's bum.

But yeah, anyways, thanks again Scheetz... if I end up with some revolutionary discovery, you'll be the first to know!

[Purdue]

Update!

Got some shisha smoking REALLY well with the following method. Now I just need to work on the flavor

Recipe:

50g unflavored pipe tobacco
2 tbsp Arizona honey
1 tsp glycerin
~10 mL Rx flavoring

The key to the tobacco is soaking it before use. I soaked it for 4 days, changing the water daily, to extract the stuff that doesn't taste good. Eventually, the water only changed color a tiny tiny bit. After it was done soaking, I spread it into a thin layer in a bowl and microwaved it until it was dry.

Mix the dry tobacco with the flavoring first. After you've spread the flavoring around to all of the tobacco, add the melted honey and the glycerin. Mix to make it look like normal shisha.

Good news? It smoked REALLY well and was smooth. Like all professional shishas I've tried. Very pleased with this part of the results.

Bad news? Rx flavoring was not meant to be smoked, and even though the shisha smelled amazing, the flavor didn't carry as well as store shisha.

So the plan as of now is to keep doing what I did, only try to get flavorings that carry.

Good luck if you try this yourself!

[azcoyote]

Update!

Got some shisha smoking REALLY well with the following method. Now I just need to work on the flavor

Recipe:

50g unflavored pipe tobacco
2 tbsp Arizona honey
1 tsp glycerin
~10 mL Rx flavoring

The key to the tobacco is soaking it before use. I soaked it for 4 days, changing the water daily, to extract the stuff that doesn't taste good. Eventually, the water only changed color a tiny tiny bit. After it was done soaking, I spread it into a thin layer in a bowl and microwaved it until it was dry.

Mix the dry tobacco with the flavoring first. After you've spread the flavoring around to all of the tobacco, add the melted honey and the glycerin. Mix to make it look like normal shisha.

Good news? It smoked REALLY well and was smooth. Like all professional shishas I've tried. Very pleased with this part of the results.

Bad news? Rx flavoring was not meant to be smoked, and even though the shisha smelled amazing, the flavor didn't carry as well as store shisha.

So the plan as of now is to keep doing what I did, only try to get flavorings that carry.

Good luck if you try this yourself!

Just a guess, but flavors designed for making hard candies have to hold up to high temperatures. I'd give those a try. Did all that water changing wash out the buzz from your tobacco along with the flavor?

[Purdue]

Just a guess, but flavors designed for making hard candies have to hold up to high temperatures. I'd give those a try. Did all that water changing wash out the buzz from your tobacco along with the flavor?

I'm starting to look into ordering the hard candy flavorings, just didn't have quick access to them. Figured the Rx flavoring was easy to get for me (I'm in pharmacy school) so it was worth a shot. The water did wash out some of the buzz, but I definately still got some buzz off of it. I'd imagine its a lot easier to get the flavor out of the fresh tobacco as opposed to pre-processed tobacco, so it might be able to get a wash without losing as much of the buzz. But I definately still got a buzz.

[cafesaden]

you can also try using real fruit... just a thought. i know theres a way that this can be done, but have no clue how

[Purdue]

you can also try using real fruit... just a thought. i know theres a way that this can be done, but have no clue how

I've tried it, but it didn't really lend the quality of flavor that I wanted it to. I think I'm so used to concentrated flavoring now that I need the stuff I make to be on par with that

Once I get the process perfected, I'll start trying out alternate methods though, and real fruit is on the list of failures I need to retry. Maybe I can find a way to make it work.

[ramses]

Head shops sell "tobacco" flavoring that you can drop onto tobacco or, ostensibly, any smokeable substance to produce a variety of flavors. I think that flavoring would work, even though it's sold in relatively small sizes i'm sure there are wholesalers on the net.

[jordanlee05]

Found this thread with google and thought I'd add what I learned. Sitting outside smoking a cigar after more or less failing but I believe I may be close. I tried to make Mango-Grape Shisha as this is our favorite flavor at our local hookah bar.

I'm using Natural American Spirit Organic Roll-Your-Own tobacco. Chose this because it's 100% natural with no additives (supposedly). If I can get the method improved enough to make this usuable I would switch to something else because it is very fine.

Attempt 1:
Straight up mixing mango/grape/tobacco/molasses.

Used too much molasses and got very little flavor. Also a bit sick.


Attempt 2:

Decided to try and "extract" the flavor. Chopped up a mango and some red seedless grapes into very fine pieces. I would estimate I used about a cup of half mango/half grape. Added this to a small saucepan with some water and boiled. Periodically mashed the mixture with a potato masher to get all the flavor I could. Continued doing this till the grapes lost their color. Used a small strainer to empty the remaining flavored water into a cereal bowl. Added enough tobacco to soak up the mixture and added a bit of molasses. Proceeded to smoke.

Had great (although weak) flavor with low smoke volume. Ran into problems with the mixture clogging the holes in the bowl. Didn't smoke it too long and switched to the cigar.

When I try it again this is what I plan to change:

More fruit! I'm going to try about 3 cups worth of fruit using the same process. Need to boil the flavored water mixture down a lot more, I would estimate to about the consistancy of the molasses. Also, after adding molasses and flavoring either bake or boil the tobacco mixture to the point it is nearly dry (about the texture of purchased Shisha). Mine was still much too wet.


Hope this helps the quest!

[The fabulous Ian]

So my boss, through reasons unknown to me, has tobacco growing in his garden and offered me some extra seeds. I'm thinking of planting them purely with the thought of turning it into shisha. I'm not sure what the strain is, or how well it works as 'smokeable' tobacco (should there even be a difference? There's certainly tasteless and damn near inedible strains of regular kitchen herbs out there), but I might give it a shot. Could there be any foreseeable problems with this?

[jordanlee05]

Attempts 4/5/6

Tried it again tongiht.

Went with Kiwi this time (what I happened to have in the fridege).

Chopped up 4 Kiwi's, added to small saucepan, 1/2 cup water and used the potato masher til I had a mash. Boiled for a while and strained out the chunks. Returned the "kiwi juice" to the saucepan and boiled until I had 1/4 cup left. Tasted at this point, started sweet and turned EXTREMELY sour. Took this as a good sign.

Realized 1/4 cup is way more than I needed so decided to make 3 different batches and test the ratios.
note: 1/8 cup is about how much tobacco my bowl holds

#1
1/8 American Spirit Organic Tobacco (same as last time)
1 tbsp. kiwi juice
1 tsp molassis

Didn't have high hopes for this one but tried anyway

#2
1/8 cup tobacco
2 tbsp. kiwi juice
1 tsp molassis

Thought this one was the most promising

#3
1/8 cup tobacco
2 tbsp. kiwi juice
2 tsp molassis

Thought this would be too much molassis although it had good color (compared to store bought tobacco)


All 3 mixtures were still mostly water at this point to I added them to a cupcake pan and baked (350 degrees). #1 took 50 min, #2 took 75 min, # 3 took about 90 min. Would think about baking on waxed paper next time (had a bit of sticking), although I'm a little nervous about introducing anything to this mix since I'm going to smoke it.

About this point I realized I screwed up as 1 and 3 are pretty damn close. Should have cut 3 back to 1/2 tsp molasses

Started with #2 since I thought it was the most promising.

Damn that's good...and soooo close. Bit weak on the fruit and a bit too much molasses though.

I'm going to enjoy this one right now and get to the other ones later on this week.

Some other thoughts:
-This is going to mess up your pans. Took me forever to clean out the one I used. Hesitant to use Pam or wax paper since I'm going to be smoking it. Would recommend getting one of those $3 baking sheets from a dollar store.
-Bake the mixtures until they are just barely moist. I would say "not sticky to the touch" is probably around the sweet spot. It took me forever to get it started (had to burn off all the extra water).

I would say the best mixture for Kiwi would be:
1/8 cup tobacco
2.5 - 3 tbsp kiwi juice
1/2 - 3/4 tsp molasses

Going to have to expirement and tweek the ratios for other flavors although I think this should hold up pretty well to most fruits.

Also, will get back to you on the other mixtures although I don't think they will be nearly as good

All the best,
Jordan

UPDATE:
Just finished it and really enjoyed it. Some final thoughts on this batch:

Tasted great. Definately needs a bit more fruit flavor to it and the molasses should be cut back.

Had a very low smoke volume and didn't last all that long. I believe that is a result of the rolling tobacco I used. Not sure of anything else that would be better to use. Any suggestions? I believe low smoke volume could come from the wetness of the mix when I started it up but fixing that would also severely shorten the lifespan of the hookah so I'm back to the tobacco issue. Edited June 30, 2007 by jordanlee05

[lazria]

I thought glyericn was needed for the "smoke"? You may want to experiment with adding small amounts to the mix - substitute for the molasses. Just becareful, from what I've read, glyericn will "go up in smoke" if heated too much.

Good Luck!

[azcoyote]

Some thoughts for what it's worth.
Yes, wax paper is a very bad idea. You are wasting a lot of time and energy with the oven. You can reduce the water on your stove top in a heavy, non-stick saucepan. Turn the mixture frequently and check temp with an instant read thermometer. Take off the heat when it reaches just over boiling point for water. Have good ventilation, 'cause it'll be very pungent! Let pot cool and set aside covered with a clean dry cloth for a couple weeks to absorb molasses. Then add glycerin. Really this is the best time to add your fruit flavor. You are cooking most of it's freshness away. Good luck and keep trying!

[azcoyote]

So my boss, through reasons unknown to me, has tobacco growing in his garden and offered me some extra seeds. I'm thinking of planting them purely with the thought of turning it into shisha. I'm not sure what the strain is, or how well it works as 'smokeable' tobacco (should there even be a difference? There's certainly tasteless and damn near inedible strains of regular kitchen herbs out there), but I might give it a shot. Could there be any foreseeable problems with this?

Read up on how to cure tobacco.

[speel]

My question is how do you shisha makers get the variable flavorings?

[mek]

So my boss, through reasons unknown to me, has tobacco growing in his garden and offered me some extra seeds. I'm thinking of planting them purely with the thought of turning it into shisha. I'm not sure what the strain is, or how well it works as 'smokeable' tobacco (should there even be a difference? There's certainly tasteless and damn near inedible strains of regular kitchen herbs out there), but I might give it a shot. Could there be any foreseeable problems with this?

Read up on how to cure tobacco.

I'm new here and am looking to build or buy my first hookah (well, at least since the '60's); but I know how to grow and cure tobacco. My flavorings include Kahlua, Ameretto & rum. Sugar, like in mollases, is part of the Cavendish process. I grew and cured about 50 pounds last year. The stuff improves with age.

PS: This is my first post here and am still learning the lingo.

[Seanij]

Variable Flavourings.. you mean what by that?

Apple
Banana

and that? =S

[stan152008]

could you just not use shisha juice??

[thinktwice]

i wonder if it can be made with tobacco, jam and glycerine?

[a_shimoon]

I wonder if it would be possible to use Kool-Aid crystals to flavor the tobacco?

[ryno]

I wonder if it would be possible to use Kool-Aid crystals to flavor the tobacco?

i dont see that turning out well at all

[dilatedmind]

I tried creating shisha tonight following the apple recipe, i used bugle turkish rolling tobacco, which had a nice mild flavor to it, and smoked ok when rolled by itself.

the apple was chopped, put into a food processor, and then dried on the stovetop. This was then mixed with the tobacco, which had a somewhat damp consistency, at least it all stuck together when pressed. To this I added a small amount of glycerine and mild molasses. The mix looked legit, but when we smoked it, there was no smoke.

Tried removing the apple, so it was just tobacco with a little molasses and glycerine, this produced no smoke at all

Then went back to the original recipe, with the apples, and tried using even less molasses and glycerine, this time we got no smoke at all.

How is it that we can't get any smoke? What are we doing wrong.

[a_shimoon]

I tried creating shisha tonight following the apple recipe, i used bugle turkish rolling tobacco, which had a nice mild flavor to it, and smoked ok when rolled by itself.

the apple was chopped, put into a food processor, and then dried on the stovetop. This was then mixed with the tobacco, which had a somewhat damp consistency, at least it all stuck together when pressed. To this I added a small amount of glycerine and mild molasses. The mix looked legit, but when we smoked it, there was no smoke.

Tried removing the apple, so it was just tobacco with a little molasses and glycerine, this produced no smoke at all

Then went back to the original recipe, with the apples, and tried using even less molasses and glycerine, this time we got no smoke at all.

How is it that we can't get any smoke? What are we doing wrong.

The tobacco is too wet. Your apple mixture is making the tobacco damp and it cannot smoke well if it is wet.