Hey Cypress....

[wyteboy]

Cypress, as you know I am new to this site but you seem VERY knowledgeable.
Does the cut or wetness of ths shisha determine it's quality or how it smokes, etc.?
I have my shisha in separate gladware containers, but still in the plastic wrap from the box.  should i unwrap them and shake them/separate it in the containers?
any general advice for hookah smoking?
If a coal is NOT a quick light, then do you have to have a constant flame on it while smoking, like a lemon wood or nour coal that you said you used in a previous post I read?
Thanks!!!!!!

[wyteboy]

So basically if I buy the nour coals, just put them on the stove like I would a quick light for a minute, then take it off and blow until red hot?  I guess I don't really understand the difference in using  quick light or a not quick light coal.
Thanks again for the help, I am very interested and excited to get my hookah in the mail but clearly still out of my league in terms of knowing enough stuff!
also one other question, foil vs a screen...is one better than the other? 

[cypress]

Nours takes longer to heat up. It takes between 5-7 minutes as oppose
to just 1 or 2 with a quick light. The difference in my opinion is the
amount of time the coal will last. It seems to me Nours last longer
than 1 quick light but it takes more time to light.

I use foil. Use this with the shiny side down. There are plenty of
people in here with different opinions witht the best hole pattern
arrangement. Some say in the star of david. Others say use 20-30 needle
size holes, and others use 7-15 larger holes. You are going to have to
experiment and use what is best for you. I use a random pattern with
between 10-15 and have good luck. The main thing is not to over fill
the bowl as the bowl will stick to the foil and will cause it to burn.
Some people use the metal screens which in my opinion is not air tight
enough and some times allow too much heat on the ma'asell.  You
are going to have to try what is best for you though.   

[linkdead]

to add up to the question .. is there any way you can make your ma'assel more wet? ... I recently got a 250g box of Nakhla two apples from a friend, and it was sealed and air tight, but whenever I smoke it, it burns, although I use the same setup for 1,5 years now, this is the first time I get that. When I go through the ma'assel with my fingers it seems too sticky, like glue. Leaves separate too easily and I see almost white/brown leaves now and then, even though it's supposed to be red.
Is there any way to fix this? ... hate throwing 250g away.

[wyteboy]

hey link, my nakhla and alwaha both seem EXTREMELY sticky as well....is this normal too? or is it more abnormal like you said for ma'assel to be that sticky?

[linkdead]

from having smoked nakhla two apples before, and nakhla mint, I think
it is supposed to be more like "grease" sticky instead of "glue" sticky
... I don't know how to describe it accurately.  This is first
time I got it "glue sticky" (if I stick my fingers together,  I
find it hard to take them apart afterwards, just like we were kids in
school, and we made mess while gluing those paper animals and stuff ).

[wyteboy]

greasy sticky is a great way to put it!

[linkdead]

Alright, for anyone interested, I tried out the honey trick.

I added honey to the tobacco, mixed it so that I got a compact mass, and left it airtight for a day.

I packed the bowl rather lightly. At the beginning of the smoke, I got
the same burning sensation as before - felt it in the throat. I decided
to just puff through it, after 10-15 min, the burning sensation
dissapeared, and I was left with a rather thin smoke without any
particular aroma, only if I concentrated really hard, I could sense
traces of apple. It burned for another 15-20 min, before it started to
thin out and stop producing smoke altogether. When I looked in the bowl
later, a kind of crust formed ontop of the pile, so I guess that was
what was burning at the beginning, and when that crust formed, the
tobacco underneath did not burn anymore.

It was smokable but as I said with almost no aroma and even then a bit too sharp.
As bad as it seems getting rid of 250 grams of tobacco and buying new
instead, since I smoke only like once per week, I want that smoke to be
good so this pack is hitting the garbage can.

Cheers

[linkdead]

Ok  a small update on my dry tobacco quest

I still didn't get rid of that 250g box of dried out tobacco ... I decided to make it another experiment

This time I packed the dry tobacco on the bottom of the bowl, then
covered it with some still wet, but rather old mixed fruit tobacco that
lost most of it's taste by now.
I figured that top always burns, and it will protect the tobacco
beneath from burning and still cook and get some flavour out of it.

At first, I didn't taste apple at all, but had some of that horrible
mixed fruit taste, which started to wear off slowly, untill entirely
dissapearing. Then I got the apple flavour - not as intense as with the
new tobacco, but much more definite and intense than with the honey
experiment above. It produced thick, but tasteful smoke that didn't
burn or iritate at all, and I had a feeling that smoke got best right
towards the end of the coal. I had enough and didn't light another
coal, so I don't know how long it would hold.

Cheer!