How do you smoke naklha?

[Liz]

Well, a friend of mine asked me this:

I smoke hookah every once in a while and have mostly been smoking Starbuzz Blue Mist. I have a small hookah (like 2 feet tall) and I use a regular round bowl with heavy duty foil and natural coals (the ones that I have to break apart, look like charred wood cylinders and I have to light them using a stove range with constant heat[quicklights suck ]). I always have a great smoke with the blue mist. However, my friend took a trip over to Israel and brought me a bunch of Nakhla (when I asked her for starbuzz lol). I've got like, 2 pounds of this stuff and I don't know what to do with it. I opened one and tried it only once (strawberry) and it was HORRIBLE It was in a bit of a hurry, but I did everything like I normally would and it just went rough instantly. I tried spreading the coals out thinking it was too much heat and I just had to abort.

So yeah ever since that day I haven't touched the stuff, but I don't want to let it go to waste. I would sit down to play with it but thing is I don't like to smoke by myself so I know I'll never do it, and I don't wanna sit there with someone else killing our throats. Do you think you could bless me with some knowledge? lol Its a much smaller cut than the Starbuzz and seems wet enough, but even after I had made sure to spread it out nice and even without clumps it failed me.

Please post up what he should do to make things better.

[diegoa]

Thanks Liz, just wanted to add a little to maybe make the problem a bit clearer.

By horrible, I mean the smoke went harsh. The taste itself is a bit of plastic strawberry, but its still pretty good. I got about 1 or 2 pulls while getting it started and bam I got harshness. I use heavy duty foil (shiny side down) and I poke nice little rows of holes with a needle (not sure exactly how many I do poke, never really counted, but it must be at least 60, the holes are pretty close but the bowl isn't ginormous so I can't poke that many either). I did get smoke, around as much as you can expect while just getting it started.

I tried moving the coals around (which again are Coal Arabica wooden coals) but still was horrible so I just aborted. The harshness was killing my throat and I went back to Blue Mist.

The shisha is VERY wet. Its almost as wet as the Layalina Double Apple I have, which looks like clotted up blood lol.

So yeah basically this happened like, at least 5 months ago and the bag I opened is still in the bags it came in (one plastic, one shiny one) plus I put it in a zip lock back and it has no air inside (I'm OCD bout my shisha going bad lol). I just checked it right now to check the wetness and its still a nice wet blood red.

Any ideas?

Oh and with the idea of a phunnel bowl, I never thought about it since I can't find any local place that sells Tangiers, so I never thought I would need it. The Layalina is incredibly wet and it smoked fine in my regular bowl and gave amazing smoke so I'm iffy about it. If I do think of getting one, where should I go?

[kalutika]

Nakhla is fairly simple. It's not as wet as more modern style brands but it should smoke fine. To be honest Nakhla strawberry is not a very good flavor in my opinion.

Start with lower heat than you normally would and allow the bowl to heat up on it's own without drawing from the hookah for a couple minutes. Start the coals on the outside edges of the bowl if you can balance them and adjust heat as necessary from that point.

Once you burn nakhla and other dryer tobaccos it's kind of done for because there is not as much glycerin et cetera to cover the burnt harshness.

[diegoa]

I will make sure to try that out and report the findings

[MrMister]

I've found that overpacking Nakhla works better for me and keep it short (35 minute sessions).

It's cheap for a reason.

[diegoa]

Ok so I heated it up reaaaaal slow AND overpacked it a bit and it was, well...smokeable lol. I smoked it for a half an hour and it still was just not too good. The taste was there(kinda plasticky and not as strong and nice as I'm used to with Starbuzz) but I couldn't take too deep a hit without my throat starting to complain(had ice in the base and everything, and I can normally take a nice, 30 second pull with Starbuzz if I want to).

I don't get it either cause the stuff looked plenty wet (I took from the bottom of the bag too to make sure) and still. I'm not sure if I should blame the brand, or just that batch or something. Maybe the box was in a really hot and dry place or something for a long time.

What sucks is i have a 50g banana, a 50g coconut, and a 250g peach of the same brand unopened and I'm a bit scared to open them and get the same result. Kinda just feel like selling it off cheap to someone and getting another tin of Starbuzz

[Liz]

Lol, then sell them! people love it, it's just not that great of a brand to me.

[kalutika]

It still sounds like you are over heating the tobacco. Are you using a wind cover? How many and what kind of coals are you using? Ice should not be necessary to get smooth and pleasant smoke.

Also what flavor did you try first?

[diegoa]

Originally Posted by kalutika

It still sounds like you are over heating the tobacco. Are you using a wind cover? How many and what kind of coals are you using? Ice should not be necessary to get smooth and pleasant smoke.

Also what flavor did you try first?

Yeah I have a wind cover on it. I was using what I guess would be equivalent to a quicklight cut into four pieces(the 40mm kind). I use natural coal (the one that is cylindrical cuts of charred wood that I have to break myself, they end up being oblong pieces but do not have the nasty quicklight taste, they're great ). I put them all on opposite corners of the bowl, let it sit for a few minutes, then did a few small pulls till it smoked a bit then smoked it like I normally do. I'm using the 250g of strawberry I opened. I don't wanna really open the others to try them out if they're just gonna be the same, you know?

Originally Posted by vr4girl

Lol, then sell them! people love it, it's just not that great of a brand to me.

Lol I think I'm gonna end up just doing that

[kalutika]

Originally Posted by diegoa

Yeah I have a wind cover on it. I was using what I guess would be equivalent to a quicklight cut into four pieces(the 40mm kind). I use natural coal (the one that is cylindrical cuts of charred wood that I have to break myself, they end up being oblong pieces but do not have the nasty quicklight taste, they're great ). I put them all on opposite corners of the bowl, let it sit for a few minutes, then did a few small pulls till it smoked a bit then smoked it like I normally do. I'm using the 250g of strawberry I opened. I don't wanna really open the others to try them out if they're just gonna be the same, you know?



Lol I think I'm gonna end up just doing that

Just use three pieces and see how that treats you. Use the wind cover to start the bowl and then take it off. Add it back as necessary.