Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Adventures in Natural Coals

With our last major hookah order (the one that brought us that brand spankin' new Mya Staff we are so thoroughly enjoying), we received a box of 84 Coco Nara natural coals. We bought a range cooker at Target yesterday, so we finally had a chance to try them, and I thought the rather spectacular results were post-worthy.

We lit the coals fairly easily by just leaving them on the heater until the bottom was lit, then flipping it over and waiting another couple of minutes. Aside from the slight smell of cooked ham, it was a surprisingly low-maintenance process. That changed radically, however, as soon as we started smoking the bowl.
We started with a standard pattern in the foil, poking 10 to 15 small holes near the side clustered in an area roughly half the size of an unlit coal. The bowl started well, and after a couple of passes we (Eric, Caroline, and I) were quite impressed with the thickness of the smoke. However, in spite of our frequent coal rotations, it quickly became inexplicably harsh. When we lifted up the coal, the cause became immediately apparent: the hotter, denser Coco Nara coal had burned straight through the foil, leaving a hole nearly big enough to drop itself into the tobacco.


We killed the bowl immediately and cleared the hookah (something which the Staff does not do easily, incidentally), but were uncertain of how to proceed. We tried using a coal screen, and while we did get moderate smoke using roughly 2.5 coals, it simply wasn't as thick as the smoke we were getting with the foil. Mustering up some courage, I tried a new foil with only 5 small holes, spaced relatively far apart. This seemed to work for a while, and the clarity of the Coco Nara's taste put the Romman Cappuccino in a new light for me. However, after about 10 minutes, we tasted that odd metallic taste again, and when I lifted the coal, it had made a smaller but equally disturbing hole in foil.

Giving up for time being, Eric and I shot some zombies for a while (yay L4D), but I was determined to get these coals functioning. Working under the assumption that the issue was that our foil (Reynolds) was not the heavy-duty kind, I tried doubling the foil, and while that seemed to work for a while, we had already had too much hookah, so we didn't quite give it a fair shot. I'm interested in trying this again tonight, as the coal screen is an unacceptable compromise and the Coco Naras just have too much potential to give up on.
Look forward to updates soon!

UPDATE: More photos of ground zero.





UPDATE (4/30/09): So we tried smoking some Al Fakher Jasmine last night with a couple different hole patterns (expect a review up soon!), and we think we have some relevant results to share. First, with our Syrian bowl (the one from Ophelia), we used a variation on our standard pattern, which consisted of a rectangle of tiny holes made with a safety pin on the standard Reynolds double-layered, spaced roughly 2-3mm apart (the change came in the size and spacing of the wholes), slightly smaller than the size of the coal. This rectangle was off-centered, with a vent placed opposite that could be covered by a flap of foil as necessary. This seemed to work for a while (in fact, our entire review), but when we tried to restart the bowl a half hour later, the top layer of the foil had a small piece burned away.

We tried again later with another bowl of Jasmine, this time with the Mya bowl, using a variation on our previous technique. This time, contrary to all our previous patterns (for QL or natural), we made the rectangle large enough that some holes would always be uncovered, and act as a vent. To compensate for the lost heat, we used two coals instead of one. Though we ended up cutting a vent later on anyway, this method seemed to have worked quite well, with no signs of damage to the foil whatsoever. Assuming this wasn't a fluke, it seems that by placing our vents at the actual site of the heating we actually cool off the hottest part of the foil, so that it is much harder for the foil to get too hot. Of course, if this problem continues, expect further updates.

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2 comments:

  1. 2 to 3 mm? you sure it wasnt cm?

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  2. 2 to 3 mm is a pretty big gap. 2.54 cm is an inch.

    ReplyDelete