Hookah Blog

Hello #FumariFam, today’s topic is often one of the most important to our hookah fans out there: making thick hookah smoke. While we adore having flavor that lasts for hours on end, taking a puff from a hookah mid-session and being met with just wisps of smoke can be disheartening to say the very least. While everyone seems to have their own method of madness to achieve thicker hookah clouds, we’re here to provide you a step-by-step guide that highlights the dos and don’ts of thick smoke production.

THE DOS FOR THICK HOOKAH SMOKE

Let’s get into the science behind making fluffy clouds the true, Fumari way! Here is our checklist we run through every time we are setting up a session:

1. Use quality materials. While this may seem a little vague, the better your materials are, the better chance you have at getting thicker hookah smoke and bigger flavor. You should always be using a quality clay bowl and a high-caliber hookah pipe. If you’re using a $5 thin ceramic hookah bowl, all you can expect is a burnt taste and wisps of clouds. On the other hand, it’s also safe to say that if you are using a $10 dollar hookah pipe, your smoke quality is going to reflect it.
2. Check your connections. Think of this step as unplugging your hookah and resetting it like you would if your internet went down. There are four connection points to your hookah: The base to your pipe, the hose-to-hose port, your purge, and your bowl connection. If you happen to be in the middle of a smoke session and want to test your seals for air leaks, it’s simple. Blow into your hose to purge some smoke and watch your seals to make sure no smoke leaks out. Ensuring each of these connections has a tight-fitting grommet and is properly sealed with the correct parts will make your journey to cloud city that much easier.
3. Packing. While the other two steps in your checklist deal with troubleshooting your parts, now the task of creating thicker smoke falls on your hookah practices themselves. By giving your hookah tobacco the right pack and density, you are that much closer to achieving smoke thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. If you don’t know the proper packing density for your choice of tobacco, check out the link above for more research!
4. Heat Management. If you have a hookah that is top quality, your connections are tight, and you have packed your hookah tobacco correctly yet are still not getting clouds, heat management is the culprit. We strongly urge using quality coconut charcoal as they provide the heat needed to produce thick smoke and with the help of a Heat Management Device (or HMD) you shouldn’t have to worry about this step any longer. However, if you are using hookah foil, you may want to try adding a windcover to increase your heat output or add an additional piece of coconut charcoal for a short time to heat up your bowl adequately. If you are adding another piece of charcoal to foil, be sure to scoot your other pieces towards the edge of the bowl to reduce the chances of burning any part of your bowl.

THE DONTS FOR THICK HOOKAH SMOKER

Now that you know the steps from turning your hookah clouds from good to great, allow us to bust some myths surrounding cloud production you may have heard:

• Producing huge clouds means your bowl is burning This is one we hear a lot and just isn’t true. Achieving thick smoke is more of a science that has many variables behind it, none of which involve burning your hookah tobacco.
• Using milk makes your smoke thicker Sorry guys but consider this one as busted. Milk can add some restriction to your inhale making it feel like you are getting epic cloudage, but all you’re doing is making cleanup harder and after an hour plus of session time it can even begin to grow mold. Milk may be good for strong bones, but it belongs no place near a hookah. To quote one of our favorite San Diegans, Anchorman Ron Burgundy, “Milk was a bad choice.”
• Adding ice in your base will give you more clouds Chill out there, Mr. Freeze. Adding ice in your base on a hot summer day can certainly be refreshing, but in common practice, ice dulls your flavor and in turn, can mask the flavor you get when you are burning your tobacco leading you to a session cut short and wasted flavor potential. This includes ice tips too!
• Add more glycerin to your bowl or dry your hookah tobacco Whoa there, hookah tobacco is good to go straight out of the package. By adding more glycerin, you can alter the taste of your session completely and by drying out your hookah tobacco you are removing the very flavoring and heat resiliency that makes hookah tobacco, well, hookah tobacco.

With our guide and these hookah dos and don’ts in hand, your hookah forecast will always be cloudy! If you have any other tips or methods that give you thunderous-sized clouds, be sure to drop them over on our Instagram, and thank you for stopping by!