Nakhla Tutorial

[mattarios2]

I am currrently on the vineyard for vacation with my family, and had been getting pm's for help on getting massive clouds with nakhla. In this tutorial I used Mizo Watermelon but you can get the same size clouds with OG nakhla also.

Make sure the tub is mixed up real well so all of the gooeyness is mixed up well.

I use my mini for nakhla, i find it smokes best packed tightly in any size phunnel.

Start off by using your 3 fingers and thumb, excluding your pinky, and pick up a big chunk of tobacco and place it in the bowl, do not touch it just place it into the bowl.



Do this again



And again



Then use a fork facing down wards to compact the shisha as shown below



Once it is all compacted flip the fork the other way to compress it a bit more. Don't be affraid to compact it pretty tight, just make sure you don't press so hard it makes the shisha squish out the sides.



After that it should look like this



Then use your palm to press the foil down and make it touch the shisha (No photo neccessary)

Use a toothpick and poke all the way down to the bottom of the bowl and do a total of 50-60 large holes, 3 rings and a couple in the middle (look at the hole pattern in the next picture)

Use 4 half pieces of coconaras (may differ depending on how tight you pack it)

Place the coals like so



And voila





We were outside (can't smoke in the house we rented) so the smoke did dispurse a little faster than usual, but you can see you can yield massive clouds with full flavor.

About 1 hour to 70 min later ...



If you noticed in the packing pictures i had it a bit below the rim, well you can do this same method but stuff it even more if you wanna smoke for longer than 60-70 minutes. When I am with a bunch of people who can smoke a lot i stuff my mini and i get about 120-130 minutes out of it.

The lowest you can pack it before you start to lose density of clouds is the amount in this tutorial.

Remember this is the method I use for OG nakhla as well, for those that have been complaining about thin clouds and burning, try this method and you will never burn your nakhla, no matter how dry or oily it is, and you will produce big clouds with awesome flavor.

Hope this helps everyone and remember ...

Keep Smoking Hookah Forum!

[Hookie The Hookah]

Works for me!

[freeOS]

Thanks.

Nice to see the Mizo Watermelon is a nice natural color. The grape is very red like AF.

[mattarios2]

Yeah most of the nak has a nautural color even tho that still is coloring (gold) .

Other than cherry, grape, DA and a couple others.

[combs08]

Great advice! Gonna have to try this when I get some in about a week. Still need a Tangiers Phunnel though....

[coplinb]

thanks for the tip! this should come in handy since all i have been doing is burning the nak.

[mattarios2]

thanks for the tip! this should come in handy since all i have been doing is burning the nak.

yeah seems like many people have been having the same issue as you. If you pack it tight, nakhla loves the heat. If you fluff it, it produces small thin clouds and tastes harsh.

Keep in mind with OG it will take a few minutes to get the bowl going because you don't have the juices to heat up quickly, just give it a few minutes and the clouds will come with the OG stuff.

[neffertiti]

how do you cut the COCO's in half? i've tried several different things, but they usually just shatter

[mattarios2]

take a knife, score the middle of the coco. Put the knife over the score, take a hammer (or anything heavy) and smack the knife that is pressed against the coal, and the knife chops right through the coco perfectly every time!

[coplinb]

well, i am putting this to the test right now and i must say, im not dissapointed. good tutorial and even better thread title, this thread will be helpful for years to come.

[Barnaby]

I get pretty much the same pack, but without the fork. I just compress it by hand, when I put it in, going around. Seems to work the same.. I normally split my cocos with a serrated cheap steak knife, and hit it by hand.. Does doing it with a hammer make it so you don't have as much dust?

[joytron]

thank you for posting this up. will give it another try tonight.


As far as breaking cocos goes that method works really well, just make sure the knife is flat across the whole coal


EDIT: Have you tried this method with AF? Edited July 9, 2009 by joytron

[Stuie]

Nice tutorial. I am would love to see how people are straight up burning Nakhla.

[MechAnt]

Thanks for the awesome post Matt. I can't wait to try it as I have never had amazing results with Nakhla in a phunnel.

[4d1ct3d]

Good tut

This is how I've been doing it lately when smoking on a funnel. I've had good results too Edited July 9, 2009 by 4d1ct3d

[Bulldog_916]

Nice job on the tutorial. I can pack it pretty loosely and still get awesome clouds though. So I would say if you want to conserve shisha a bit, you can get away with fluffing the tobacco in there and under the right heat conditions, the clouds will be damn good.

[ilikemyusername]

ha! thats just wierd, I find that when I pack my nak tight in a phunnel it burns really good for a while then just dies off when the top layer is done, so I pack mine loose.
my favorite way to pack nakhla is in a mya bowl loosely packed, just below the rim, with 3 exotica easy lights on it.
second fav is in a reg egyptian bowl packed over the rim, foiled and 1-2 coals on top.

[mattarios2]

I get pretty much the same pack, but without the fork. I just compress it by hand, when I put it in, going around. Seems to work the same.. I normally split my cocos with a serrated cheap steak knife, and hit it by hand.. Does doing it with a hammer make it so you don't have as much dust?

correct, i barely get any dust so cracked in half they are just about as much coal as not cracked in half.

thank you for posting this up. will give it another try tonight.


As far as breaking cocos goes that method works really well, just make sure the knife is flat across the whole coal


EDIT: Have you tried this method with AF?

i don't smoke AF, but i used to. When I did I found since Af is much more juicy than nak the top layer gets caked and then tastes burnt.

ha! thats just wierd, I find that when I pack my nak tight in a phunnel it burns really good for a while then just dies off when the top layer is done, so I pack mine loose.
my favorite way to pack nakhla is in a mya bowl loosely packed, just below the rim, with 3 exotica easy lights on it.
second fav is in a reg egyptian bowl packed over the rim, foiled and 1-2 coals on top.

that means you are packing it TOO tight. Or just putting to much in the bowl. It's easier to overpack nak than tang because naks cut isn't as long and thick as tangiers. And by packing it tight but keeping it below the rim, after a min or two the tobacco expands a bit and it is the perfect amount of shisha. Not over or underpacked.

oh and bulldog, there is only about 20-25 grams in there, it is packed tight but not all the way up to the top of the bowl so it isn't QUITE as much shisha as it looks like.

Most methods work with nak but i find this method to dominate the sprinkle method any day. Those pics of the clouds were like 2-4 second hits (don't get me wrong that has a lot to do with hookah/hose/phunnel/etc.) but i just find it to produce thicker and more flavorful smoke than sprinkling it.

[Neil's butt boy.]

I get pretty much the same pack, but without the fork. I just compress it by hand, when I put it in, going around. Seems to work the same.. I normally split my cocos with a serrated cheap steak knife, and hit it by hand.. Does doing it with a hammer make it so you don't have as much dust?

correct, i barely get any dust so cracked in half they are just about as much coal as not cracked in half.

thank you for posting this up. will give it another try tonight.


As far as breaking cocos goes that method works really well, just make sure the knife is flat across the whole coal


EDIT: Have you tried this method with AF?

i don't smoke AF, but i used to. When I did I found since Af is much more juicy than nak the top layer gets caked and then tastes burnt.

ha! thats just wierd, I find that when I pack my nak tight in a phunnel it burns really good for a while then just dies off when the top layer is done, so I pack mine loose.
my favorite way to pack nakhla is in a mya bowl loosely packed, just below the rim, with 3 exotica easy lights on it.
second fav is in a reg egyptian bowl packed over the rim, foiled and 1-2 coals on top.

that means you are packing it TOO tight. Or just putting to much in the bowl. It's easier to overpack nak than tang because naks cut isn't as long and thick as tangiers. And by packing it tight but keeping it below the rim, after a min or two the tobacco expands a bit and it is the perfect amount of shisha. Not over or underpacked.

oh and bulldog, there is only about 20-25 grams in there, it is packed tight but not all the way up to the top of the bowl so it isn't QUITE as much shisha as it looks like.

Most methods work with nak but i find this method to dominate the sprinkle method any day. Those pics of the clouds were like 2-4 second hits (don't get me wrong that has a lot to do with hookah/hose/phunnel/etc.) but i just find it to produce thicker and more flavorful smoke than sprinkling it.

I would say that is more like 35 to 40 grams I used a freinds scale and 25 grams is a lot less than wasts in that bowl 

[mattarios2]

it is a mini, i have personally weighed it myself. With a digital scale, it is 20-30 grams, if you really really stuff it you can get about 35 in it.

That in the pictures is about 25g.

[jeremyk]

I like to pack my nak real tight in the small phunnel also it always smokes for at least 2 hrs with full flavor

[hartwell778]

yeah this is basically how I pack it in my small and I get clouds like AF or tang

[indian_villager]

I do the same thing except I don't do the fork step. I just put the foil on top of the mound and press down with my palm. Still gives great results. I've gotten two rounds of full cocos on my minis with my method.

[Sonthert]

Thanks.

Nice to see the Mizo Watermelon is a nice natural color. The grape is very red like AF.

Thats not the color that tobacco comes out. Thats dye.

[mattarios2]

Yeah most of the nak has a nautural color even tho that still is coloring (gold) .

Other than cherry, grape, DA and a couple others.