How the Hookah Works
Some uninformed people are satisfied with their limited understanding of the Hookah. If they suck on the hose, smoke will come out. The true Hookah aficionado needs something more. Familiarity with the science behind the Hookah guarantees thick, cool, fresh and delicious smoke every time! This is the start of hookahhookup.com's disclosure of the key elements to an enjoyable Hookah smoking experience.
The science of the Hookah consists of a beautiful intermingling of physics and chemistry. Though it evolved without specific, laboratory understanding of these areas, it involves complex and precise pressure changes, energy transfer (conduction and convection), and fuel consumption. This may sound too complicated, but this crash course will help you to master the Hookah and guarantee you a more pleasant and relaxing smoke.
Breathing in at the mouthpiece lowers air pressure in the hose, which is connected to the base. If there were no water in the base, then it would require very little suction to force air down through the headpiece and metal pipe. The water, filled to about an inch above the bottom of the metal pipe, creates a barrier which requires air pressure to be significantly lower in the base for the air to pass through. Aluminum foil with small, evenly dispersed pinholes also aids in regulating the speed of airflow, thus moving the air slowly through the coal at the most efficient speed gently and evenly heating the tobacco.
This heat transfer is regulated by the slightly moistened, molasses-soaked tobacco, the concave coal design, and the aluminum foil with properly sized and placed holes. The tobacco, when fresh and containing the proper moisture, allows a very precise amount of conduction of heat from the coal, as water's boiling point is relatively low. The water in the molasses boils off, taking with it the flavor. To prevent too much from boiling and the tobacco from burning, the air passing through the coal must be fast enough to keep it lit, yet slow enough to not burn it too quickly or too hotly. The lifted, concave bottom of the "Star or "King" brand coal is perfect for the task. The foil prevents the coal from touching the tobacco, and a small percentage of the coal's surface area touches the foil, thus it heats the tobacco to the proper temperature, neither burning it (which causes a nasty taste), nor allowing it to go out. A coal that doesn't burn hot enough requires the user to get up and blow on the coal to reheat it all the time, or to light another coal altogether. This is a hassle. Hassles suck. They are the antithesis of the Hookah smoking experience. This is why a good brand of coal is so essential!
So now you on the road to becoming a wise and powerful master of the Hookah! But remember, with great power comes great responsibility. So you had better go out there and smoke your Hookah proper, grasshopper, but don't forget that there is always more to learn! So read on, you scholar you.
posted by Marc Brooks @ 6:33 PM
5 Comments:
thanks buddy! i went to alot of different webs to find out how a hookah works and yours explaned it best. i have to do a deminstration speech in class. i want to do it on a hookah, and now i can.
I didn't think about the water in relationship to regulating the amount of force/pressure that the user must create. I orginally thought that the water was used to partially absorb some of the chemicals out of the "flue" gas and in turn also have the gas pick up some of the water to humidify the flue gas. Kinda of a two for one stripper/absorption column. I would really like to see more info about the mass transfer that occurs in the water. Cooling the water with ice should also help to capture some of the carbon dioxide and small amounts of carbon monoxid e that occur from the combustion of the coal. As far as the heat transfer goes I'm not so sure that your analysis is entirely accurate as far as the foil heating the air via conduction from the coal. Since the foil has such a thin cross section i'm not sure that it makes for enough heat transfer to heat the air that much. I believe the majority of the heat transfered to the air comes from the combustion products and the forced convection of the air passed around the coal.
I would also like to say that your comment "as water's boiling point is relatively low. The water in the molasses boils off, taking with it the flavor." This is a misconception. First off water's boiling point is not relatively low, especially in comparison with the other chemicals that provide flavor. What happens is that the warm air evaporates the air, there is a whole science dedicated to this, its called psychrometrics. So how does the flavor get into the air? Mass transfer, this is really somewhat complicated it involves diffusion and all sorts of mechanics. Basically what happens is that the concentration of a chemical in the gas phase is porportional to the product of the concentration in the liquid and its vapor pressure (this occurs at equillibrium and it may not actually get to equillibrium in this type of application since there is probably not enough air to liquid contact area and a low driving force). This is known as Raoult's law if you want to look into it further, this is just the basic model. The reason why there is more transer (more flavor in your gas) with warmer air is that the air heats the liquid which in turn raises the vapor pressure. If there was no water in the sisha and just flavoring (assuming that the flavor is in a liquid form) then you would still get flavor in the gas. The water might be there to dissolve the flavor into the water though (a different type of mass transfer problem). So the bottom line is why does any of this matter? Basically if you really wanted to create the ultimate hookah you could create a better design. Post back if you want more ideas.
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