Setting Up Your Hookah

1. Place clean stem and base into fridge.
2. Place a cup of ice water in freezer.
3. Wait 30 minutes.
4. With the other supplies still in the fridge/freezer, get your bowl, tobacco, and coals of choice out and ready.
5. Stir up the tobacco to get the juices going, and also to fluff it up.
6. Lightly drop the tobacco into the bowl, till it comes up to the rim.
7. The next steps are split in two, one for screen users, another for foil users.

Screens:

1. Pack the tobacco down very good.
2. Use a toothpick or the poker on some tongs, and poke up through the bottom of the bowl through the holes in the bowl, and through the tobacco to give the best airflow.
3. Place the screen onto the bowl, and check to make sure that the tobacco is not touching the screen.

Foil:

1. Gently push the tobacco down, and add a bit more to come just over the rim of the bowl.
2. Snuggly place a large peice of foil over the bowl. Poke holes through the foil in one of many patterns. My most common is just random holes, with more concentrated towared the center.
3. Turn the bowl over and blow through the bottom to make sure there is good airflow. (thanks to Tangiers for this)

Now we move on to the rest of the setup.

1. Get out the items from the fridge and freezer.
2. Pour the ice water into the base, up to 1 1/2 inches above the bottom of where the stem will be (differs from hookah to hookah)
3. Put together the hookah: Stem into base, Hose into hose port, bowl ontop. (some hookahs have more to do)
4. Give a test pull on the hose with your hand covering the bowl to make sure that the hookah is air tight.
5. Light your coal, however you light them. Tips for each below.
6. Place the coal on top, and do some pulls to get the hookah going.
7. As with packing the bowl, heat management differs slightly from screens and foil.

Screen:

1. Start with the coal directly over the center.
2. Once you get smoke, move the coal out to the outer edges.
3. Once the outside of the coal is almost fully coverd in white ash, take coal off into the tray and knock off the ash.
4. Place the coal back onto the bowl, once again on the outer edge, but move it around the bowl in a circular patern once you put it back on.
5. Just keep ashing and rotating till you go all around the bowl. Once the coal dies, place a fresh one over the center, and that should last till you are done.

Foil:

1. Star with 1 coal on the edge, and half a coal (for quicklights, varries for natural) in the center, and get the hookah going good.
2. Ash the coal, and as you do move it around the smaller center peice.
3. Once center coal is burned out, move rest of whol coal onto center, and light the other half of the broken coal.
4. Rotate the broken coal around the edge of the bowl, working it like you first did the large one.
5. Once both are done, just keep a fresh coal and move it to where needed.

Set-up
Set-up (w/ pics)
Glass Bowl Set-up
Phunnel Bowl Set-up
Acclimation Process
Tangiers Set-up
Clean Up
Tips & Tricks