How To Make a Pineapple Hookah Fruit Bowl
There are a lot of different ways to enjoy your hookah experience. Hookah is so varied and adaptable that you can create entirely different hookah smoking experiences, with different atmospheres, auras, and flavors.
Being able to create various enjoyable hookah experiences to fit your mood and feelings any given day is a level of hookah expertise that is actually quite achievable. All you have to do is keep picking up new tricks and ideas for your hookahs.
One such way to jazz up a hookah experience, and pack a flavorful punch, is to learn the art of making a hookah fruit bowl.
Having a real piece of fruit serve as the bowl of your hookah brings an extra pop of flavor, additional aesthetic value to your hookah, and adds a unique experience through the use of fruit in your hookah.
Making a fruit bowl isn’t as difficult as some people may want you to believe. To help you get started, we’ve prepared this guide to making a fruit bowl for your hookah out of a pineapple, an easy to work with and delicious fruit.
What You’ll Need To Make a Pineapple Hookah Fruit Bowl
Before we get too far into the detail work of making your pineapple bowl, you should know the essential equipment you need and have them at hand. Making a fruit hookah bowl should only take a few minutes total, so having the equipment you need on hand and ready to go can keep the process moving along smoothly.
You will need:
- A Pineapple - The first thing you are going to need is a pineapple. Make sure you get a relatively ripe pineapple. The juicier your fruit, the more flavorful your smoking experience will be. Keep in mind, the juicier your pineapple is, the messier it will be as well.
- A Paring Knife - A paring knife is an essential tool to help you hollow out your pineapple and make the necessary smaller cuts with precision.
- A Chef’s Knife - Let’s be honest, pineapples are pretty large fruits. You are going to need a knife larger than a paring knife to make the larger cuts for your pineapple hookah fruit bowl.
- Toothpicks - Toothpicks are always a great tool to have on hand when you are smoking hookah so you can puncture your foil, but toothpicks play another important role in fruit hookah bowl making, too!
- Aluminum Foil - Just like you would need for any other hookah. We strongly suggest against using a heat management device in your fruit bowl to avoid getting your heat management device sticky with fruit juice.
- Napkins, Papertowels, and a Cutting Board - Lastly, you are going to want napkins or paper towels to help clean up, and absorb some of the juices of the pineapple. You should have a cutting board available to make the cuts you need safely.
Once you have all of these things assembled together, you are ready to get started making your very own pineapple bowl for your hookah.
Step One: Cut Your Pineapple
The first step in the process of creating your own pineapple hookah fruit bowl is to cut your pineapple to the approximate size and shape of a bowl.
You are going to do this by placing your pineapple on its side on the cutting board. Then, using your chef’s knife, you are going to cut off the top third of the pineapple, removing the fronds and the top third of the fruit.
This should leave you with the approximate right size and shape for a hookah bowl. If you are using a particularly large pineapple, then your fruit may still be too large. Feel free to cut more from the pineapple top so that the size of fruit you are left with is the right size for the amount of shisha you want to pack in there.
Save the fruit you cut away at this stage. It is perfectly good pineapple and will make for a delicious snack during your smoke session that will actually complement your smoke.
Step Two: Core Your Pineapple
The next step to making a great pineapple hookah fruit bowl is coring your fruit. After the first step, you should have a pineapple that is cut down to the proper shape.
The only problem is, there is no way for smoke to pass through it or shisha to sit in it, it’s all just pineapple flesh. So the first thing that we need to do is core the pineapple so there is a place to attach the pineapple hookah bowl to the stem of your hookah.
For this step, you should start by placing your pineapple with the cut side on the cutting board, so that the bottom of the pineapple is pointing up. Then, using your paring knife, cut a hole about the size of your stem attachment on your hookah.
You should be able to cut all the way through your pineapple so that you can create a tube in the hookah that goes all the way through the center, in the approximate size and diameter of your stem.
You can also use a coring tool specifically designed for coring fruits like pineapples, but that is a more specialty tool that most people don’t have on hand. A paring knife will work just fine!
Step Three: Remove the Flesh
Your next step is a simple one, remove the flesh from your pineapple. You can do this by using your paring knife to very carefully remove the flesh from your pineapple to create a bowl shape to hold your shisha.
The key to doing this properly is to not remove too much flesh — just enough to get the right amount of shisha in. Having some real fruit flesh touching your shisha is what will give you the best flavor addition from your pineapple bowl.
Step Four: Creating a Shisha Screen
At this point, you should have a pineapple that has been cut into the shape of a bowl, with a hole running straight through the center, and enough space in the bowl area to hold your shisha.
By this point you have probably noticed a slight issue — the hole runs straight through, how will the shisha stay in the bowl without falling straight through into the stem?
Simple, that’s where the toothpicks come in. For this step, you should place your pineapple so that the bottom is facing up towards you again. Then, place your toothpicks through the bottom of your pineapple to create a checkerboard pattern with small holes, small enough that shisha won't fall through.
Step Five: Prep Your Bowl
Your final step is to prep your bowl and attach it to your hookah for smoking. Prepping your bowl involves sprinkling in your shisha mixture and wrapping in foil.
If you need help learning how to prep your pineapple hookah bowl, check out our guide to packing the best hookah bowl here.
Pineapple Hookah Fruit Bowl: The Takeaways
Making a pineapple hookah fruit bowl is a great way to add some extra flavor and extra showmanship to your hookah smoking experience.
The best part is that it is incredibly simple to make your own hookah fruit bowl out of a pineapple, you just need the right tools and know-how.
Don’t forget that you should only use your fruit bowl once, and then it is garbage. Your pineapple bowl will continue to rot if you keep it and it won’t be the nice bowl you used the first time.
Trust us, make a new one each time you want one.
If you are looking for a bowl that you can use for every hookah session, then MOB Hookah has you covered, too. We have some of the greatest bowls on the market. Whether you prefer Egyptian, Vortex, or Phunnel bowls, we have what you are after.
And for more guides and other articles, keep checking back here at our blog for more.
Sources
What Is The Ideal Size For a Bowl? | Hookah.org