Continuing my experiments with OxiClean style cleaners I took my oldest bowl with years of crud stuck to it and gave the dunk. What do you think happened?
Eww.
I used the same method for this cleaning procedure as I used with my glass bowls. I placed the bowl in a sauce pan with just enough water to reach the start of the neck and turned the burner on. Allowing the bowl to slowly reach temperature along with the water should help to prevent shock and potentially cracking the glaze or the clay itself. Once the water reaches a full boil it is time for the science.
I poured a bit of Clorox2 (the clorox version of oxiclean) into the neck of the bowl and into the surrounding water. This began to foam up quickly and went to work on the grime. I only boiled his bowl for about 15 or 20 minutes, checked the progress and then placed it back in the water and turned off the burner. The water was pretty damn nasty.
I always let the bowl slowly cool along with the water to prevent shock. If you were to pull it out of the boiling water and immediately run it under colder water to clean off the grunge it causes the clay to contract too rapidly and could result in a disaster. Can you tell I’m a little paranoid about cracking my bowls due to heat stress? Hookah is about patience, people and the cleaning process is no different.
Once it had cooled enough, I took a sponge to the inside of the bowl and the nasty bits came off very easily. You don’t need to even use a scouring pad or a lot of elbow grease. It just wipes away. I do suggest rinsing and possibly soaking the bowl in a lot of fresh water as the new versions of OxiClean and Clorox2 have a bunch of filler, foaming agents and scents in them that I don’t want sticking to my bowls. Better safe than sorry as I don’t want to smoke cleaning products.
This method has been treating me very well and I plan to keep using it for the foreseeable future. If I find something even better you folks will be the first to know but this is working wonders. I absolutely suggest trying this one out for yourself and thanking me later.
Up next I am going to give you my report on using this method with unglazed clay and ceramic bowls, so stay tuned and get the info as soon as I’m happy with the results.