Proper inhaling technique?
Hi gang, been smoking on and off for about a year now, would appreciate a few tips on the best possible way to inhale that gets the most out of my product. I'm not necessarily talking about making it last the longest, I'm actually more concerned with getting proper bellringers every time.
Now, I use a straight glass pipe with a sort of hour glass shape at the top which acts as a bowl for my gear, meaning I can load my Brillo/gauze in without worrying too much about accidentally sucking it through to the other end. So I normally pack the gauze fairly tight so the crack (when it turns to oil), has enough gauze to run down onto but is still loose enough that I can pull through ok.
So onto my technique; I'm currently melting the crack into the chore before inhaling, often by lighting the sides of the pipe so there is no direct flame on the crack itself, although sometimes lighting it from above, again no direct flame on the crack itself. So far so good.
Then I put the pipe in my mouth after taking a couple of big inhales & exhales, when I start to inhale I have the top of the pipe facing upwards as I pull through slowly, then I try to light the top without putting a direct flame on the chore to prevent it from burning. Now, here's where the problems begin.
So the problem with using this 'gentle' 'slowly, slowly' technique, for me, is that it takes too long for me to do it one hit. Basically it burns so slowly that I don't have enough lung space to really take advantage of the long, slow inhale before I start to run out of breath.
This may seem silly to you but as I start to near the end of my breath, I start to panic that because I was going so slowly, not really inhaling deeply from the start, I haven't utilised the crack I've melted fully before I have to exhale, so then towards the end I try and inhale deeper and touch the flame on the chore, pulling the flame in with my breath. Then I'll sometimes take another few fresh breaths of air whilst holding the crack smoke in, eventually letting it all out after a few seconds when I can't hold it in any longer. I know for sure that there is more crack that can be utilized before it is burnt and useless and harmful to smoke, but I can't do it in one go.
Now here I would like some pointers on what I should do with the excess crack that's waiting to be smoked. Do I either
A) take another toke almost immediately after exhaling, picking up my lighter and more or less using direct flame now, as the 'momentum' I have previously achieved of using indirect flame but inhaling long and slow has gone, so I sort of have to start again, but not completely from scratch as the chore is obviously still pretty hot. I'll inhale for a bit but it doesn't feel like I'm getting much after the previous big inhale, so I'm definitely not getting a bellringer using this method
B) wait for it to cool down then light it up again, but this time being a bit more careful not to use direct flame, at least at the start, so as not to burn the crack that's previously been both melted and had high heat applied to it. I seldom go for this method as it really seems like a big waste, firstly I know I'm definitely not going to get a bellringer, so it seems like a wasted inhale and secondly I never get that much from it anyway
C) this is what I do most often; I simply load up a fresh rock into my pipe with the half smoked rock already in it and start the "low n slow" inhalation process again, hoping that the combination will give me a super smoke and will kind of exponentially increase my pleasure / enjoyment from the toke because it has the extra from the one before. Alas, this never seems to happen, only if I am particularly good with my inhalation technique and seem to almost accidentally get a big cloud cos I am very brave with how much I have taken in...
I guess I'd like to know what's my best option for achieving the fabled bellringer? I used to achieve it last year with what now feels like a very wasteful technique; basically putting probably the same size rocks but on top of a very small amount of chore, and then blasting the crack / chore with direct heat from the start whilst inhaling fast and deep the whole time (basically the opposite way to the slowly slowly technique). Inevitably I'd burn the crack and chore whilst leaving a significant amount of crack oil un-smoked, but I definitely used to get fat bellringers. I know I didn't use enough chore because I would always see oil running down the pipe during the smoke, and I would often harvest this oil/resin and again get fat bellringers.
So, gold medals to whoever has read this far, I can only conclude you have a similar problem, or are high on crack yourself and are doomscrolling this Reddit sub. Anyway, please direct any tricks, tips or opinions as to my conundrum in the comments, and thanks for reading