If you are a passionate consumer of cannabis (or stoner, to be more direct), hitting a joint, rolling a blunt or just hitting your pipe sounds like a dream after coming home from a less-than-good day. Until…you find that your pipe is lost, at a friend’s house, or worst of all, broken. But stay calm, as long as you have virtually anything with volume in your house, you can smoke weed?
What exactly does that mean? If you have anything that can be carved with relative ease that happens to have enough room to drill some holes into as you hold it in your palm, this is the gateway to enjoying your favorite strain. Specifically, we are going to take a quick look at how an apple, a healthy and readily-available snack, can be turned into your next weed apparatus. Not only that, but you can do so in about the time it takes you to roll a joint.
Let us see exactly how you can make an apple bowl in the blink of an eye.
What is An Apple Bowl?
Interestingly, an apple bowl technically has two meanings, both of which involve smoking. The first being an actual hookah bowl made from hollowing out an apple (almost completely) and using it to hold the tobacco or flower, or both, and it works just as well as a regular bowl. Seriously, you would be surprised how sturdy an apple is when you are smoking weed.
The second and more widely known definition, the one we will use here, is just making a pipe out of an apple. Since the ‘bowl’, airhole and stem are all on this one piece of fruit, it is kind of like smoking out of this little bowl made from apple: hence the name.
What does it Taste Like?
You can probably guess, but it tastes like chicken! Just kidding, of course it tastes like apples.
This is obviously why apples are a popular choice for budget hookah bowls apart from being surprisingly sturdy. Granted, this is more of a faint apple taste since you do not directly breathe from the apple, but you do get more of that flavor when you use it as a pipe.
How to Make an Apple Bowl
Making an apple bowl is not a marathon or a sprint, but once you learn how to do it, watch how easily you can make the perfect bowl in under 60 seconds. To put it into perspective, poke three holes and about 95% of your work is done. You will easily get this on your first try.
Step 1: Get an Apple
You do have a few options for different foods to smoke out of, but an apple bowl, apart from your weed, requires only one single ingredient: an apple. The only thing to consider is that if your apple is over ripe, it could still be usable but not as sound because it would be softer.
Once you have your fresh and crisp apple, red or green, you begin by removing the stem. This vacated space will act as the bowl when you are ready to go.
Step 2: Stab the Apple (at an angle)
This next step requires only one motion to create two of the three holes throughout the apple bowl. An unsharpened pencil is perfect to skewer the apple since it is sturdy and the ideal shape to make the wholes, but if you are worried about bits of lead or pencil in your smoke, grab a metal straw, hollow pen or a screwdriver: anything relatively long and thin will get the job done.
Regardless of what tool you use, you need to angle from the top of the apple (from the ‘bowl’) and skewer diagonally until you get a hole near the bottom. Once you do this, give your apple the ‘see through’ test and make sure you have a clean exit all the through, cleaning as needed.
Step 3: The Third Hole
Technically the last step to making your apple bowl is the opening for the ‘chamber’. To clarify, this is more of a dip rather than a hole because you do not poke all the way through.
You only need to place the chamber in alignment with the two holes, but do not go so far as to make a tunnel connecting all three, or you would have to start over. So, line up the chamber with the ‘bowl’, about an inch down the side of the apple and shake out all the excess mush.
Step 4: Smoke It
By now, the hardest part is over and that was literally just poking an apple. All there is left to do is fill the bowl and light it up. Even though it is a three-step process, it is one that is almost too easy and can be done in less than a minute (our best time was about 11 seconds).
Making an apple bowl is something that requires no practice and only a fraction of the time of rolling weed. So, the next time you are out of papers but stocked up on fruits, you are in luck.
What other fruits can be used?
In our September 2021 article on how to make a bong (which we highly recommend), we mention that due to the similar shape, a bell pepper would be perfect for smoking, because it is mostly hollow, very easy to carve and the slightly-bigger ‘bowl’ can house more weed per use.
But it does not stop there. Here are some other options for your fruit-shaped bongs:
Melons: An unexpected masterpiece of a homemade pipe, the melon is 2 to 3 times bigger than the apple, giving that much more room for smoke. Also, it is the perfect shape to add a mouthpiece and easily skewer while still being able to stand up on its own.
Pineapple: Nearly the size of a bong, it is no surprise that the controversial pizza topping has been used to smoke weed. You could literally hollow it out as you would a pineapple colada and put the top back on as a lid when you are done. Convenience is the keyword.
Jalapeño: Will this make your hits spicier? In theory, but probably not. However, the jalapeño is a one-hitter waiting to happen, needing just two simple cuts at both of its ends.
Are they as reliable?
A jalapeño is smaller and a bit more finicky than an apple or bell pepper, but of the three mentioned above, that is just about the only thing you need to watch out for with these apple alternatives. Aside from this, every single one is very reliable and easy to use.
