![]() This seems like as good a place as any to bring up my favorite percolator type: the honeycomb perc. It Doesn’t Get Much Sweeter than the Honeycomb Perc For this reason, diffused downstem pipes often include another perc type to make those hits extra silky. If your water pipe is outfitted with a diffused downstem, then you’re taking advantage of diffusion right off the bat. The diffused downstem, sometimes referred to as the straight perc, shows us a percolator at its most basic a simple tube with slits carved into its base. ![]() The Straight and Narrow Diffused Downstem Unwanted drag is prevented by shaping a smaller chamber to compensate for the multitude of slits. The resulting appearance earned it the nickname “barrel perc”. The gridded inline is a variation on the dome perc that takes an upright glass tube and carves it up with a generous amount of grid lines. The gridded inline perc may not be the most straightforward percolator type (that honor probably goes to the aptly named straight perc which we’ll get into in a moment) but it is fairly simple in concept and construction. Smoking’s Never a Drag with the Gridded Inline There’s a certain poetic aspect in smooth, controlled hits being delivered by tumultuous chaotic spinning and bubbling but I’ll leave you to ponder that in the smoke circle. Seeing this percolator in action is one of the few times that rough seas still result in sailors’ delight. You’ll find a lot of percs come in a convenient disc shape because it’s by far the easiest shape to fit into a glass pipe? The cyclone perc is one of these, appearing as a glass disc with angular cuts punctuating it, guiding the smoke and water into the whirlpool shape that maximizes diffusion. I’ve never heard anyone call it a tornado perc which is a bit strange since the visual resembles a tornado so much more than a hurricane. You’ll find this perc under a lot of different names cyclone perc, turbine perc, even hurricane perc. The Cyclone Perc Reminds You We’re Not in Kansas Anymore Without further ado, here are a few of the most popular percs and what sets them apart from one another. The result? Instead of being greeted with a harsh battering ram of unfiltered smoke, you get a pure, pristine hit. The smoke hits the percolator and the myriad of honeycomb-like holes diffuse the smoke, meaning it spreads it out to mix with the water and air, cooling it. I’m partial to the honeycomb perc so we’ll use it as the example here: Say you’re taking a hit off your water pipe and it’s lucky enough to pack a honeycomb perc. But if you invest in a pipe that has any sort of percolator built into it, you can expect silkier hits thanks to the process of diffusion. Granted not all water pipes are outfitted with percs. But I’ve yet to meet a smoker masochistic enough to prefer a harsh drag to the smooth hits offered by glass pipes augmented with percolators. Needless to say, I wasn’t afraid of a harsh smoking experience. When the global economic crisis was nipping at my wallet extra hard, I was known to carry a metal one-hitter in my pocket at all times.
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