You can mix up your cannabis smoking routine without dropping any scratch on a piece–all it takes is a little creativity and a leisurely stroll through your local grocer. Yes, I am talking about a produce pipe.
The key to a successful fruit or vegetable pipe is rigidity and airflow. The consistency of your produce will determine how well it handles the engineering and modifications necessary to transform it from salad fixing to toke-worthy firebrand. But before we get ahead of ourselves, here are a few tools that might come in handy when crafting your own organic, vitamin-rich smoking device.
Useful Supplies for Making Produce Pipes
(Leafly)
- Potato peeler: The knife-like tip of this common kitchen utensil is the perfect tool for carving a bowl into produce.
- Skewer: These pokey tools are perfect for creating an airway between your mouthpiece and a freshly carved bowl. Metal and bamboo skewers work best, but you can also use chop sticks and toothpicks.
- Paring knife: A small, quality paring knife can make short work of a fruit or vegetable pipe. Be careful and consider using this very sharp tool before consumption. Nothing kills a buzz faster than stitches.
- Coffee spoon: This tiny, agile spoon is the perfect size for creating a bowl in your fruit or vegetable pipe.
- Pumpkin carving knife: This small saw-like knife can grind through the tender flesh of most items in the produce aisle.
- Pen casing: This hollow cylinder is ideal for puncturing medium sized holes in your produce of choice. Also, there isn’t any harm in giving a tool like this a quick rinse before use.
Now that we have our tools, let’s take a stab at a few fruits and vegetables that make decent single-use pipes.
Best Fruits for Homemade Pipes
(Leafly)
Apple: Apples are far-and-away the most common produce item smoked out of. Just search “apple pipe” on YouTube and you’ll get about 768,000 results.
Banana: No, we are not smoking the banana peel, but rather, using this fruit’s leathery exterior and malleable insides as an easy and commonplace pipe-fruit.
Cucumber: Cucumbers are, more or less, already shaped like a pipe. Add a bowl about a 1/3 of the way up with your handy potato peeler, slide a skewer down the center, pop a carb in the side, and voila! Add a terry cloth robe and some Enya for the full spa day experience.
Pineapple: The pineapple or “high-napple” is becoming a second symbol for cannabis consumption alongside the iconic fan leaf. Taking a rip out of a pineapple is not easy due to its coarse exterior (although I’ve seen people use pineapples as a tropical-flavored joint mouthpiece).
Melon: The classical wisdom is to “pick a melon you can manage.” Melons work well because their flesh is firm and the size lends itself to several different approaches to mouthpiece placement and airflow.
Best Vegetables for Homemade Pipes
(Leafly)
Gourd/Squash: Hollowed-out gourds make durable smoking contraptions.
Potato: Potatoes are a pretty commonplace vegetable in the kitchen, and uncooked, they’re pretty solid. This is another perfect opportunity to employ your potato peeler and handy-dandy skewer.
Carrot: Carrots are already shaped like a pipe and require very little effort to transmute. Chop off both ends, skewer through, and bam: carrot chillum.
Zucchini: This summer squash can be fashioned into a pipe in a similar manner as a cucumber.
This is just one basket-full on a stroll through the produce section of the local grocery store. Try to see the potential in a pepper or take a hit from a Honeycrisp. Crafting a makeshift pipe can be a fun way to break up routine, challenge yourself, or even save a smoke session in a pinch. Craft your creations with care and compost that cannabis cucumber or what-have-you after you’re finished.
These are just a few possible pieces of pipe-worthy produce. Drop a comment below and share your favorite fruit or vegetable to craft a pipe from.
