Sauna

[Kharnynb]

I tend to have sauna at 80-90 degrees celcius as well, it's very nice and if you don't go overboard with the water it doesn't feel as warm as a 60 degree turkish bath.

On a beer related front, sauna is great for keeping your mash at the right temperature ;D

 

[podz]

We had a sauna last evening that just did not want to stop warming up. By the time the temperature finally stopped rising, it had reached 97c.

Listless is the only word to describe the feeling afterwards. Went to bed with a beer in my hand and could barely finish it.

 

[Kharnynb]

that's why we have a window in sauna

 

[JKaranka]

We have to get one here in Wales. It's either that or a grillikota.

 

[Pappers_]

@podz In Chicago (where I live) and New York, there are outstanding Russian and Turkish saunas and baths. The one I go to in Chicago is the Chicago Sweatlodge. Great, giant stone ovens, one sauna is dry, the other wet, and a cold pool right inbetween them. A great way to spend a few hours.

 

[Yooper]

We have a ton of Finnish immigrants here, and I really thought that 'everyone' had a sauna!

Many are set up at the edge of a lake, and they just cut a hole in the ice for water and for access to the lake. Almost all of those are wood fired.

For the people who live in town, there is an electric sauna and it's sometimes generally in the basement. I didn't even think to wonder how those are ventilated. The rest are in outbuildings, and those are occasionally wood fired.

 

[Kharnynb]

Lot of mistakes on that site, pappers.

Turkish bath has nothing to do with sauna, it's a completely different thing.
Russian bania is similar to sauna, though usually drier.

And using oak instead of birchleaves is just wrong on so many levels.

 

[Pappers_]

Lot of mistakes on that site, pappers.

Turkish bath has nothing to do with sauna, it's a completely different thing.
Russian bania is similar to sauna, though usually drier.

And using oak instead of birchleaves is just wrong on so many levels.

In the US, all four Russian-run baths I've been to make the same distinction - dry sauna is "Russian" and wet sauna is "Turkish".

 

[Kharnynb]

I know that in the english language, sauna has been reused to mean any kind of steam bath/hot room.

In original finnish it is only meant for the specific finnish version of steam-rooms.

Sauna and Banya are similar, except in sauna the stones are on top of a smaller stove, where as in banya the stones are inside the stove and the stove is only opened for löyly(adding water to stones).

Turkish hammam or japanese sento are similar, much lower heat, but much more water.

 

[podz]

Yep, sauna is a finnish word and it only means finnish-style sauna.

There are plenty of people who have built saunas outside of Finland. Probably most of them in yooper land are real saunas. The so-called "saunas" that are found in US golf courses, hotels, gyms, or other such are not real saunas. They are some adaptation of the concept.

Not one person in Finland would ever be caught be dead wearing any sort of clothes, swimming suits, or even a towel inside of a sauna. That is like a very serious blasphemy.

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

I would venture to bet that until recently the majority of saunas built in the US have been built by Fins and outnumbered any of the other saunas mentioned. I grew up in a small town that contained numerous distinct cultural neighborhoods. One of them was called Finntown by the old timers. It wasn't derogatory but admiration for the families that migrated to the location and kept their customs. I swear every house built in the beginning of the last century in that neighborhood had a sauna. Dozens must exist still to this day. A lot of people living in them now don't even know it's a sauna. Friends would show me their house and explain they had no clue what the room was about and I tell them sauna. They'd just see it as a shack or extra room with odd paneling and vents to use as storage. Some have been restored tho.

 

[Homercidal]

Ain't it pronounced, "Sow-nah"? (Like a pig...)

I think most people in the US pronounce it "Saw-na".

 

[Kharnynb]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGN3UulLH0Y

sau-na

sau as in german sauber

 

[podz]

Ain't it pronounced, "Sow-nah"? (Like a pig...)

I think most people in the US pronounce it "Saw-na".

Yes, it is pronounced like sow-nah according to US pronounciation.

 

[Homercidal]

That's how I thought I heard some Yoopers saying it.

 

[Homercidal]

Another broken Youtube link...

 

[Kharnynb]

This site automatically makes all links video's, just gotta follow the link instead of autoplay it..
can't fix it, as the site automagically detects "youtube.com"

 

[DrunkleJon]

This site automatically makes all links video's, just gotta follow the link instead of autoplay it..
can't fix it, as the site automagically detects "youtube.com"

take off the http:// and it should break the youtube embedding. Also changing it to youtu.be or changing the http to https will break the embedding as well. I only know this from having to figure out how to do it the other way.

 

[Kharnynb]

link should work as a link now, thanks

 

[Homercidal]

After watching that video I suddenly want to sauna more often! Wash and repeat!

So... it SEEMS as if everyone is naked? So like if you have friends over to sauna you all get naked? Together?

 

[Kharnynb]

In finland, families might go together, or might divide in men/women groups.

Public sauna's and when guests are over, mostly men and women go on seperate "turns"
own home sauna, usually couple will go together.

 

[podz]

After watching that video I suddenly want to sauna more often! Wash and repeat!

So... it SEEMS as if everyone is naked? So like if you have friends over to sauna you all get naked? Together?

Usually that's what happens. Teen girls going through puberty usually decline but then they get over it after a while.

 

[Pappers_]

This is the place I go, Chicago Sweatlodge

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTCuQlbh8xo[/ame]

 

[Pappers_]

Mike Rowe featured my local sauna on his Somebody's Gotta Do It show! The segment starts at the 17:15 mark

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A59kc9tdSzc[/ame]

 

[podz]

Those hats and towels are funny! In Finland, you don't carry anything with you into sauna except for your ass and a beer!

 

[Kharnynb]

also, we throw the water on the stove, not the people....

 

[Pappers_]

also, we throw the water on the stove, not the people....

We throw hot water on the rocks inside the stone oven, to help the rocks release their heat.

In the wet sauna (the second one in the Mike Rowe video), there are also buckets of cold water to toss on yourself or each other. Not as refreshing as the cold pool, but still damn good.

 

[Homercidal]

Naked man water fight

 

[Kharnynb]

The russian banja is very similar to old style finnish smoke sauna.
Nowadays, there usually is the more modern stove with rocks on it style, which needs less rocks and less time to heat.

turkish steambaths are much cooler and much more wet though

 

[Pappers_]

The russian banja is very similar to old style finnish smoke sauna.
Nowadays, there usually is the more modern stove with rocks on it style, which needs less rocks and less time to heat.

turkish steambaths are much cooler and much more wet though

In the US, in Chicago and New York, these date back to baths from the early 1900s. A couple of my older, retired friends remember going to the sauna with their father when they were a child. The dual hot rooms - dry and wet - are common and date from those days. The "Russian" and "Turkish" designations aren't literal. The wet is the more popular room, because of all the water being tossed about and the body scrubs, which my Jewish friends call a schvitz. There's usually more conversation and conviviality in the wet hot room, while the denizens of the dry hot room tend to be more serious and quiet.