Best Pipe Smoking Tip

Alright ......

In ALL your years of pipe smoking experience....
What is THE best tip / trick you can share ??
I've been smoking off and on for over 20 years and I swear,
some days its like I've just started.
I can burn a bowl with only a cuppa matches or
it can take an entire book.
Give it up, youze guys !
Share your favorite secrets.

Hardly rocket science, but taking some tobacco out for an hour or so before you smoke and letting it dry a bit can have a huge effect on burning performance and enjoyment. This is especially true of flake tobaccos, which can be quite moist.

There's really no need to try to finish a bowl on a single match. Fine-cut and shag-cut tobaccos make it easier. I sometimes place a pile of tobacco in my palm, hold the pipe rim over the pile, and, holding the pipe still, rotate the pipe over the pile. This motion essentially screws the tobacco into the bowl. I fill the entire chamber, tamp down, and light.

Scotto said:

Hardly rocket science, but taking some tobacco out for an hour or so before you smoke and letting it dry a bit can have a huge effect on burning performance and enjoyment. This is especially true of flake tobaccos, which can be quite moist.

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I'll be the first to admit this is a great bit of information that I did not know about before. I have a new tin that I picked up a few weeks ago that I have not touched but will be getting the pre-drying treatment before I try it out for the first time.

Thanks Scotto!

For clarity, just take amount the amount you are going to smoke - don't dry out the whole tin.

To me it is all about the packing and the initial lighting - but I do not think there is alot of variation here. Best tip I got was in an article by Sal Butera in P&T when he said that the first bowl of a tabacco that he was not familiar with, he would put some on a cutting board, bunch it up and then cut in 1/4 inch pieces, maybe a bit smaller. I found this really facilitates packing by the method of 1) dropping tobacco in enough to fill the bowl, pack it down to 1/2 way up, 2) dropping again to top of bowl, then pack to 3/4 point, 3) fill to over the brim and then pack to just below the rim such that firm but still springy on top, finally 4) charring light and light and relax.

Bill

Tinzien said:

I'll be the first to admit this is a great bit of information that I did not know about before. I have a new tin that I picked up a few weeks ago that I have not touched but will be getting the pre-drying treatment before I try it out for the first time.

Thanks Scotto!

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AHEM !!
How about a little sumthin for the effort? HUH?
It is my thread, ya know !!
Alrighty then.
================================

Howz about this....
really dark, oily flakes like Stonehaven and Dark Star give me fits.
Whats the way to tackle these beasts ??

rikrdo said:

AHEM !!
How about a little sumthin for the effort? HUH?
It is my thread, ya know !!
Alrighty then.
================================

Howz about this....
really dark, oily flakes like Stonehaven and Dark Star give me fits.
Whats the way to tackle these beasts ??

Click to expand...

Oh get over yourself

joel said:

Oh get over yourself

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OK
I.M. / me

Stonehaven can be a bit of a pain. I dry it out a bit as mentioned above, then spend a fair amount of time rubbing it out. I tried cutting it into bits with a chefs knife, but I found I didn't like the way it smoked that way. One thing to try is to pack your pipe and then put some of the small bits and tobacco dust on top to help it get a good light.

rikrdo said:

Howz about this....
really dark, oily flakes like Stonehaven and Dark Star give me fits.
Whats the way to tackle these beasts ??

Click to expand...

Those are easy, compared to plugs. You can always grab a single edge razor blade and pretend it's the 70's.

Dark Star is particularly tough- it resembles pencil erasers.

I could never get Dark Star to burn for me. It was like trying to light wet charcoal. I don't smoke Virginias much anymore, but #24 was always my favorite McClelland, that one burns nicely.

My tip with flake tobaccos is to use a good sharp pair of scissors to cut it up into smaller chunks for easier packing and smoking. Rubbing them out always made it to easy to break the flakes up too fine and make the tobacco burn hot.

smoked aromatics for a few months--commercial blends, then Scottish blends, and then migrated to English tobaccos--no additives by law--just pure tobacco, and the flavor was out of this world. OK--so they weren't that aromatic, but remember--aromatics are sensed by those in the vicinity, not by the smoker. To get the benefit of your aromatic, you'd have to lay your pipe down, step out of the room for a few minutes, then walk back in and start sniffing. English blends, because they have no additives tend to burn a bit cooler, and you may also have to work a bit to keep them lit because the additives do contribute somewhat to continuity in burning. In graduate school I worked at a tobacconists, and learned a great deal about wood, blending, etc., and it was fun all the way.
I eventually settled on Balkan Sobranie and smoked that for 25 years. After a bout with pertussis, I laid my pipes down and haven't picked them up since. Ah, yes, I still miss them, and I have a collection of woods worth thousands of dollars. One day I'll polish them all up and mount them on a display board in the den.
best advice--always keep your pipes clean and well-reamed. a thin coating of carbon on the inside of the bowl contributes to even and cooler burning, and you need to keep it reamed periodically so that it doesn't block the pipe. swab the inside of the stem with a pipe cleaner after every bowl, and keep a dry pipe cleaner inside when not using the pipe. If the stem gets a bit gunked up, there are a number of cleaning solutions available, although plain old rubbing alcohol works just as well.
To get the best, most even burn, pack your pipe in three pinches:
first pinch, lightly tamped,
second pinch, a bit more firmly
third pinch, more firmly than the second.
How firm is firm? enough to do the job. You'll learn what works and what doesn't and it really won't take that long.
Then light--and we're talking light--not a conflagration. Butane or a wooden match. If you use a match, let the sulfur burn off. Hold the match half an inch or so from the bowl and draw lightly. Let the heat, not the flame ignite the tobacco. puff gently, slowly drawing the tobacco into life. Let it glow. Then tamp out. this will give you a light coating of ash on top. Then relight. Puff occasionally, drawing all that nice tar and nicotine into your mouth. It will work its way into your bloodstream and do its work there. Follow Clinton's advice: don't inhale.
The pipe may go out. In fact, if you're smoking English tobacco, it certainly will. get rid of the loose ash, tamp lightly (my favorite is always the pipe nail,) and relight as before. Your pipe may/will go out several times. Just relight. A well-packed bowl using good tobacco will burn all the way to the bottom without getting goopy.

Long, slow draws make for the most savoury smoke.

Pratice makes perfect.

I haven't been smoking very long, nor have I smoked very much, but here's my tip:

I can evaluate the pack based upon this criteria, although normally I just go by feel at this point.

If the draw is like sucking air through a straw, then it is probably too lightly packed. (Can be corrected by some tamping)
If the draw is like sucking a smoothie or milkshake, then it is too tightly packed. (You can try and pick the tobacco loose if the chamber is not full or just dump and start over. I will insert the pick close to the bottom of the chamber and wiggle the pick in a lever type motion around the edges of the chamber will normally do the trick followed by a very light tamp)
If it is like drawing water through a straw, then chances are that it's just right. Light and enjoy.

Thanks for the advice.

Eight years - that's a heck of a bump. But a thread full of good advice is always handy to have around.

My best pipe smoking tip: RELAX. If it's not going well, relax some more. It's not rocket surgery or defusing a bomb. It's just smoking a pipe, and nothing to get worked up over. All these other tips are just ways to make it easier to relax. Listen to them, but remember why you're doing it. To relax.

(Especially listen to the tips about drying your tobacco. An occasional relight is all part of the game; having to relight every 2-3 puffs because the tobacco's too moist is enough to give the Dalai Lama a temper tantrum. Bad packs and bad cadence can be dealt with fairly easily on the fly, but the only solution for moist tobacco is air time. Which is fine, if you make time for it before the smoke. But when it comes out of your smoking time, that pisses you off.)

Kilroy6644 said:

Which is fine, if you make time for it before the smoke. But when it comes out of your smoking time, that pisses you off.)

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To this end -- it is good to keep some pre-dried tobacco stored. Lay out half an ounce of something nice to dry, then jar it. In the future, on days when you don't get a chance to dry some ahead of time, hit the pre-dried stash.

Or buy some that's already dry enough. I bought some Stokkebye Proper English at a B&M and it's bone-dry. From Milan Tobacconists I bought some of their King's Ransom and it is at the perfect moisture level (and delicious)...I only bought a few ounces, I suspect they got it from the jar in their shop and if I ordered a few pounds (it's this month's special so I might) it might come in wetter.

Only lightly tamp. When relighting,
dont have the flame linger over the
bowl for long at all. Just touch the
flame to button quickly whilst puffing,
land it'll relight..