Pipe cake

This isn't so much a question about how to build cake, so much as why certain pipes I have seem to cake up really quickly, while others seem to literally never build up much of any cake.

My MM's, my Kaywoodie, a random blue stained briar, and my Wellington all build cake very quickly. Two to three smokes and I can see it starting to build up. My unfinished Savinelli, on the other hand, which is my oldest briar pipe (over a decade and hundreds of smokes) has yet to build any distinguishable cake. What gives?

The only difference between my other briars and my Sav is that the Sav wasn't pre-charred. That's it.

Are you smoking different tobaccos in them?

Cake is a mysterious phenomenon. It's a byproduct of heat, carbon, moisture, and pixie dust and time, and like The BL Secret Santa takes forever to show up when your waiting for it.

Whiskey Badger said:

Are you smoking different tobaccos in them?

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I smoke the same in all of my pipes and all pretty much the same. I smoke mostly English, VaPer and VaBurs (uncased), and the OCCASIONAL light aro (I like the English/aro ghosts).

All smoked just a tad quicker than slow, all lit with a zippo or matches. All wiped with a folded over pipe cleaner after cooling. In order of cake buildup: first are my MM cobs, then the Wellington, the p&c "john bull", then the MM hardwood, then the Kaywoodie, then the Sav in distant last; which I've never reamed, much less scraped in the last decade.

Among the briar pipes all but the Sav were pre-charred; the Kaywoodie and "John Bull" factory charred and the Wellington was an estate with about 1/4" of sickly sweet smelling cake that I reamed down to almost bare. The Sav was the only one that wasn't pre-charred. The only other difference is that the Sav is my only Lucite stem.

Is it possible the Savinelli smokes much cooler and drier, thereby not building up carbon cake?

Actually the Sav is my wettest smoker. Either that or I slobber on it a lot more because I always have a really wet pipe cleaner when cleaning the Sav.

guyakaguy said:

Actually the Sav is my wettest smoker. Either that or I slobber on it a lot more because I always have a really wet pipe cleaner when cleaning the Sav.

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well, that shot my theory out the window.

guyakaguy said:

Actually the Sav is my wettest smoker. Either that or I slobber on it a lot more because I always have a really wet pipe cleaner when cleaning the Sav.

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I think this is partially why it does not build up. I think that the bowl needs to remain dry throughout the smoke to build a good cake.

Commander Quan said:

Cake is a mysterious phenomenon. It's a byproduct of heat, carbon, moisture, and pixie dust and time, and like The BL Secret Santa takes forever to show up when your waiting for it.

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Derrick is right. Anything else said in this thread is pure conjecture.

conjecture yes but I just mentioned it as thought as cake is not just burned tobacco but also a thin layer of charred wood so a wet pipe will not build up as easy.

I just cleaned it out so that it's been wiped clean. It wasn't as wet as it has been before, and maybe I underestimated the actual amount of cake because it does have SOME, just not as much as my other pipes.

It's significantly less wet than it has been, but the last time I did a full cleaning on it I bored the draw hole out a little bit and it improved a lot.

It is a hot smoker though, but I always attributed that to the fact that it isn't finished.

One of those mysteries... I have some pipes that cakes so fast I have to ream every three or four bowls ( a Trypis, a couple Beckers and a Dunhill) I have some that I have never had to ream in 20 years of smoking. That includes other Beckers and Dunhills.
I just is, so I leave it at that.

Couldn't say, I rarely smoke to the bottom of the bowl. I just enjoy the pipe myself and don't worry too much about it.

Oh I'm not worried, I'm just curious about the theories people have as to why some pipes cake up really fast and others almost literally never cake.

it seems that the first rule of pipes is there are none, every pipe seems to be an individual and that is why I think any other form of enjoying tobacco cannot compete

This is spot on. Each pipe has a life, a feel, a personality if you will. The experience is meditative and quite personal.

Mmmmmm, pipe cake

oc_in_fw said:

Mmmmmm, pipe cake

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I retract my earlier statement about this thread being moot about Derrick's post. It is now moot after Owen's post.

I think tobacco moisture has a lot to do with it (totally uneducated guess). I have a pipe dedicated to La Brumeusse (which is dry as the Southwest) and there's little to no build up. Yet my Peterson (dedicated to Engrish blends, all much more moist even with air drying) has built up cake very quickly. I smoke both about equally.