Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

:tpd: Yup.

Cheers,
G

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

I'll chime in with a question about your pipe here. I used to have the same problem with one of my first pipes. I later found out that the drillhole into the pipe was raised and off-center (no wonder it was so cheap). It altered the smoking capability of the pipe and actually caused the tobacco to get sopping wet during the smoke. I'm not sure about the science of why it did this I just know that it happened.

Take a look down into the bowl of the pipe and see where the hole is. It should be flush with the bottom of the bowl and as centered as possible.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

I've got a question for you old guys.

I'm not going to bother with any thing technical like how fast should I smoke or how to fill (not pack) my pipe, since I've read the whole thread and a couple more like it. I realize I'll figure it out on my own with some time.

But I would like to know, were any of you happy with the way your first time smoking a pipe turned out? Maybe satisfied would be a better way to phrase it, I don't know.

I know it stems from not knowing what I'm doing, but I couldn't help being a little disappointed.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

My first Middleton Cherry Blend, untutored 1973, smoke(s) sucked. Escudo, 30-years later, was magnifico. Worth the wait.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

It was C&D habana daydream in a ebay briar. Wouldn't stay lit worth a flip, but I'm gonna let it dry out a little more tomorrow.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

its never works out the first time this is an art even in the consumption process.
now if you want something that is much easier to master I suggest cigars (which I love equally) 1)cut 2)light 3)puff its virtually a science

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

I've been smoking cigars for a couple years now, just thought I'd broaden my horizons a bit. The problem is I can't live up to my own expectations. Not just yet anyway.

I didn't mean to sound whiny earlier, just curious if everyone found getting started a little frustrating. I'm not planning on giving it up.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Yes. Stick with it. You will get your rhythm down and all will be right in the world.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

I've seen this somewhere, but can't seem to find it again... I want to know which tobaccos one should smoke to learn a representation of their variety (burley, va, va/pers, oriental, english, etc.) so that when I smoke something unfamiliar, I'll know what it is - or at least have an idea of where it is coming from.

I'm working on adding pipes to my cigar repitoire and want to learn about particular tobaccos. How else would you know what seems to smoke best in what pipe? Part of the plan is to acquire a meer to start working from a neutral base. Good idea or not so good?

Thanks.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Some do and so do (less so). Pipes require a little sensitivity to the physics of what is going on (compression, expansion, condensation) and the learned coordination of things you must do (fill, rub out, tamp, light, char, relight, swab with pipecleaner mid-smoke, relight, poke, pick, tamp some more, relight) to bring it all together into the good, easy experience.

It is a little busy at first but, in the end, the rewards out exceed the efforts in. Usually. :D

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

For the serious explorer with an eye towards understanding how it all fits together this may be the ONLY thing that makes sense. I was thinking along these line earlier today that getting a cob for newguys is good advice but a meer (with some caveats) is probably better.

According to how you're thinking, get a good meer. There are a lot of $35-$65 (smaller where it sucks) meers that are more claw-and-ball than pipe, if you know what I mean. Get a full-sized quality meer with a 4mm bore from the respected Altinok line or get a Fikri Baki. No problems with construction or geometery - a great pipe for life that will reveal tobacco with great clarity. After a while you may augment such a meer with 5-50 briars or you may find that one or two meers will satisfy a lifetime of adventure.

Of my three conventional meers, two are large and made right and one was cool looking, a bit on the small side and modestly priced. The little one is a gurgly PAS and the two others (cost me twide as much but) smoke wonderfully.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

What about tobacco choices? Any suggestions? Something that is relatively pure for it's variety?
As far as the pipe goes, I have been watching the CAO offerings on the 'bay.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Big field, that.
Carter Hall, SG FVF, Escudo and Red Rapparee is one way to cover four basics but there are 10000 answers to your question.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

You can buy, and smoke tobacco that is meant to be used for blending if you want, to taste straight burley or cavindish or virgina but if you are smoking a bowl of straight Perique, or Latakia I would have a feeling you'll have a short pipe career.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Maybe start with the burley, cavendish, and virginia to be able to recognize the bases and then know what the perique or latakia are adding to the blend. Do you think that 2oz. of each is enough to get a handle on it, or would it take more?
At more than $100 for a new one, a good, basic meer might be beyond what I want to spend on this endeavor. Any suggestions? Anyone perusing this have a gently used one that they'd want to part with?

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Howdy pipe smokers. I'm thinking about getting my first pipe soon and wanted to drop in this section to say hello and begin my reading and learning. Hope to be a part of the hobby soon :tu

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

I've heard where people take out a bit of tobacco for drying out some before they smoke it.

How long do you suggest it drying out?
Any pros/cons to drying it before you smoke it?

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Depends. If I open a tin and the tobacco feels a little wet, i'll let it sit out fifteen minutes or so so it will lose a little bit of that moisture. Too moist and it will burn bad.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

How long do you suggest it drying out?
Depends. If i know the tobacco well, and how it smokes at certain degrees of dampness, then i'll leave it out until it feels right to me.
it also depends on where you live (local humidity, etc). by living in KC area, if it's summer, leaving it out will probably moisten it up a bit; if it's winter, 15 - 45 minutes max.


Any pros/cons to drying it before you smoke it?
pros
*tobacco smokes better (less moisture build up in the draught hole, which leads to gurgle)
*less tongue bite, which some attribute to the steam from too moist of tobacco and overpuffing, others say it's something to do with the chemistry of something er other that doesn't jive with the tobacco.
*fewer relights, tobacco doesn't go out as often due to moisture
*better flavor (if you know what an over-humidified cigar tastes like, it's the same as over-humidified pipe tobacco = flavors are muted)

cons
*you forget about it for a few days, and even then it's still smoke-able.
*you forget about it for a few days, and it was a McClellands broken flake (which means it's hard as a board and ruined cuz you'll never be able to rub it out without going to the ER to have splinters removed)
*you forget about it for a few days, and you really wanted to try it a few days earlier.
*i'm making sh*t up now, cuz i know of no cons.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

pros/add on - if you decide you let it get too dry you can always rehumudify whatever's left; it will never mold

cons/add on: if you get it bone dry and then it gets handled and bopped around and gets broken down into dust it is forever wasted.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Nothing that I love cigars, a buddy for a secret santa gift a month ago got me a corncob pipe and some pipe tobacco. However, I have NEVER smoked a pipe and have no idea even as how to fill or light it lol. So I'm asking y'all to give me the basics on how to fill and light it or anything else that is germane. It seems to be a relatively cheap corncob pipe if that means anything

Thanks in advance :tu

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Had a tin of Sutliff #5 come to house as a sample, so said to self why not another slope to slide down, bought cob pipe after reading MANY MANY threads here, along with cob pipe bought a bag of my local B&M's blend, found the #5 not to my liking and found the B&M's to be very aromatic and a little sweet for me. Now I enjoy alot of different cigars, but before I go and spend a rediculous amount of money on multiple tins, any of you cigar smokers out there have a suggestion for a more medium to full aromatic I could try? I do enjoy medium to full cigars. :)

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Cobs usually have relatively small bowls. No need to get real exotic on filling technique - pretty much ram and jam or, if you want to take it up a notch, make a grape-sized cannonball (aka "wad") of tobacco and plug it in. Don't fill the bowl tight enough that the draw is more than mildly restricted; commence to light puffing and set fire to the top of the bowl enough to get it all burning. Relax. Contemplate.

Then notice the bowl is probably not burning after a minute or less. Mash down on the tabak with a pipe tamper (a big nail or golf tee works fine) to recompress it a bit and relight; it oughta keep going for a while, now. Sip-puff slowly - just enough to keep it going - so you don't end up frying your tongue or sucking your cheeks off. Get in a few snorks if you can.

Cobs are excellent, if somewhat disposible, pipes. That pine shank which extends into the lower part of the bowl is going to char out during the first several smokes. Expect things to taste a little forest-ie during that period.

Got pipecleaners? Stick one all the way into the pipe at any time during a smoke if it starts to get wet or gurgly.

That's about it. The rest is details. Fire that muthuh up.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Do yourself a favor and try a pouch of Carter Hall (or Prince Albert or Half&Half or Captain Black) - usually found at any discount cigarette store along with some grocery- and drugstores (still).

Easy to find, easy to fill and light, not expensive and mildy aromatic. All of them, esp. Carter Hall or Prince Albert, go very well with a cob and rarely offend bystanders. Have at it.

After that, there are about 1000 other possibilities.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Thanks a bunch! :tu

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Is there a "right" way to smoke aromatic blends? I just got in some of the different Boswell blends for when I smoke indoors, and while they smell fantastic in the pouch I can hardly taste anything while smoking them. Or is this just simply the nature of the beast in regards to aromatics? Thanks.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

The nature of the beast. I aroma is 90% for the ladies in the next room and 10% for you.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

I suppose I can live with that, especially considering my two roommates are female.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

There are a couple out there that are not to bad, but for the most part, that's it. Personally - I think C&D does it best. Two Friends Celtic Mist is my favorite, but I don't smoke that much at all.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Some of the stuff that seems merely to have had some sort of syrup cooked onto a bunch of burley can be pretty dreadful from my perspective, others not so bad. Some aromatics are pressed and aged with a flavored casing --I'd rate PS Luxury Twist Flake as an aromatic, but it certainly bears no resemblance to something like 1Q, which is a reasonably decent version of the goop group. Some people would call Royal Yacht an aromatic, which is yet another thing, but it probably doesn't smell good enough to non-smokers to rate. The few Boswell blends I've tried were quite good.

I pack them very loosely and use the tamper to establish the proper draw after it's lit. Pack an aromatic too tight and you're basically done for. It can be sticky, too, so it often pays to let it dry a bit, until a wad of it falls apart rather than coagulates into an airtight, flameproof clump. Always bear that in mind when tamping -- they tend to burn wet and the tobacco will clump if you tamp it too hard and never burn right again.

For me, aromatics are dessert tobaccos. Basic smokes constitute most of my smoking, but a bowl of Three Blind Moose (my favorite aromatic) is nice for a change of pace. I also like to tone down the TBM with some PA mixed in. I think a lot of aromatics are a lot more tolerable "thinned" with something neutral.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

I have a pipe that every time I smoke it, it makes a whistling noise. I'm thinking that I just underfill it because the bowl is very deep. Could the whistling sound come from something else?

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

The draft hole might be too small, i think.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Might be some crud caught in the airway; if not it sound like what EmJay said. Might need a little drilling.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

I have an Ozark Mountain pipe that is really broken in well, and i smokes dry. Every time i smoke PS LNF in it, it sizzles and cracks. The tobacco seems to be dried out when I smoke it, and I've smoked it in a lot of pipes and it always does the same thing.

Do I need to dry it out more than it already is?

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Cold pipe left out in the car overnight? Smoked outside on a cold day?

I was smoking some pretty dry PS Luxury Twist last week and suddenly got a bad case of the sizzles in two different room-temp pipes, one new pipe and one well broken in . I started smoking half-bowls filled with less compression and that was that. I wait for warmer weather to see if the sizzles go away.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

I smoked it yesterday and it was 80 outside lol. I'm going to try half bowls, maybe air pocket method to see if that helps. LF has a strange texture as far as how wet it seems to the touch, maybe I'm not smoking them as dry as I think I am. Thanks Mr. Moo, I'll let you know if half bowls work out.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Time to give the Old Farts a bump.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Get a few Missouri Meerschaum pipes - bigger ones like the Great Danes. At less than $10 they're a bargain.

Two oz. of tobacco smoked from moist to dry over two-three weeks is a good start to have insights on a blend. Quantity is less of a road to insight than smoking slowly through a range of moistures and, as practical, pipes. If you get a real meer, pick wisely and you will be disappointed.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Mister Moo, not to tease, but it's as if I've bumped you awake from your Sunday nap. I believe that you mean that I won't be disappointed if I wisely choose a real meer.

I was bumping the 'old farts' up on the posting list since it had been two weeks without any action. It seemed that there were some newer members that were having difficulty finding what expertise you were offering.

I'm good for now. Thanks for your wisdom!

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

:D...you know how old farts are sometimes John!

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

zzzzzzzz

.......

zzzzzzzzzzzz


..........

zzzz............... !@%#@$@ HUH?!

Yo! JK! Wazzup?

.................. (waking-up self face slap :sl )

Yeah, right. "NOT" disappointed. Right. Right. Righty-right right. I've been smoking a large, plain/smooth meer dublin lately after great letdowns from two smaller, carved meerschaum pipes I bought a lonnnnnnnnnnnnng time ago. I just figured meerschaum pipes were gurgling pieces of crap until wiser-guys let me on to the restricted airway issue common to many smaller-sized meerschaum pipes The relatively inexpensive Paykoc import, carver unknown, smokes like a dream.

Meers can be great smoking pipes - some would argue the best - but I'd say dodge the less expensive, smaller, versions no matter down cute the skull and claw carving.

I was really hoping someone else would step up to bat on some of these (very good) questions.

.......................



zzzzzzzzzzz

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

I would have answered them, but by the time I see them, they are already answered.

I am one of those who prefers a broken in briar over a meer. Although, a meer will not retain flavors from other tobaccos as will a briar or a cob.

And yes, if you are getting a meer, get one made from block and not from pressed.

Peace of the Lord be with you.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

With respect to your love of the Pack; reliable presence in the forum, excellent, well-informed and thoughtful answers; and your always good spirited, cheerful demeanor.... (drum roll).......

My time is compromised. I wish to withdraw from this thread and respectfully ask the Rev to ramrod and encourage the best possible answers through to new, troubled or otherwise aspiring pipers.

Hoping you'll agree to keep your eye on this thread and keep it moving in the right direction. How about it? mmoo

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Hi there,
I have a question for you guys.

My father gave me some of his old pipes from the late 70's early 80's and I was wondering if these pipes are still good to use? They have NOT been used in about 25-30 years.
I have never smoked tabacco out of a pipe before but I'm interested in getting into it but wasn't sure if these old pipes were still any good.

Thanks in advance...

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Yes they still are good to use. Depending on condition, all you may need to do wipe them off and apply a little carnauba wax on the outside. Or they may need a little more work: Bowl reaming, 151 rum damp salt or cotton ball sterilizing of the bowl, stem oxidation removal, etc.etc....
Pictures of the pipes would be helpful.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Pictures of the pipes would be helpful.[/quote]

Thanks and will post pics ASAP. The pipes look good on the outside not sure about the inside.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Glad to see the thread stick-ied at last. Now the OF's have their rightful place at the top of the pipes discussion forum!

Bought myself a Altinok full-bent lattice ball meerschaum from RX2010 and am learning as I go. Thanks to all of the Old Farts shortening my learning curve!

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

I have a question. I typically smoke more VA-heavy blends, either straight or VA/PER. But I recently acquired 8oz. of Penzance & Stonehaven (respectively). With these English blends does one have to be more concerned with ghosting?

In other words, if I'm able to set aside an individual pipe for each blend, would this be a good idea? Will smoking either or these blends in a pipe that I have previously smoked something like Dunhill Nightcap or Solani Silver Flake affect that pipe negatively?

Or perhaps I'm overcomplicating this altogether. Any direction would be appreciated.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Yes, this is a good idea. These are blends that if you smoked numerous bowls of in the same pipe, may indeed, as you say, ghost. If however you have pipe in which you are already smoking Nightcap, and only want to smoke the occasional bowl of either the Penzance or Stonehaven, it shouldn't really be a problem.

I usually have a pipe for English blends and one for aromatics, and then I mix and match whatever I want.

The only tobaccos which I try to be careful with is Virginias and VaPers - I won't smoke any Latakia or Aromatics in those pipes.

Peace of the Lord be with you.

Re: New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart
 

Thanks for the advice, Rev. I'll make sure to set some aside for the ole English