Lighting Your Pipe & Controlling Air Flow | Dottle Diggers, Ember Chasing And Slow Smoking

Lighting Your Pipe & Controlling Air Flow February 18th, 2010

In the first two postings of my blog, I have attempted to convey the thoughts I have had about competition pipe smoking, or rather some concepts that I have considered and experimented with and may aide in extending one’s personal slow smoking time. I’m no expert. I am however, enjoying the mental exercise as-well-as analyzing the results of my experimentation. In other words; I’m playing with my toys, but with purpose. Just like a kid who takes apart his toys to see how they work. I am learning from my experiments and making some headway. I am rethinking what I thought or believed to be true about slow smoking. I, like many of you; have smoked a pipe for years, and love the whole pipe smoking experience in general.

While experimenting last night; I had an epiphany! I said to myself: YOU IDIOT! Don’t chase the ember FEED IT! My revelation will become apparent further on. I have followed my own advice thus far, with some gratifying success I might add. Since I’m already off topic in this paragraph… My latest benchmark went from 50 minutes to 1 hour 26 minutes. I’m smoking Half and Half for consistency in my experiments.

We all know how to properly light a pipe, right? (I think so.) Whether you prefer, a Zippo, or butane lighter is irrelevant because you are allowed only two matches in competition. You have the pre-light, sometimes called charring, then the tamping of the ash to create a good surface for/and then the true light at which point they start the clock.

I take no issue with the above consensus about a proper light. As it so happens; there is only one thing I believe needs to be adjusted when lighting one’s pipe for competition. You must limit the area (that is lit) to as small a surface area as is possible, with a match, rather than lighting the entire surface of your bowl.

I have been practicing the lighting of only one quarter of the surface area, using the “Char-Tamp-Relight” method. (This doesn’t require smoking the whole bowl in competition mode after all you’re just learning the fingering for a difficult phrase in that new piece of music.) I have since had a great deal of success in lighting smaller and smaller areas. I don’t yet know if I have reached the size limit but, in a one inch diameter bowl I have been lighting an area a half again larger than the diameter of a standard pencil eraser. Bear this in mind. This is a risky method and you could lose immediately if you fail to get your pipe lit. So, I suggest that you practice this with purpose.

Using two kitchen matches I light my pipe in the following manner for slow smoking:

1) Strike the first match. Hold it at an upward angle so that the flame is kept to about ½ inch height. Uncontrolled moving air is your enemy, so shield the flame.

2) This is the hard part; while keeping the match flame small draw very gently, very slowly and very shallow. The trick is to quickly char only enough tobacco to produce some ash, and then allow it to go out. Remember char less than ¼ of the surface area. Don’t tamp.

3) I have shown you three of my own tampers (in my first post). I use my smallest diameter tamper. Twist the tamper back and forth gently over the char. Don’t compress this area. By twisting the tamper you are effectively sanding the ashes off of the char and creating a good surface for the re-light. Don’t allow any fresh tobacco into the charred area

4) Strike the second match. Hold it at an upward angle so that the flame is kept to ½ inch height. Same as above.

5) Again, pulling very gently, very slowly, and as shallow as you can relight the smallest area possible and create a small ember, ignoring at least three quarters of the bowl’s surface of fresh tobacco. If you are not careful it could go out at this point.

You want the ember to maintain a steady and unaggressive glow. You must pay close attention to what is happening with the ember.

The next several of minutes are critical…remember: you don’t want to pull to much air too fast. This has the effect of either blowing the ember out, or burning too much tobacco to fast. A very slow and gentle movement of air across the ember is enough to keep it lit. Tamp lightly, only as necessary, and twist when you tamp.

If you can maintain that little ember glowing and not growing in size, for the first several minutes than you are well on your way to lighting your pipe. As the ember burns down into the bowl allow it to have just enough air to continue to do so. I have been allowing it burn down to a place a little more than half the way down. (It takes about 15 minutes to get to that point.)

This is point where I had my epiphany! Carefully (using the non-tamping end of a pipe nail, the Brebbia) I now rake a particle or two of tobacco into the mini-bowl that has been created inside the bowl of my pipe. Tamp it down only enough to engage the ember. NO FARTHER! The whole idea at this point is to feed the ember from the top. I think you could say, at this point, that you have successfully lit your pipe. By now a goodly portion of your competition has already fallen by the wayside. (Insert hunch-shouldered-hand-wringing and a low evil laugh.)

Now I must back track just a little: To light the fresh tobacco reverse the air flow (blow into the stem), just as gently and slowly as you have been drawing on the pipe to this point. Allow it to char before you tamp it down, ever so gently. Continue feeding the ember from the top for as long as you can, drawing in and blowing out as necessary. Here after the ash will compress on its own with some gentle assistance. You can maintain its relative position in the mini-bowl for quite some time.

Stay focused on the ember, maintain your mind-set. You are in the zone.

After all of the tobacco from the upper portion of the bowl had been consumed; I still managed to stretch the time almost another 10 minutes. This is where I was forced to chase the ember. It was becoming more and more difficult to maintain a consistent temperature. It was tamper intensive, and the ember increased in size and temperature because of the ember’s increase in surface area and its access to air. I’ll try increasing the size of the tamper, next time, to see if that helps with restricting the air flow.

If done correctly all the way to the draft hole; you should be able to turn your pipe upside-down and nothing but completely spent ash will fall out, the bottom will be dry, and the bowl only a little warmer than room temperature. You may not even have to knock your pipe.

11 Responses to “Lighting Your Pipe & Controlling Air Flow”

sinistertopiary said:

Fascinating.

I don’t know if I have the patience and focus to do what you’re doing, but I’ll give it a try and see what happens.

How do you see the ember? I mean that literally, ’cause I can only see it under very poor lighting conditions.

Also, do you look in the bowl while you’re smoking it, or do you pull it away? I’m neither that near-sighted nor cross-eyed to look in the bowl while I’m smoking.

Also, do you prefer straight or bent stem? I imagine it would be easier to study the progress of the bowl with a bent stem since you’d have a better line of sight into it.

February 19th, 2010 at 8:10 am
pstlpkr said:

I am pleased you are enjoying my posts Sinister.
As for patience, I’m approaching this small project as if it were just another course of study. I’m attempting to learn without an instructor. Its just an exercise to keep the ol’ “brain housing group” from getting to rusty.
Seeing the ember, once one is well into the lighting process is problematic. I have learned that if you cup your hand around the bowl, (effectively extending the bore), as you draw on the pipe you can see where and what size the ember is. Controlling the brightness is crucial to controlling tobacco consumption. I’ll touch on that in a future post.
As for the type of pipe, right now, I have kind of settled on my Bjarne free form. Choosing your pipe may be the primary subject of my next post. I haven’t decided yet. There are a between 4 and 6 more aspects/topic to the slow smoke. It just depends on how they seem to fit together that will determine the remaining topics.

February 19th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Bob said:

Great addition to your ‘Slow Smoking Series’ Pstlpkr!

I am greatly enjoying it and am learning more about slow smoking in your last several posts than I have since I started smoking pipes. Keep them coming!

February 19th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
pstlpkr said:

Thanks Bob,
I’m having a lot of fun writing them.
Just learning as I go, thinking about the subject in general, thinking about what I’m doing specifically, and prack-tizing.

February 19th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
dunendain said:

Very interesting blog pistol. I like to think to I am a pretty slow smoker, when relaxed. However, I’m not sure how I would do with 2 matches. Those competitions have always intrigued me. Your blog has giving me the inspiration to give it a try.

February 21st, 2010 at 9:43 am
pstlpkr said:

Thank you Dune,
I hope you do give it a try.
Down here a good competition will sometimes have a high end pipe for 1st place (or is it last).
Might be worth a few of practice sessions.

February 21st, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Darren said:

It’s against the ICPC rules to blow into the pipe. If you get caught, you’ll be disqualified.

April 7th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
pstlpkr said:

Darren,
I was unaware of that rule. I didn’t see that listed in the rules.
But, if it is against the rules, I won’t do it.
Thanks,

April 8th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Raymond M Lykins said:

RE: CIPC/UPCA Rules about blowing into the pipe.

Pstlpkr, I’m glad to have found your blog online since our meeting at the Briary 2010 Smoking Contest. Congratulations again on your impressive showing at the contest. You are a noble competitor, sir!

We did discuss the concern raised by Darren regarding the CIPC/UPCA rules regarding blowing into the pipe. As we discussed, I had interpreted the rule as prohibiting blowing into the BOWL of the pipe to keep the ember lit. Since the rule purports to ban blowing into the pipe with the nose OR the mouth, this would be the most logical interpretation because a) backdraft into the bowl is inevitable in slow smoking and b) I cannot imagine any (sane) pipe contestant inserting the stem of the pipe up his nose in order to keep it lit. (Though a picture of this would be priceless!)

Not wanting confustion before my attept at the Chicago National Pipe Competition, I emailed the UPCA for an official interpretation of the rule in question, the text of which follows:

Mr. Lykins

You recently contacted UPCA regarding the Contest rules for Chicago. Your question was about blowing into the pipe.

We have been asked this in the past and received the following from CIPC that crafted the rules used world wide and adopted by UPCA. The answer from Geert A.M. Derkse, president of the CIPC is below.

As to your question on blowing in the mouthpiece: this is not prohibited! The main reason is that during a contest people need to have their pipe in the mouth quite a lot of times, not only for smoking, but also when they want to use their tamper and in these situations you cannot (always) check if they are blowing in the mouthpiece. Of course a contest is all about pipe smoking and not pipe blowing, but I am afraid you cannot stop people doing so. It will be very difficult for a judge to determine whether a contestant is blowing in the mouthpiece just by accident or on purpose, is blowing very softly in the mouthpiece or a little bit harder. Only when the pipe produces smoke like a chimney ….

I trust this answers your question.

David Bull
Secretary
United Pipe Clubs of America

I have a brief question about the rules governing the Pipe Smoking Contest in Chicago.

The rules state that a contestant may not keep the pipe alight by blowing into the pipe with the nose or the mouth.

Does this also apply to blowing through the stem of the pipe during smoking? There has been a debate as to the semantics of this rule at our local pipe shop.

I interpret this rule to bar a contestant from blowing into the BOWL of the pipe in order to stoke the ember from the non-bit end. This would make more sense given that a) during extended smoking, it is natural to have backdraft into the bowl, causing smoke to rise from the bowl, and 2) it’s hard for me to imagine a (logically thinking) contestant inserting the stem of his pipe up his nose to keep it alight.

Please clarify.

Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely

Raymond M. Lykins

April 23rd, 2010 at 10:44 am
pstlpkr said:

Thanks for the kind words Raymond, however; I’m not in your league …. yet.
As we discussed; our perceived absurdity of blowing into the pipe stem being against the rules has born itself out.
Thank you for sharing the clarification.

Again, I wish to congratulate you on a magnificent performance in the competition.

Lawrence

April 23rd, 2010 at 12:18 pm
sapo59 said:

Interesting, I for one would not stick a pipe in my nose. Silly

April 23rd, 2010 at 3:44 pm

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