A Closer Look at Briar Grain

[Briar Lee]

Here’s a very interesting article by Chuck Stanion dated January 13, 2023:

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Grain is made up not only of capillaries but of growth rings. Most noticeable on sandblasted pipes, though discernible on smooth pipes with excellent grain as well, growth rings may be envisioned by imagining the spherical burl. As years go by, the sphere grows in annual layers that sheath the root ball, layer after layer, outward from the center and bisecting the capillaries at nearly right angles.

How Pipes Get Their Grain | A Closer Look at the Heath Tree Burl

Learn more about the grain of the heath tree burl and how it affects the look of briar pipes.

www.smokingpipes.com

It has been my experience that a piece of briar with extremely close together growth rings, is the most reliable indicator of smoking quality.

Beautiful grain figure sells pipes.

Denser briar smokes better.

You can have dense briar with growth rings only a razor blade width apart on a stunningly grained piece of briar.

But in my experience the two are usually not compatable. A dense piece of briar is usually plain and a fancy one is not as dense.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Grain is just aesthetically pleasing or no. It may affect whether or not the outside of the stummel heats up but can in no way affect how the pipe smokes. That's up to the drilling.

 

[Chasing Embers]

You can have dense briar with growth rings only a razor blade width apart on a stunningly grained piece of briar.

That sounds more like capillary grain than the rings. Is this what you're calling growth rings?

 

[Briar Lee]

That sounds more like capillary grain than the rings. Is this what you're calling growth rings?

View attachment 273303

Stanion explained it better than I could.

There are capillaries that radiate up, to transfer water and nutrients to the shrub.

The growth rings are across the capillaries. Each year there’s a line.

Years ago there was a pipe brand named Century Old Briar.

Stanion explains that it’s the slow growth of Mediterranean briar that made it more desirable than Mountain Laurel from North Carolina during World War Two.

Likewise I’ve seen photos of stunning grain on Mission Briar from California.

It’s not how big, or how old the burl is, that is an indicator of smoking quality.

If it struggled to grow, the growth rings will be tight. It will be denser.

I think denser briar smokes better (whatever the national source of the briar) for two main reasons.

Denser briar is more fire resistant and a better insulator. The pipe doesn’t get as hot.

There is some kind of good tasting something inside heather burls grown around the Mediterranean. Otherwise all quality wood pipes would not have been made of that wood and that wood only, for almost two centuries. The pipe makers can only use a portion of the burl, never the root or trunk.

The longer it takes for the burl to grow the denser it is and the more “goodie” is inside the briar.

Right now I’m smoking a very old four hole stinger Kaywoodie #22 Flame Grain with magnificent grain structure.

I can see the grain figure, but the growth rings were polished out.

Kaywoodie advertised these came from Grecian briar 200-400 years old.

It tastes delicious and smokes cool.

Costello and other high end makers use dense briar today.

 

[bullet08]

By that definition, the pipe cut perpendicular to the growth ring might not smoke as well as one cut parallel to the grain. I doubt that's the case. They all smoke about the same. How well a pipe smokes is directly associated with how well the airway is drilled. Rest is how much you like that pipe.

 

[Briar Lee]

By that definition, the pipe cut perpendicular to the growth ring might not smoke as well as one cut parallel to the grain. I doubt that's the case. They all smoke about the same. How well a pipe smokes is directly associated with how well the airway is drilled. Rest is how much you like that pipe.

The airway does have an effect on smoking. Remove a stem and smoke any briar pipe and see.

But we smoke them with the stems on, and those stems have nearly the same size hole drilled that barely fits a pipe cleaner.

The typical airway is five to six inches of a pipe cleaner size bore hole at the end. The differences are likely heat related.

When my heart sees that arrow and Marxman stamp of course I’m prepared to like that pipe. I’m sure everyone has a bias for their favorite brand.

And there could be a regional taste to briar, the same as Havana seed cigars are different raised in Cuba than other Caribbean locations. I’d not say that’s true, though. It might be.

But there is a briar taste. We can taste it on brand new pipes as we break them in.

It stands to reason and logic that a burl that’s struggled to grow through a crack in the rocks on a mountainside has more of whatever taste that causes us to want briar pipes.

And the part about dense briar being more fireproof and a better insulator is obvious.

A Castello is not going to get too hot to hold, very easily. A cheap pipe will.

 

[bullet08]

Yes, density makes difference in how the pipe handles the heat. Yes, new pipes will have briar taste, some do. But what you are smoking and tasting is the tobacco in the chamber, not the density nor the briar. It really doesn't make sense to say one briar somehow interacts with tobacco to give better smoke.

 

[Briar Lee]

Yes, density makes difference in how the pipe handles the heat. Yes, new pipes will have briar taste, some do. But what you are smoking and tasting is the tobacco in the chamber, not the density nor the briar. It really doesn't make sense to say one briar somehow interacts with tobacco to give better smoke.

First, we are splitting hairs. There isn’t much difference.

After a pipe is broken in and if you folowed the old advice to cake up the bowl the thickness of a dime, after that we are smoking a carbon lined pipe.

Since Friday I’ve smoked everything except a Pre 54 Marxman pipe from my tubs. All are broken in, every one with a film only of carbon in the bowl, all smoked all the way down until they don’t obviously taste like briar. All are good smokers, some better than others.

Mostly, the more that pipe cost new the better it smokes. Not always, but that’s the way to bet.

And this very old pre 1960 Fischer marked Buffalo New York is the winner:



It doesn’t get very hot. It soaks up beeswax like a sponge. It visibly colors a little with each smoke. It’s kinda ugly.

The loser is this gorgeous Ben Wade. A good smoker, it’s almost impossible to smoke it slowly enough it doesn’t get blistering hot to hold.



That Ben Wade and Nording started the popularity of Danish freehands in the seventies and that was likely the cheapest pick axe shaped freehand in the catalog or on the shelf.

It was stained and finshed matte for cost reasons.

It used the cheapest pretty grained briar Preben Holm could buy.

It’s not as dense as my Marxmans or that old Fischer.

 

[Chasing Embers]

There are capillaries that radiate up, to transfer water and nutrients to the shrub.

That's the visible grain on smooth pipes called straight, flame, angel hair, etc.

The growth rings are across the capillaries. Each year there’s a line.

Those are the ones you see in sandblasted pipes.

 

[Chasing Embers]

There is some kind of good tasting something inside heather burls grown around the Mediterranean. Otherwise all quality wood pipes would not have been made of that wood and that wood only, for almost two centuries. The pipe makers can only use a portion of the burl, never the root or trunk.

They used it because of its resistance to burning and as a cheaper alternative to meerschaum. Some "quality" pipes are also made from mountain laurel, pear, maple, cherry, osage orange.

 

[sasquatch]

It's easy to find "articles" that claim only the heart of the burl is the best smoking wood. And easy to find articles that claim only the extremis, the plateau, is worth using. There are people who claim denser wood smokes better and people who only buy particularly light briar (because it smokes better).

If you analyze pipes by unfalsifiable premises, you get the desired result. "All my black pipes smoke better than all my brown pipes, so black pipes smoke better."

It's nonsense.

Analyze a pipe by how it's built. End of story. Airway size, plenum spaces, how smooth the transitions are, how deep and how well made the slot is...

In the industry, the mantra is "the stem is the pipe" and I ... I fought it. Pigheaded magic-seeker I was, I had to try every briar, every system, every everything. And yeah... the stem is the pipe. How the pipe is built is the pipe.

One exception is that I've had one or two pipes that smoked beautifully, were built quite well, and tasted awful. And these I put down to some treatment (stain in the bowl?) or lack thereof (improperly boiled wood?). They are few and far between.

Give me a piece of decent briar, and I'll build you an excellent smoking pipe. Sorry.

 

[Hillcrest]

The loser is this gorgeous Ben Wade.

Briar Lee, Those dark fine line capillaries (Xylem?) is exactly what I avoid in a pipe. They are extremely porous. That was the problem with my Barontini 1/2 spigot. Since the resale value was negligible I decided to fix it myself as a learning experience. I coated it with glue and smoked it and it revealed over 50 pinholes in that grain. I applied real wood filler and sanded it three times then restained it. Its now a preferred smoker but it took six months of work to get there. I have one dark spot on my Irish Second Xl339S but its not as bad and I avoid holding the pipe in that one spot.
When I look at pipes now I look for plain no frills wood with thick walls. Just my reference.
I would have avoided that Ben Wade. YMMV

 

[Briar Lee]

About the only way anyone can be assured of good smoking briar is the reputation of the maker.

My plain Jane medium Buffalo NY Fischer Lovat is a better tasting pipe than my other non Marxman pipes.

It has thin walls, hardly any grain, and it’s not pretty.

I don’t think it’s an accident a small, old pipe maker in Buffalo New York stayed in business over 80 years.

The people in the trade knew what briar smoked best, and none of them ever bragged they used young, fresh briar.

 

[gervais]

I have a system Pete that will get pretty hot at certain points of the smoke, but I wouldn't chalk it down to bad briar, but simply extremely thin walls. The wall thickness will have more to do with how hot a pipe gets, then weather or not it's "dense or not as dense" briar.

Most of the wall thickness in this pipe is barely 1/8 of an inch thick. Gotta be a little more careful with this model.

 

[Briar Lee]

For two days I’ve smoked every pipe I own but Marxmans. I have some really nice pipes, you know?

But let me take back what I said about splitting hairs.

Once you get the taste for extremely dense, very old Algerian briar you are ruined for anything less.

This one is the best smoke I’ve had in days.



If that briar was available in commercial quantity, as it was before 1954, the top end pipes would still use it today like they did then.

There’s no real comparison to other grades of briar.

They were like real Cuban cigars.

The makers have used good substitutes, but nothing tastes like it, and no other briar colors as quickly to a deep reddish brown.

 

[Briar Lee]

Look how real Pre 54 top grade Algerian briar colors as you smoke them.



Substitutes just can’t do that.

Wax accelerates coloring, as does keeping down caking.

Before long they’ll get even darker, all of them.

 

[gervais]

For two days I’ve smoked every pipe I own but Marxmans. I have some really nice pipes, you know?

But let me take back what I said about splitting hairs.

Once you get the taste for extremely dense, very old Algerian briar you are ruined for anything less.

This one is the best smoke I’ve had in days.

View attachment 273547
View attachment 273549
If that briar was available in commercial quantity, as it was before 1954, the top end pipes would still use it today like they did then.

There’s no real comparison to other grades of briar.

They were like real Cuban cigars.

The makers have used good substitutes, but nothing tastes like it, and no other briar colors as quickly to a deep reddish brown.

I think you're tasting the fossilized shit from that worm in the side of your pipe

 

[ssjones]

It's nonsense.

Analyze a pipe by how it's built. End of story. Airway size, plenum spaces, how smooth the transitions are, how deep and how well made the slot is...

In the industry, the mantra is "the stem is the pipe" and I ... I fought it. Pigheaded magic-seeker I was, I had to try every briar, every system, every everything. And yeah... the stem is the pipe. How the pipe is built is the pipe.

One exception is that I've had one or two pipes that smoked beautifully, were built quite well, and tasted awful. And these I put down to some treatment (stain in the bowl?) or lack thereof (improperly boiled wood?). They are few and far between.

Give me a piece of decent briar, and I'll build you an excellent smoking pipe. Sorry.

I'm of this camp. Grain affecting smoking qualities is nonsense. We talk ourselves into believing what we want due to preference.
If the pipe is made properly, with a good stem, it's likely to smoke well no matter the grain orientation.

 

[Briar Lee]

I'm of this camp. Grain affecting smoking qualities is nonsense. We talk ourselves into believing what we want due to preference.
If the pipe is made properly, with a good stem, it's likely to smoke well no matter the grain orientation.

I sometimes wish I’d not got addicted to the unique taste of pre 54 Alerian briar.

At my office I still smoke Lees full of candy flavored cavendish all day because of the aroma.

But at home j smoke stronger tobaccos, lots of Virginias and Va Pers.

I spent all day Saturday and Sunday smoking my pioes other than Marxmans.

Not a whole lot, of difference between them except one old Fischer Buffalo NY that’s likely Algerian.

This morning I’m back with Marxman.

I can see, why somebody might not like a Marxman. My son won’t drink my Papst Blue Ribbon or Stag beer. I think his Michelob Ultra is flavorless.

I hate hominy, many people love it.

But there’s a Marxman taste and I’m addicted to it. It’s robust and hearty and zesty. That has to come from sap in Algerian briar I like.

The ugliness of the traditional Marxman keeps most pipe smokers away from them.



Same pipe a month ago.



No other briar darkens with smoking like that.

 

[sasquatch]

Literally all briar darkes with smoking, like that.

This is fun, keep going!