Three years into driving a pipe, I generally consider myself reasonably competent, and discarded the metaphorical L plates a while ago. However, you should never stop learning, so I'd like to throw out my experiences with wide bowled pipes, and see if anyone tells me that I've missed a trick.
Here's what's happening with me on the wider bowls, by which I mean more than 19mm (3/4" to those who still use the vintage system). This happens regularly in my Country Gentleman cob, but has happened on other bowls too.
I prep the tobacco, pack as normal, fire up and sit back to enjoy the smoke. As I fire it up I get most of the top aglow, and settle into it with gentle relaxed sipping, while my mind untangles it's knots and drifts with the smoke.
Occasionally, I'll touch the top of the ash with a tamp to ensure the coal is seated, blissfully unaware that as my stresses recede, so does the size of the coal. As time passes, I sip gently, and the coal gradually tunnels it's way through the tobacco, shrinking as it does so, until it finally fades out to nothing.
Puzzled, I'll lightly tamp the top of the tobacco and feel the ash solidly on the tobacco, and then tip out the ash to reveal the conical aperture reaching down into the depths of the bowl. A minute or so with the pick, and I've teased all the unburnt, both charred and uncharred, tobacco back across the full diameter, and tamped the mostly charred top, ready to relight the partially spent leaf, and resume a now slightly impared smoke.
Normally, when I deploy the Country Gentleman, this is no major problem. The reason is that I'm sat in the firelight of a roaring chiminea, accompanied by a bottle of whisky that hold considerably less than it did an hour or so ago. However, when driving the pipe sober, I can become slightly irked by this rather tedious behaviour.
So if I smoke the pipe properly, the tobacco doesn't burn properly, and the pipe only burns the tobacco efficiently across the whole bowl, when I'm futher down the aforementioned bottle, proper technique has gone out of the window, and I'm chugging on that thing like I'm trying to access all remaining nicotine in that pipe all at once. After all, any tongue damage won't be felt at the time, and will be masked by the aching head tomorrow anyway.
Maybe there's a technique to these wider bowls that I've not discovered yet. The first part of the smoke is truly idyllic, cool and bite free, and full of flavour. But I'd rather that happen with the whole bowl, and not just the third in that recurring conical burn.
So, learned bretheren, how do you guys get the full benefit of the wider bowl without burning briar or tongue, or is the conical burn just a part of the ride for you too?
Here's what's happening with me on the wider bowls, by which I mean more than 19mm (3/4" to those who still use the vintage system). This happens regularly in my Country Gentleman cob, but has happened on other bowls too.
I prep the tobacco, pack as normal, fire up and sit back to enjoy the smoke. As I fire it up I get most of the top aglow, and settle into it with gentle relaxed sipping, while my mind untangles it's knots and drifts with the smoke.
Occasionally, I'll touch the top of the ash with a tamp to ensure the coal is seated, blissfully unaware that as my stresses recede, so does the size of the coal. As time passes, I sip gently, and the coal gradually tunnels it's way through the tobacco, shrinking as it does so, until it finally fades out to nothing.
Puzzled, I'll lightly tamp the top of the tobacco and feel the ash solidly on the tobacco, and then tip out the ash to reveal the conical aperture reaching down into the depths of the bowl. A minute or so with the pick, and I've teased all the unburnt, both charred and uncharred, tobacco back across the full diameter, and tamped the mostly charred top, ready to relight the partially spent leaf, and resume a now slightly impared smoke.
Normally, when I deploy the Country Gentleman, this is no major problem. The reason is that I'm sat in the firelight of a roaring chiminea, accompanied by a bottle of whisky that hold considerably less than it did an hour or so ago. However, when driving the pipe sober, I can become slightly irked by this rather tedious behaviour.
So if I smoke the pipe properly, the tobacco doesn't burn properly, and the pipe only burns the tobacco efficiently across the whole bowl, when I'm futher down the aforementioned bottle, proper technique has gone out of the window, and I'm chugging on that thing like I'm trying to access all remaining nicotine in that pipe all at once. After all, any tongue damage won't be felt at the time, and will be masked by the aching head tomorrow anyway.
Maybe there's a technique to these wider bowls that I've not discovered yet. The first part of the smoke is truly idyllic, cool and bite free, and full of flavour. But I'd rather that happen with the whole bowl, and not just the third in that recurring conical burn.
So, learned bretheren, how do you guys get the full benefit of the wider bowl without burning briar or tongue, or is the conical burn just a part of the ride for you too?