School me on Aged Briar

[Briar Lee]

As I understand it all burls have to be cured and seasoned by boiling or steaming to remove tannins or else the briar will never be good.

After that it has to dry out to be worked into a pipe.

But the best makers of years ago and today age their briar, the longer the more they brag about it.



What is the theory behind aging briar?

All my Marxman pipes have aged at least seventy years by now.

Does aging after manufacture count, too?

 

[Sigmund]

I think aging is aging. Obviously its better for prevention of splits and problems when done in advance. Its more stable. At some point there is a point of diminishing returns. Years of constant change can change wood and fitting. But of it still fits well it is certainly aged now.

 

[Gimlet]

I'm baffled why it's even called briar, when to an Anglo Saxon on a rock in the north Atlantic, a briar is any of the various species of wild rose, whilst the briar of pipe bowls comes fom the Erica Arborea shrub, which is tree heather. A completely different and unrelated species.

I always wondered how anyone managed to make a pipe bowl from the root of a wild rose, which tend to be sappy and not very large.

 

[Gimlet]

I think aging is aging. Obviously its better for prevention of splits and problems when done in advance. Its more stable. At some point there is a point of diminishing returns. Years of constant change can change wood and fitting. But of it still fits well it is certainly aged now.

With most timbers, including burls (the root knot), aging is the process of slowly seasoning, ie drying and stabilising, the wood before it can be worked.
The harder and denser the wood, the longer it will take to season. Try to work it too soon and the less stable it will be, especially for an application like pipe bowls which will be subjected to heat in use.

As a general rule, it's reckoned that burl woods need one year of seasoning for every inch of thickness. So a walnut burl, for example, that might be used for cabinet-making veneers or gun stocks, could need ten years of seasoning before it can be worked, and all the while that seasoning must take place under controlled conditions, which is why burl walnut is so expensive.

I'm not an expert. I'm a bricklayer by trade, but I do work with trees in the winter and I'm often asked by people who've had large trees come down in some inaccessible spot in winter storms (I live in a windy place) if I can plank up the wood in situ so the owner can sell the timber. I have to explain that if you plank up a green tree, especially if it's a hardwood, the timber produced will be worthless because it will never be stable. You have to extract and season the timber whole or in the largest pieces possible, before milling it if the end product is to be worth having.

 

[bullet08]

Salt and pepper. Maybe nutmeg.

 

[elvishrunes]

Im sure it stabilizes the wood somehow, but big pipe manufacturers like Peterson and Sav, also want huge stockpiles too, just to guarantee years of pipe making…. So claiming it’s old is also a marketing benefit. I have 2 Brighams from the 30’s and 40’s, still in perfect condition…

 

[WerewolfOfLondon]

It seems there is a lot of talk about this Algerian briar at the moment. Makes me want one, not sure they're available here though.

 

[Gimlet]

It seems there is a lot of talk about this Algerian briar at the moment. Makes me want one, not sure they're available here though.

They probably are but more likely from craft pipe makers rather than the big factories. I may be wrong.

 

[Indygrap]

Your best bet

It seems there is a lot of talk about this Algerian briar at the moment. Makes me want one, not sure they're available here though.

Your best bet are estate pipes, but they’ll occasionally pop up on retail sites. RNA Treasures had a bunch a while back. Most aren’t pretty but they are readily available & are reasonably priced.

 

[Briar Lee]

It seems there is a lot of talk about this Algerian briar at the moment. Makes me want one, not sure they're available here though.

The kind I’m obsessed with is the top export grade from Algeria before the 1954 Algerian War of Indepence.

Dunhill used it for Shell pipes. BBB used it exclusively until supplies ran out. Marx and Mincer and Howard used it. Rogers and Edward’s used it maybe the longest.

Since 1962 French Algeria has been the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria which is not democratic and not a republic and the people are almost all Muslims with a really, really bad grudge against Westerners because the French tortured, raped, and murdered them by the millions for over a hundred years.

But when the bloom was on the rose of the French Algerian briar all sources agreed the French had to boil and cure the briar a lot longer, and then season it by air drying much longer, and then the makers further aged the cut blocks even longer, for flavor.

Today Castello advertises they only use briar aged ten years or more and those are blocks that were cured and seasoned, before aging.

That extra aging is supposed to make it better, like aging bourbon.

Once bourbon is bottled it no longer ages.

And aging of briar blocks was done in covered but opened warehouses.

When pipes are made they are sanded, polished and often sealed with a hard finish. Then they usually don’t get subjected to temperature and humidity extremes.

I’ve read where Eric Nording doesn’t believe in aging briar more than it needs to be seasoned enough to work into pipes.

I’ve broken in two new Nordings in a lifetime and it was not a pleasant experience but eventually they quit getting hot and sweating and tasting like burned briar.

But maybe those blocks were not cured enough before they were seasoned,

This morning I have a huge dollop of Carter Hall in that Aged Algerian Tom Howard, which is over seventy years old, and the angels in heaven don’t have any better pipe than mine to smoke.

But there’s a chance the burl used first grew before the French invaded Algeria in 1830. Its certainly very, very old however old it is.

Aging can’t hurt briar.

And it might release the bad little mojos from inside the wood so the good little mojos in there can help Carter Hall taste like it cost ten dollars an ounce.

 

[didimauw]

Salt and pepper. Maybe nutmeg.

Is that Peterson's secret? Makes sense!

 

[WerewolfOfLondon]

The kind I’m obsessed with is the top export grade from Algeria before the 1954 Algerian War of Indepence.

Dunhill used it for Shell pipes. BBB used it exclusively until supplies ran out. Marx and Mincer and Howard used it. Rogers and Edward’s used it maybe the longest.

Since 1962 French Algeria has been the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria which is not democratic and not a republic and the people are almost all Muslims with a really, really bad grudge against Westerners because the French tortured, raped, and murdered them by the millions for over a hundred years.

But when the bloom was on the rose of the French Algerian briar all sources agreed the French had to boil and cure the briar a lot longer, and then season it by air drying much longer, and then the makers further aged the cut blocks even longer, for flavor.

Today Castello advertises they only use briar aged ten years or more and those are blocks that were cured and seasoned, before aging.

That extra aging is supposed to make it better, like aging bourbon.

Once bourbon is bottled it no longer ages.

And aging of briar blocks was done in covered but opened warehouses.

When pipes are made they are sanded, polished and often sealed with a hard finish. Then they usually don’t get subjected to temperature and humidity extremes.

I’ve read where Eric Nording doesn’t believe in aging briar more than it needs to be seasoned enough to work into pipes.

I’ve broken in two new Nordings in a lifetime and it was not a pleasant experience but eventually they quit getting hot and sweating and tasting like burned briar.

But maybe those blocks were not cured enough before they were seasoned,

This morning I have a huge dollop of Carter Hall in that Aged Algerian Tom Howard, which is over seventy years old, and the angels in heaven don’t have any better pipe than mine to smoke.

But there’s a chance the burl used first grew before the French invaded Algeria in 1830. Its certainly very, very old however old it is.

Aging can’t hurt briar.

And it might release the bad little mojos from inside the wood so the good little mojos in there can help Carter Hall taste like it cost ten dollars an ounce.

You've convinced me, I'm going to make it my business to get a pre-1954 Algerian briar. One will pop up on e-bay eventually. Why do they all have that grissled and gnarled exterior? Could that not have been chiseled down and sanded?

 

[sablebrush52]

Seasoning wood is done primarily to improve dimensional stability where that matters, and occasionally set resonance where that matters.

 

[sablebrush52]

You've convinced me, I'm going to make it my business to get a pre-1954 Algerian briar. One will pop up on e-bay eventually. Why do they all have that grissled and gnarled exterior? Could that not have been chiseled down and sanded?

Algerian briar pipes show up on eBay almost every day. Most of them don’t display the crude rustication that was a style choice to deal with the pits and flaws in the lower grade briar that was used to make most of the brands being promoted in these “wonders of Algerian Briar” threads.

 

[wayneteipen]

If kept in an area where there are shifts in humidity, the slow penetration of moisture in the humid season then wicking out of moisture in the dry season pulls out tannins from the wood over time. Tannins in briar are red tinted. If you've ever seen a very old block of briar, it has a reddish exterior color on the surface. Tannins are the source of bitterness of a new pipe made from newly milled briar. A pipe made from aged briar should be more neutral in taste due to less tannins remaining in the wood. When tannins are still present in the briar of a pipe, they will continue to leech out over time due to atmospheric humidity changes as well as from the absorption and drying of moisture when smoked. This is the breaking in period of a pipe. It's also why some pipes (made with less seasoned briar) require a significant breaking in period and others made from well seasoned briar typically do not.

 

[WerewolfOfLondon]

Algerian briar pipes show up on eBay almost every day. Most of them don’t display the crude rustication that was a style choice to deal with the pits and flaws in the lower grade briar that was used to make most of the brands being promoted in these “wonders of Algerian Briar” threads.

I see. I get the impression the acclaim for these pipes is not exactly universal, lol.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I'm baffled why it's even called briar

It's an English corruption of the word bruyère like how "el lagarto" became alligator and "Acadian" became a cajun.

 

[gamzultovah]

I’ve broken in two new Nordings in a lifetime and it was not a pleasant experience but eventually they quit getting hot and sweating and tasting like burned briar.

But maybe those blocks were not cured enough before they were seasoned,

This has been my experience. I’ve bought cheap overseas pipes before and the break in was hell, but once broken in, they smoke just as well as any of my pipes. I’m thinking aging has to do more with the integrity of the briar and curing has more to do with break in time than anything else, but I could be wrong.

 

[sablebrush52]

I see. I get the impression the acclaim for these pipes is not exactly universal, lol.

In the pipe smoking community universal acclaim doesn't exist.

That said, no other briar growing region has spurred the popular imagination as much as Algeria. That's just a demonstrable fact when you look at the published record, such as industry publications, advertisements,. etc Look at old nameless basket pipes from 80 years ago and many will have Algerian "whatsis" stamped on them. You won't see Sardinian "whatsis", or Calabrian "whatsis", because those don't have the spark of "oriental romance" that Algerian has with the public.

Is all this attention based on some innate superiority, or a great marketing opportunity based on another irrational public fixation? Damned if I know, but I'd bet on the latter.

And, as stated earlier, much of my pipe collection consists of pipes made with old Algerian briar, but NOT because of the origin of the briar but because I enjoy smoking pipes made by a company that used Algerian briar almost exclusively, Barling, and another, Comoy, that also, like Barling, set up their own briar harvesting and seasoning operations in Algeria in the early years of the last century.

I like the way these pipes smoke. They happen to be made from Algerian briar that these companies harvested, selected, and processed in Algeria.

More than likely, what they didn't choose for their product was brokered on the open market, to be bought by other companies, like the one's mentioned in the various "Algerian yada yada yada" threads.

 

[sablebrush52]

I’ve broken in two new Nordings in a lifetime and it was not a pleasant experience but eventually they quit getting hot and sweating and tasting like burned briar.

Interesting. I've broken in two Nordings and they were easy, but they ere also his number graded high grades, so maybe that has something to do with it.