School me on Aged Briar

[Sigmund]

Are you conducting a social experiment or undertaking a profit making scheme?

Hype up a cheap average made brand. Buy them all up. Sell them later to the unsuspecting believers for an inflated price?

Ive seen it before in the music world.

 

[Briar Lee]

Are you conducting a social experiment or undertaking a profit making scheme?

Hype up a cheap average made brand. Buy them all up. Sell them later to the unsuspecting believers for an inflated price?

Ive seen it before in the music world.

The amount of influence we have is very limited.

The do gooders will not outlaw pipe smoking. In fact it might experience a small increase the same way premium cigars have in the last thirty years.

There will be new pipe smokers among all the boys born today.

They may discover reading online there was a day when America made among the best briar pipes on earth.

Kaywoodies are not neglected today, although in later years Kaywoodie pipes were a shadow of what they had been.

A gold inlaid star Lee, or any Marxman made in New York City, were luxury items when new, and shouldn’t be forgotten.

I only buy Marxman pipes.

There ain’t no profit unless you sell.

 

[Sandblast]

Back in the 70's, 80's, I was a regular customer at the Edwards Pipe Shops. Bought several of their pipe, lots of their tobacco, drank lots of their complimentary coffee. Edwards always touted that their pipes were Algerian Briar .... the finest briar.

 

[Briar Lee]

Back in the 70's, 80's, I was a regular customer at the Edwards Pipe Shops. Bought several of their pipe, lots of their tobacco, drank lots of their complimentary coffee. Edwards always touted that their pipes were Algerian Briar .... the finest briar.

It would interest me to know exactly how Edward’s got supplies of Algerian briar after 1962. It might have been all pre 54. I own a few Edward’s pipes and they are magnificent smokers.

 

[sasquatch]

These days, burls are harvested and kept wet. They are taken to the various mills to be cut, and they are cut, graded, and boiled. The tannins and acidic juice in the plant (kind of pinkish) are removed, and it stabilized the wood a great deal (https://pipedia.org/docs/CharacteristicsOfBriar.pdf).

So you get fresh wood, it's pretty wet. If you make a pipe, it will continue to dry and change shape and dimension, might crack. Better to let it sit. The cutters suggest 2 years at least, and certainly between 2 years and 5 years after milling, it's much more stable, it's harder, what wood workers call "seasoned". At ten years it's harder yet, has a tendency toward burning rather than cutting. And at twenty and thirty years on, it hasn't changed much. Like most aging processes, there's diminishing returns the further up the curve you go.

What's happening? Oxydation of lignin or something... I'm not even sure. But the difference bewteen fresh milled briar and aged is easy to detect. The color and the physical properties of the wood change.

All this must be kept separate in one's head from the "age" of the wood, which is usually 30-50 years old when harvested. Younger plants are too small, older ones hard to find, often dead or cracked or attacked by insects.


And that's it. There's no magic needed. It's wood, and it's full of minerals because it grows on crusty junk soil. And it makes good pipes because of that.

 

[Briar Lee]

These days, burls are harvested and kept wet. They are taken to the various mills to be cut, and they are cut, graded, and boiled. The tannins and acidic juice in the plant (kind of pinkish) are removed, and it stabilized the wood a great deal (https://pipedia.org/docs/CharacteristicsOfBriar.pdf).

So you get fresh wood, it's pretty wet. If you make a pipe, it will continue to dry and change shape and dimension, might crack. Better to let it sit. The cutters suggest 2 years at least, and certainly between 2 years and 5 years after milling, it's much more stable, it's harder, what wood workers call "seasoned". At ten years it's harder yet, has a tendency toward burning rather than cutting. And at twenty and thirty years on, it hasn't changed much. Like most aging processes, there's diminishing returns the further up the curve you go.

What's happening? Oxydation of lignin or something... I'm not even sure. But the difference bewteen fresh milled briar and aged is easy to detect. The color and the physical properties of the wood change.

All this must be kept separate in one's head from the "age" of the wood, which is usually 30-50 years old when harvested. Younger plants are too small, older ones hard to find, often dead or cracked or attacked by insects.


And that's it. There's no magic needed. It's wood, and it's full of minerals because it grows on crusty junk soil. And it makes good pipes because of that.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I’m beginning to believe 100% of the “magic” of Algerian briar amounted to those long dead French briar inspectors knowing which burls came from way high on the mountains overlooking the Sahara desert and which ones came from the more fertile, temperate climate of the Algerian coastline.

The worse the growing conditions and soil the tighter the burl, the longer it needed cured, and the longer seasoning required.

 

[sasquatch]

I think Algerian briar has always been crappy.

 

[Gimlet]

I’m beginning to believe 100% of the “magic” of Algerian briar amounted to those long dead French briar inspectors knowing which burls came from way high on the mountains overlooking the Sahara desert and which ones came from the more fertile, temperate climate of the Algerian coastline.

The worse the growing conditions and soil the tighter the burl, the longer it needed cured, and the longer seasoning required.

Makes sense. Algeria a French colony at a time when pipe smoking was far bigger business than it is today, and bingo, Algerian briar is apparently the best. Just marketing by the sound of it.
Denser burls growing on poorer soils is certainly true though. Well it is of olive trees, so I imagine it is of tree heather as well. And when a colonial power controls vast amounts of desert wilderness where the things grow for free, why would they not reap that resource?

I don't suppose any records were kept of which trees where harvested from where, and which pipe bowls where made from which batches of burl. But if it were possible to trace the briar used for a particular pipe the way you can trace the vineyard that produced a bottle of wine, it's highly likely that bowls from mountain briars could be expected to be superior to those made from more pampered coastal trees.

 

[Briar Lee]

I think Algerian briar has always been crappy.

No argument as to the appearance and beauty of the oldest, toughest Algerian.

 

[sasquatch]

But these are all totally subjective conclusions. I've got a great big Castello oom paul, it's light as a feather and the rings are not very close. It's low-density briar, and Italian briar at that. Best smoking pipe on the planet. How could this be? I don't even know if it was harvested by virgins at the waning moon or what.

I must be doing this wrong somehow.

 

[Sigmund]

Because material hype is hype. Its more about the build. Incantations change nothing.

 

[Briar Lee]

I do believe with other than export grade pre 54 Algerian briar a truly exceptional smoker is the exception, to be treasured.

All pre 54 Marxman pipes are dynamite smokers, no exceptions.

 

[woodrow]

These days, burls are harvested and kept wet. They are taken to the various mills to be cut, and they are cut, graded, and boiled. The tannins and acidic juice in the plant (kind of pinkish) are removed, and it stabilized the wood a great deal (https://pipedia.org/docs/CharacteristicsOfBriar.pdf).

So you get fresh wood, it's pretty wet. If you make a pipe, it will continue to dry and change shape and dimension, might crack. Better to let it sit. The cutters suggest 2 years at least, and certainly between 2 years and 5 years after milling, it's much more stable, it's harder, what wood workers call "seasoned". At ten years it's harder yet, has a tendency toward burning rather than cutting. And at twenty and thirty years on, it hasn't changed much. Like most aging processes, there's diminishing returns the further up the curve you go.

What's happening? Oxydation of lignin or something... I'm not even sure. But the difference bewteen fresh milled briar and aged is easy to detect. The color and the physical properties of the wood change.

All this must be kept separate in one's head from the "age" of the wood, which is usually 30-50 years old when harvested. Younger plants are too small, older ones hard to find, often dead or cracked or attacked by insects.


And that's it. There's no magic needed. It's wood, and it's full of minerals because it grows on crusty junk soil. And it makes good pipes because of that.

Thanks Todd. Great info.

 

[bullet08]

Woods are aged to make them stable. Less chance of cracking when done properly. Once you start smoking the pipe, chance are pretty good they won't age much longer. The fact is, the pores in the pipe chamber will be clogged with carbon and tars. And it basically stops breathing after awhile. So, really a dead wood. Fine musical instruments on the other hand, pore won't get plugged. As they are played, the wood will pick up the characters. Well kept old instruments are much more valuable than the new ones.

 

[Sandblast]

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.

Very interesting comments! I've been reading about "prairie, frontier, survival" cooking .... the use of acorns, grinding them into flour & other ways. Acorns were (and still are in parts of the world) a way for people to survive, to "get through".
The big thing is they need to be boiled several times to remove the bitter tannins, until the water boils clear to be more palatable.
A side note is how I've always loved those days in October, as the leaves are changing to yellow, orange, red, brown (I live in MN) when you can smell the tannin in the air.

 

[Sandblast]

Woods are aged to make them stable. Less chance of cracking when done properly. Once you start smoking the pipe, chance are pretty good they won't age much longer. The fact is, the pores in the pipe chamber will be clogged with carbon and tars. And it basically stops breathing after awhile. So, really a dead wood. Fine musical instruments on the other hand, pore won't get plugged. As they are played, the wood will pick up the characters. Well kept old instruments are much more valuable than the new ones.

Interesting! So, I don't mean to go off on a tangent here, step away from the basic content of this entire topic, but I've read that the older a briar pipe gets, the more it's been smoked, the BETTER it smokes. (NOTE: Not sure about this regarding clays, meerschaums, cobs.)

That would tell me those old, estate pipes (70's, 50's, 20's, etc) should all be fantastic smokers. Thoughts?

 

[Briar Lee]

Interesting! So, I don't mean to go off on a tangent here, step away from the basic content of this entire topic, but I've read that the older a briar pipe gets, the more it's been smoked, the BETTER it smokes. (NOTE: Not sure about this regarding clays, meerschaums, cobs.)

That would tell me those old, estate pipes (70's, 50's, 20's, etc) should all be fantastic smokers. Thoughts?

Yes, not only do I think so, the idea a good pipe becomes better with age and smoking seems to have been around since the Pipe Lover’s Magazine articles of the late forties, at least.

Then there was a market for over thirty million new briar pipes a year in the USA. Today it’s likely a hundred times less.

They knew pipes better than us.

Even then you read where most common grade pipes used between 30 and 60 year old burls. But not the best ones. Those used much older burls, harvested from cracks and crevices in rocks on windy mountainsides.

Older burls were scarcer, harder to cure, took longer to season, and they preferred them aged at least ten years after that.

Those ancient burls were not prettier, and were hard to work into pipes.

They wrote about getting the bad tasting sap (tannins) out of the briar.

And in the case of Algerian briar those tannins turned the pipes a dark, reddish brown.



Try an old Pre 54 Marxman, in high condition, and most seem to be.

They were good then, and better now, I think.

 

[bullet08]

Interesting! So, I don't mean to go off on a tangent here, step away from the basic content of this entire topic, but I've read that the older a briar pipe gets, the more it's been smoked, the BETTER it smokes. (NOTE: Not sure about this regarding clays, meerschaums, cobs.)

That would tell me those old, estate pipes (70's, 50's, 20's, etc) should all be fantastic smokers. Thoughts?

There's difference between well aged briar, and well taken cared old pipe that has reached "broken in" state. Not all pipes smoke the same. Actually, identically made pipes might smoke very different. Reason being the briar is natural material, we don't dictate how it grows.

Once you ream out the old pipe, and clean it out. Is it the same pipe that was broken in by previous owner? I doubt it. You will have to build your own cake and make it your pipe.

 

[Briar Lee]

There's difference between well aged briar, and well taken cared old pipe that has reached "broken in" state. Not all pipes smoke the same. Actually, identically made pipes might smoke very different. Reason being the briar is natural material, we don't dictate how it grows.

Once you ream out the old pipe, and clean it out. Is it the same pipe that was broken in by previous owner? I doubt it. You will have to build your own cake and make it your pipe.

Years ago I used to try and keep a cake about the thickness of a dime on my pipes. I agree that reaming changes the taste of a pipe, and in my experience for the waaaaay better.

Cake is the stuff in our tobacco that refused to really burn. I don’t like it anymore.

Instead I wipe my chambers every time with a dry, twisted paper towel. I leave a black, oily sheen of a film of carbon on the chamber.

I think the heat of the ember cures the briar just a little each smoke if the fire makes contact with briar.

And I also think there are good tasting resins in good briar that leech out.

When I keep a Marxman s almost cake free the heat drives something out to the outside.



Four smokes later, something is changing this 70+ year old pipe, and for the better.

 

[telescopes]

If you believe that Algerian briars is the end all of the best briar, that makes it so for the believer. That does not make it so for everyone else. Obviously I have a decent collection of Marxman pipes. The are decent smokers. I can assure you they DO NOT out perform my Italian pipes such as Castello, Randice, Gepetto, or Kristiansen. For that matter neither do they out perform my Vauen, Stanwells, and Kaywoodies. BUT they do smoke better than a Lee.