A Horrible Smoke

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sinistertopiary

Starting to Get Obsessed
Oct 5, 2009
115
1
Toronto
The other night I had one of my rare -- thankfully -- thoroughly terrible smokes. It wasn't the tobacco that was the problem, it was my technique.
Some blends have an extremely fine shag cut, especially a few Esoterica blends I like quite a lot. Every so often I fail to pack a bowl with the focused delicate touch such cuts require. The other night is a case in point.
I was trying a new blend (Esoeterica's Tilbury) for the second time in a billiard, so it was still a bit moist. I normally use a deft packing method for fine shag cuts, but my finger was a bit too heavy when packing it this time. The charring light was fine. But as soon as I did the true light it was all downhill from there.
I had to suck pretty hard to get a good mouthful of smoke. So I tried to loosen it a bit with the poker tool, make some holes to aerate the mass. Woops, blocked the air channel at the bottom of the bowl, nothing coming through no matter how hard I sucked at it.
So I use the digger to move stuff around, try to clear that air passage. Nope, still blocked.
Remove the stem (something I never do while smoking), push a cleaner through, light up again, get a few mouthfuls; but it's kind of loose, so give it a tiny little tamp. Clogged again.
So I blow through the air channel while covering the bowl with my fingers, and burn my fingers when the embers hit.
I spent the next twenty minutes fighting like this. It was an intensely unsatisfying experience. I'm still not sure what this blend tastes like, since it was like sucking a golfball through a garden hose to get any smoke half the time, or relighting almost every other puff so it burned too hot the other half of the time.
If anyone has any similar stories to share I'd like to hear them, especially if it includes some advice about how to rescue a bad smoke like this.

 

sapo59

Can't Leave
Dec 29, 2009
494
1
I think no matter how particular we try to be, everyone packs a bowl wrong every now and then. I had similar results with a bowl of MacBarens dark roll cake the other day. I tear the coins apart a bit and use the three step method to load the pipe. I guess I exerted a bit to much pressure on the final pack, cause it was horrible after the char. I got so frustrated I emptied the pipe and decide to smoke something entirely different.

 

python

Administrator
Staff member
Apr 8, 2009
3,756
7,251
Maryland
pipesmagazine.com
In my experience, once you start having problems like those that you listed ST, there is no hope of saving the bowl. It is better to dump and start over than spending countless minutes trying to fix it. That just gets me out of the mood to smoke. I just immediately dump and start over.
Every piper has one of those times now and again when something goes awry in the packing procedure.
I live by the motto: Pack loose. It is easier to tighten up the draw during smoking than it is to loosen it up.
Although that is my motto, I still sometimes pack to tight, lol.

 

thecigarsoldier

Might Stick Around
Feb 8, 2010
92
0
Wisconsin
Had a similar experience just the other night with my favorite house blend from a tobacconist in Appleton. Was chatting with a buddy while packing my bowl (so I wasn't really paying attention) and I must have packed it to tight. After a bit I tried to loosen it with the poker as well to no avail.
Another few tries, thought I had it squared away so I relit. Still a very poor draw so more fuddling ensued and of course another relight. Getting a little ticked by now cause I've done nothing more than char up one of my favorite blends.
Of course my buddy is laughing his ass off and is a quarter way through his bowl which is smoking like a charm.
I knew no matter what I did this was just going to be a comedy of errors trying to make a good smoke out of this so I did what Sinister did, emptied the bowl.
Then I lit up a cigar a pouted. Anytime this has happened to me I give up, maybe too soon sometimes but my attempts to correct always seem to fail.

 

admin

Smoking a Pipe Right Now
Staff member
Nov 16, 2008
8,764
4,932
St. Petersburg, FL
pipesmagazine.com
That is the worst when that happens!
I used to do the same as you ST, and try like crazy to save it. I wouldn't accept that a bad bowl would defeat me.
Then I decided to listen to Bob and just dump it and start over. Doing that is frustrating enough, but fighting through it is even worse.
Ironically, sometimes when I pay the least bit of attention to my packing, I get the best smoking bowls.

 

dudleydipstick

Can't Leave
Dec 13, 2009
410
2
It seems that whenever I pack a bad bowl, it's usually followed by another. Sometimes two. I think the first one might jar my confidence and leads to overcompensating.

 
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