Cake: Make or Break?

jpmcwjr · Feb 6, 2018

This is not whether cake is good, bad or indifferent, but ways to get you where you want with cake—or the near absence thereof.
First, cake happens. You cannot avoid some cake, nor would you want to.
I want big cake!
Here's a way to build up cake fast: dampen the chamber with water, then fill with sugar. Pour out excess, let dry. Remove accumulation in heel. Fill and smoke normally. When finished, shake ashes all around and smoke again. Then repeat with the sugar fill. The sugars in the tobacco and that which you add turns into carbon when heated beyond a certain degree. You'll build up cake fast.
I want only a thin cake!
After a smoke, clean the chamber thoroughly. Easiest is with a hot water flush, but if that's too radical for you, a damp paper towel will do it. Pipe cleaners folded up will help, but is least effective at removing ash. (Why would you want to inhale ash from the previous smoke??)
So, here are ways to achieve opposite ends. It'd be good if folks shared their experience and methods, and not turn into diatribes on whether big cake is good or bad. Cake happens.

aldecaker · Feb 6, 2018

I am in the thin, hard cake camp. After each smoke, I stuff a dry paper towel, napkin, or even wadded-up newsprint into the bowl and twist vigorously several times. Seems to keep me right where I like to be, cake-wise.

lightmybriar · Feb 6, 2018

My personal preference is to have a uniform and visible cake in my bowls. Thick enough to be obvious, but no so thick as to significantly change the capacity of the bowl.
I do know that part of the reason is, I view cake the same way I view coloring on a meerschaum. To me, it is visual and tangible evidence of the enjoyable time I have spent with the particular pipe. It's like scratches or a worn out fretboard on an old guitar.
On the other hand, I have come to realize that I just personally enjoy the flavor of the smoke in a pipe that is well caked.
Regarding something that may or may not be true, in my experience, I think that a good millimeter or two of cake seems to absorb some of the moisture or oils out of the burning tobacco. I have done no worthy experiments to legitimately test this, but I do enjoy observing my pipes as I smoke (from all angles), and when I look into a well caked bowl, I have noticed that the walls appear to be "drier" in comparison to a clean bare-briar wall during a smoke. I will pay more attention to this these coming days as my interest in this idea is piqued due to this thread.
Interested to hear from others!

lightmybriar · Feb 6, 2018

And in all this cake-scoence, I have slightly overlooked the premise of this thread haha! SO, since I do like some cake, what I do is:
Break in a bowl with tobaccos I know seem to leave stickier residuals, like Lane Ready Rubbed, or some folded Virginia Flake...
Post smoke, I will put my thumb over the bowl and shake the ask around, let it cool, then gently rub the ash into the walls of the pipe until it makes a clean and uniform bowl coat.
After that, regular smoking seems to take care of the rest over time.

cigrmaster · Feb 6, 2018

The shaking the ash around the bowl after you smoke is an old wives tale. I let my pipes cool over night to let the cake harden. I break all my pipes in with some kind of VA, VAper or Vabur Flake. I keep my cake to a dimes thickness. I believe it make my pipes smoke cooler and taste better.

thesmokindragon · Feb 6, 2018

+1 w/Harris : puffy

:

jpmcwjr · Feb 6, 2018

I believe a thicker cake makes the bowl feel cooler, but all things being equal, it shouldn't affect the temperature of the smoke. If it tastes better, definitely the thing to do.
And: You can instantly harden the cake with my patented (pending) hot water flush....

The shaking the ash around the bowl after you smoke is an old wives tale.

And who'd want to inhale any of that crap? Besides, ash laden cake is a soft cake.

lightmybriar · Feb 6, 2018

Perhaps a bit of clarification on my part is due.
After shaken, and the ash has coated the walls of the bowl, I use my finger to rub it into the walls. This makes a very thin coating that in no way could become airborne. The ash sticks to the moisture / oils / whatever that is left behind from the burning tobacco. It is quite hard, in my opinion, once built up.
Just wanted to be clear that no ash is left "loose" or able to be inhaled after the process is over.

cosmicfolklore · Feb 6, 2018

Yeh, cake is not ash, but adding ash to the cake, makes for a weak assed cake that is fragile and breaks easily. Those pipes you see in the thrift stores with nasty big puffy

cake that you cannot even get a pencil down, is what happens to ash cakes when they set for a long time and absorb moisture. They puff up.

lightmybriar · Feb 6, 2018

Okay, so that is helpful, then! I have been mistaken on what exactly constitutes cake. This is very interesting. So cake will form in absence of ash? Is it just hardened oils and tars, rather than those along with ash?

cigrmaster · Feb 6, 2018

Ash has nothing to do with cake. I don't know where that old wives tale came from. Maybe it came from the school of only filling partial bowls to break in a pipe and not full bowls.

didimauw · Feb 6, 2018

I prefer a big amount of cake, but with my cob thread, I HAVE to keep it to a minimum. Otherwise it will crack the cob and I will feel like I cheated.
Never tried the sugar method before! But I never have issues getting cake.

saltedplug · Feb 6, 2018

There are stories that circulate through the forums about many aspects of pipe smoking based on assumptions that have some credibility, but as no one has measured their actual occurrence, they remain stories. and depending on our personal stories, we add, subtract and/or elaborate on them.
Cake is one of them. Most of the stories about cake are about its capacity to protect the briar from heat. Though certainly true that cake will heat, and having done so that there will be less heat transferred through it to the briar, the question remains to what extent the briar needed such help so as not to crack, heat or burnout. I've never allowed much cake to form and have been reaming my pipes at less than a dime's thickness down close to nothing for the last four years. No burnouts in those years, and I've had only one burnout in 17 years. A popular carver told me that the pipes he smokes that have flaws don't burn out and that those that don't have flaws do; that is, there's no predicting burnout.
So given that no one knows whether cake does anything at all except record to a poor extent the smokes that have gone before, but given that it is between burning tobacco and wood, however heat resistant, the prudent course is to suppose that it does protect the briar, knowing this to be only the prudent course.

cosmicfolklore · Feb 6, 2018

Doesn't the sugar make the cake more fragile, like the honey method? Your basically putting a barrier layer of caramelized sugar between the briar and the cake. I would think that it would be more fragile.

crashthegrey · Feb 6, 2018

I'm in the no sugar, no honey school of thought. It weakens the cakes interaction with the wood, reduces actual carbonization of the wood, and creates a barrier between cake and wood. I've seen many a cake flake off this way.

PaulTheScandinavian · Feb 6, 2018

I wipe my camber with a paper towel after each smoke, and am not noticing any significant cake build ups,(though I do rotate between three pipes per day)so it seems that my brand new Senior Reamer and Castleford set are gonna sitting a long time further with no use.

madox07 · Feb 6, 2018

I like a bit of cake, as I am of the belief that a bit of cake does make the smoke taste better, although whenever I feel it gets too think, I just scrape it off. I used various methods, sowing knives, cheap reamers, but I can't seem to control the cake as far as its uniformity to my liking. I think I am going to buy one of those four claws with a screw on top reamer. How thick the cake? I can't really give you a dimension, as I prefer different thickness levels depending on the pipe. One thing is for sure, I don't like it too think, and when I ream it I try to make sure I don't scrape it all off. How do I build cake? Just smoke my daily pipe, I fold the pipe cleaner in a "U" shape and screw it a few times inside the bowl. And one important detail for me, I don't clean the bowl in between smokes if I smoke that particular pipe two-three times throughout the day. More than three smokes, I feel that the smoke gets ... "ashy' and I don't like that.

jpmcwjr · Feb 6, 2018

RE: sugar coating. The sugar carbonizes readily, and should make a strong cake. The inclusion of ash weakens it. At least that's my deduction based on my experiments and experience.

chilipalmer · Feb 7, 2018

I am decidedly pro thin cake. I clean the bowl after every smoke and gently ream my pipes as needed.
Cheers,
Chili

derekflint · Feb 7, 2018

I prefer a moderate to thin cake and would not attempt any sugar or honey treatments.........

Cake: Make or Break?

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