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bosmer

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jun 27, 2017
100
2
In general, I break in my pipes with either a burley like Carter Hall or a virginia blend. The cakes seem to develope quickly and are also hard cakes. I have a pipe in which i have dedicated to english blends and have been breaking in the pipe with EMP, Arango Balkan Supreme, 965 and Frog Morton.

The question is, why is my cake gummy/tacky when breaking in with these blends? Does anyone else experience this? I even use the method of stirring up the bowl and shaking the ash around and yet, its sticky/gummy.

I don't think there is a "problem" I just wanted to know if this was common with folks breaking in pipes with english.

 

aldecaker

Lifer
Feb 13, 2015
4,407
42
I have had "gummy" cake resulting from English blends as well as aromatics. Burley gives me a dry, medium-hard cake, and Va gives me a dry, hard, almost glassy cake.

 

sasquatch

Lifer
Jul 16, 2012
1,683
2,862
There's 2 types of cake for sure, maybe more. I find burleys and some aromatics form a very fast cake, prone to breaking off in big chunks. I call this "fluffy cake". Virginias tend to make a shinier, harder, and thinner cake, I call this "glassy cake". Glassy cake takes a few go-rounds to harden off. This is more like oily creosote in a stove pipe, slow burn kinda gunk I think.

 

didimauw

Moderator
Staff member
Jul 28, 2013
9,894
31,611
34
Burlington WI
I learned not to shake the ash around in the bowl. It makes for a weak cake. I used to do it for years thinking it would speed up the process. After I stopped with the ash, my cakes got harder.

 

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,568
27,070
Carmel Valley, CA
Perhaps your gumminess is a result of smoking some blends that are too moist. I smoke only English, and have hard, thin cake. The bowl is dry to the bottom at the end of a smoke, with a touch of moisture in the heel sometimes.
Incorporating ash in cake makes it soft and crumbly.

 

bosmer

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jun 27, 2017
100
2
Thanks guys this has been helpful. I think my Frog Morton may be the culprit behind the moisture and perhaps I shall stop with the shaking of the ash. I did not know there were different types of cakes that develop inside bowls.

 

aldecaker

Lifer
Feb 13, 2015
4,407
42
It has been my experience that in addition to structural weakness, an ashy cake does no favors to the taste of the tobacco.

 

tschiraldi

Lifer
Dec 14, 2015
1,813
3,555
55
Ohio
Virginia's don't ghost, so why not break in your English pipes with them, form a thin, hard cake, then switch to the English? Just my 2 pennies.

 

mawnansmiff

Lifer
Oct 14, 2015
7,385
7,295
Sunny Cornwall, UK.
I find that the cake in my pipes is 'gummy' too but only when it is 'young'. The longer it is left in the bowl the harder it sets and therefore harder to remove.
I tend to use a British Buttner reamer after every eight to ten smokes as I prefer no cake in my bowls.
Regards,
Jay.

 

cortezattic

Lifer
Nov 19, 2009
15,147
7,637
Chicago, IL
I prefer minimal cake thickness, so I never encounter the soft cake issue. After a smoke I gently scrape the bowl with a pipe knife, then swab it with the same pipe cleaner that I used to clean the airway. Occasionally I will burnish the interior of the bowl with a well-crumpled wad of scrap paper.
I have often thought of allowing a really thick cake to develop, just to see if it improves the experience. But alas, all my pipes are smoking nicely, and I have little motivation to change things.

 
Oct 3, 2016
47
1
I like a good dry burley to break in my pipes. For me I always head to C&D for their Briar Fox blend. It comes dry and smokes easily to the bottom of the bowl. I get no hint of a casing from it. Most of the tobaccos you listed are cased. The sugars in them can get quite gummy. Try buying a tin of Briar Fox and keep it around just for pipe break ins. It's a no thrills tobacco that suites new pipes well in my opinion.

 

bosmer

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jun 27, 2017
100
2
My experiment ultimately was to compare how cake building differs from burleys to virginias to englishes. Perhaps I will attempt to break in a pipe just with perique next time and hopefully i will live to tell the tale :)

 

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,568
27,070
Carmel Valley, CA
The higher the sugar content, the quicker good cake will build. Higher ash, if left in, means quicker build up of soft crumbly cake. YMMV.

 

olkofri

Lifer
Sep 9, 2017
8,033
14,644
The Arm of Orion
Dunno what kind of tobaccos are in the house blend I got from the tobacconist when I bought the pipe. It's an aromatic, I think, so I'm guessing it's got a considerable amount of sugars in it.
Speaking of guessing, this is what I got, in case anyone wanna guess what kinds are in this blend:

Piping--3.jpg


 

crashthegrey

Lifer
Dec 18, 2015
3,810
3,566
41
Cobleskill, NY
www.greywoodie.com
olkofri, your new bowl may be sticky if it was black when new, which means it has a bowl coating. Some of the most common bowl coatings are a simple sugar, so they can be tacky. Some people swear that a bowl coating helps start the carbonization of the bowl. Also, your house blend, if an aromatic, likely has casing and topping, so sugar added to the tobacco. Whereas Virginias have more natural sugars than other types. Your tobacco looks to have some ribbon cut virginia, some burley, and some latakia or some stoved virginias.

 

olkofri

Lifer
Sep 9, 2017
8,033
14,644
The Arm of Orion
Yeah, the pipe did have a black coating when I got it brand new.
Thanks for the input, crashthegrey, as I just ordered another pipe, a Brigham Voyageur, and based on the advice on this thread I've decided to break it in using virginias, which now I think I can ask the tobacconist for, instead of using my nose to choose a blend.

 

mawnansmiff

Lifer
Oct 14, 2015
7,385
7,295
Sunny Cornwall, UK.
"your new bowl may be sticky if it was black when new, which means it has a bowl coating."
Crash, with all due respect not all black bowls are coated. Blakemar Briars for example, Mike places his bowls over a lighted gas jet from a mini Bunsen burner type of thing which of course only singes the bowl...presumably to assist in cake building.
Regards,
Jay.

 
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