You may not be interested and wont read all of this, and that's fine. Enjoy your smoke with other reading... I'm good with that. But, everyone has their own way of doing things, and I'll not say any of them are wrong. I think the only thing you can do absolutely wrong with a meer is handle or smoke it with dirty hands, or lay it down anywhere except on or in it's case! I by no means consider myself an expert of any kind, but I have been doing it this way since '75 with good results. This may help some, and cause others to think I don't know what I'm talking about. But I've never been afraid. : )
Load your new meer to the top... a briar half way because you want to start a slightly thicker carbon cake in the bottom half of the bowl to prevent burnout. You don't want to build any, or very little carbon cake in your meer, the stone wont burn out, and a thick cake will expand faster than the meer when lighting and may crack the pipe. During the first 10 bowls or so, avoid touching the stone, (I hold mine between my fingers by the stem like a cigar). The first several smokes will draw the excess beeswax back into the stone, and when it's hot may take on any fingerprints and dirt/oil from your hands. (The rim of the bowl can burn during lighting, so try to only touch the tobacco).
I almost never disassemble my meers. Just run a brissleless pipe cleaner down the stem, bend it in half and rub it up and down inside the bowl to wipe out carbon accumulation. I smoke 6 to 8 bowls, then put it to sleep for a week in it's case. You'll notice a slightly darker color when you break it out the next time, as the wax is doing it's thing.
Never use any pipe sweetener or other product as the stone will absorb it and will interrupt the coloring. Some others like to 'accelerate' the coloring process by painting on raw beeswax, rubbing it on while the pipe is warm (while smoking), or melting wax and dipping. My belief: this is staining the pipe with the darker 'raw' beeswax. Nothing wrong with it, I just like my pipes to color naturally from the masters treatment 'pulling' the tars to the surface over time. Most of them have 100 year old recipes for whitening the wax and are closely guarded secrets. I tried to find out how it's done years ago to no avail. You might as well ask what is in the 11 herbs and spices to make Kentucky Fried Chicken!
One last thought.... You don't need a $400 American dollar budget to get a pipe, $40 to $100 will make sweet memories and a damn good smoke... Plus the satisfaction of watching a wonderful pipe take on character over time. Pass it on at the end of your life for others to enjoy and cherish as it will last almost forever... well, as compared to a human lifetime!
TopD
Load your new meer to the top... a briar half way because you want to start a slightly thicker carbon cake in the bottom half of the bowl to prevent burnout. You don't want to build any, or very little carbon cake in your meer, the stone wont burn out, and a thick cake will expand faster than the meer when lighting and may crack the pipe. During the first 10 bowls or so, avoid touching the stone, (I hold mine between my fingers by the stem like a cigar). The first several smokes will draw the excess beeswax back into the stone, and when it's hot may take on any fingerprints and dirt/oil from your hands. (The rim of the bowl can burn during lighting, so try to only touch the tobacco).
I almost never disassemble my meers. Just run a brissleless pipe cleaner down the stem, bend it in half and rub it up and down inside the bowl to wipe out carbon accumulation. I smoke 6 to 8 bowls, then put it to sleep for a week in it's case. You'll notice a slightly darker color when you break it out the next time, as the wax is doing it's thing.
Never use any pipe sweetener or other product as the stone will absorb it and will interrupt the coloring. Some others like to 'accelerate' the coloring process by painting on raw beeswax, rubbing it on while the pipe is warm (while smoking), or melting wax and dipping. My belief: this is staining the pipe with the darker 'raw' beeswax. Nothing wrong with it, I just like my pipes to color naturally from the masters treatment 'pulling' the tars to the surface over time. Most of them have 100 year old recipes for whitening the wax and are closely guarded secrets. I tried to find out how it's done years ago to no avail. You might as well ask what is in the 11 herbs and spices to make Kentucky Fried Chicken!
One last thought.... You don't need a $400 American dollar budget to get a pipe, $40 to $100 will make sweet memories and a damn good smoke... Plus the satisfaction of watching a wonderful pipe take on character over time. Pass it on at the end of your life for others to enjoy and cherish as it will last almost forever... well, as compared to a human lifetime!
TopD
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