Note: This does not apply to corncob pipes nor any briars with visible cracks in the chamber or fissures around the mortise.
Now that a fair number of experienced pipe smokers here have tried the hot water rinse to clean their pipes and found it preferable to alcohol swabbing, it's time to dispel the myth perpetrated by some pipe manufacturers that "water should not be used". It was common practice for those companies selling their own concoction of liquids to clean or "sweeten" pipes to do so. So the myth was memorialized in brochures at tobacconists and inserts in pipe boxes for decades, and I believe it's the main reason many use alcohol as a cleaner. Some are simply afraid to go against the written advice of a maker or recall what WC Fields said about water. (Fish "cavort" in it.)
So, how do you do it? You run hot water into the chamber, letting it flow out the stem. Best results is when pipe (and gunk inside) are warm, if not hot. Tap the bowl against your palm to dump out the chamber, then dry with a paper towel twisted up. You can remove the stem to clean the mortise by drying with a Q-tip, or save it for the one deep cleaning you do. Pipe cleaner up the stem, and you're good to go. Most will rest the pipe as usual, but you can smoke it right away. Briar doesn't absorb much if any moisture this way. (More is absorbed while smoking where the humidity in the smoke stream is carried at much higher temperatures).
Since I started this a few years ago, I've not had to deep clean a pipe with alcohol/salt except for a new estate that someone smoked sardines in. For an intermediate cleaning, filling the bowl with wet coffee grounds and letting them dry fully is gentler than salt/alcohol, but for some pipes' condition, salt and alcohol may be needed.
If I have left anything out, or there are questions, fire away! If anyone has had a bad result from water cleaning, please post that. (If you're afraid the finish will come off with water, you have the wrong finish. If water takes it off, so will your hands and clothes)
Water is the "new way"- ironic in that without water we'd have no briar, and doubtless some smokers did so 200 years ago. Oh, btw, it works fine with meers, too, but maybe that should be a separate thread.
I edited your title for capitalization ~Cosmic
Heh. I re-edited! Thursday, June 22, 2023
Now that a fair number of experienced pipe smokers here have tried the hot water rinse to clean their pipes and found it preferable to alcohol swabbing, it's time to dispel the myth perpetrated by some pipe manufacturers that "water should not be used". It was common practice for those companies selling their own concoction of liquids to clean or "sweeten" pipes to do so. So the myth was memorialized in brochures at tobacconists and inserts in pipe boxes for decades, and I believe it's the main reason many use alcohol as a cleaner. Some are simply afraid to go against the written advice of a maker or recall what WC Fields said about water. (Fish "cavort" in it.)
So, how do you do it? You run hot water into the chamber, letting it flow out the stem. Best results is when pipe (and gunk inside) are warm, if not hot. Tap the bowl against your palm to dump out the chamber, then dry with a paper towel twisted up. You can remove the stem to clean the mortise by drying with a Q-tip, or save it for the one deep cleaning you do. Pipe cleaner up the stem, and you're good to go. Most will rest the pipe as usual, but you can smoke it right away. Briar doesn't absorb much if any moisture this way. (More is absorbed while smoking where the humidity in the smoke stream is carried at much higher temperatures).
Since I started this a few years ago, I've not had to deep clean a pipe with alcohol/salt except for a new estate that someone smoked sardines in. For an intermediate cleaning, filling the bowl with wet coffee grounds and letting them dry fully is gentler than salt/alcohol, but for some pipes' condition, salt and alcohol may be needed.
If I have left anything out, or there are questions, fire away! If anyone has had a bad result from water cleaning, please post that. (If you're afraid the finish will come off with water, you have the wrong finish. If water takes it off, so will your hands and clothes)
Water is the "new way"- ironic in that without water we'd have no briar, and doubtless some smokers did so 200 years ago. Oh, btw, it works fine with meers, too, but maybe that should be a separate thread.
I edited your title for capitalization ~Cosmic
Heh. I re-edited! Thursday, June 22, 2023
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