Do I need to break in a new pipe

Hi ivorhughjarse

Enjoy your stay as new family member, i think the best you can do is taking your time as of

- braking your pipe (don't rush things out and if you can't stand it the Corn Cob will be there to help you)

- smoking your pipe (i found sipping more enjoyable than buffing which let you taste tobacco blend/mixture more running in your mouth)

- improve your smoking technique to avoid hot smoke, bite, gurgle and ashy taste
Sure there is more to learn but those are the basic's
Good luck

Look at the inside of the pipe when you first get it. Does it look black on the inside, or is it bare wood? If the bowl appears black once you get it, it is probably "pre carbed" which means it is treated with a substance that will help it break in naturally. If you see bare wood, it is not pre carbed, and it is a good idea to break it in in order to get it smoking at its full potential. A pipe that has a nice carbon "cake" on it will help insulate the bowl from excess heat and make your smoke cooler. You can ask 100 different people how to do this and get 100 different answers, but here's what I do: Get yourself a nice, neutral Burley blend, something like MacBaren Golden Extra, Butternut Burley, Storm Front, or even Carter Hall works great. Load the pipe to the top and smoke it as far down as you can. Smoke slowly and make sure the bowl does not get too hot because this can damage your pipe. When you are all done smoking, break apart the ashes and the dottle left at the bottom of the bowl, then put your hand over the top of the bowl once it has completely gone out, and give the pipe a gentle shake. This will coat the inside of the bowl with the ashes and will help build up a cake. Let your pipe rest for at least a day before you smoke it again, and keep doing this until your bowl has broken in properly. Hope this helps!

Nothing to add to the advice of my esteemed brothers posted above - follow that and you should be great!

Pipe Novelist said it all.

Load it, light it and love it.

You can ask 100 different people how to do this and get 100 different answers,

Click to expand...

Yep. PipeNovelist said it all. Take it slow in the beginning. It's wood after all, so it will expand & contract with heat. Give it time and it will undoubtedly become a good smoker.
Good luck and welcome to the family. :puffpipe:

I think Pipe Novelist and Mick have given good advice -- the conventional wisdom, around here at least.

But I differ on two points:

• 1. If the bowl is bare wood, I smoke it several times with increasingly greater amounts of tobacco: ¼, ½, ¾ ...
  
  and after each smoke I literally scour the bowl with a paper towel stuffed into the bowl. I think this produces a very
  
  hard, dry cake in the long run.

• 2. I think there is great wisdom in Russ Ouellette's aphorism, "If you never smoke a bowl all the way to the bottom,
  
  don't worry how much cake you've built-up down there."

I once read that the protracted break-in rituals we often hear about date back to a time when new pipes had to be smoked slowly and incrementally because they were sold "green" -- having lots of resins and moisture in the wood, which had to be driven out slowly to prevent cracking. I dunno, but that seems a likely origin of the practice to me. Read Russ's article on New Pipe Break-in.

There are a 100 different answers to the question. I've broken pipes in with the 1/3 2/3 then full method, the 1/2 then full method, and I've also broken pipes in just from loading them up and smoking them slow and cool. Like most things in this hobby it's something you have to find the way that best works for you.
Enjoy breaking in this pipe and many more to come. Welcome to the forum.

Very sound advice here. I used to be very picky about my process for breaking in new bowls but after awhile I realized that if I just start slow and keep the the pipe from overheating, they break in just fine. They key is being very careful, especially on new bowls that are not pre-carbed.

Yup. I've been through the rituals in just about all of their forms, and today I couldn't honestly tell you which worked better

-- nor could I tell you which pipe was broken-in by what method. They all seem to be OK if you take it slowly.

don't let pipe get hotter then ok to touch your cheek with bowl...enjoy

Your background as a smoker should also determine your method. I'm a recovering nail smoker so I try to do the 1/2 bowl method for breaking in. Now why would that matter? It's because as a nail smoker, you just want to draw and draw and draw and it's all I can do take it slow especially if I'm watching my Red Sox (who are throughly driving me nuts this year). So by going with the 1/2 bowl, it's a shorter period of time to remind myself to slow down. Then once the bottom half of the bowl is taken care of, I can concentrate on the top.
and I second what arabpipesmoker said about the cob. If you want something you can puff on relentlessly, get a MM cob or a few. You may just fall in love with them.

Fill it up, smoke it down, repeat as necessary.

I have never "broken in" a pipe before and I never had problems. I just take it slow until a cake starts to form and I keep it real thin. I have no problems smoking down to the bottom or being able to set it down and pick it up again without going out on me.

ivorhughjarse, it sounds like you have an excellent plan for the remainder of the day. Early morning in Chicago, and I think I'll get on to my second pipe of the day, a Savinelli that I'm breaking-in by doing nothing special in the way of packing and smoking. We'll see how it eventually works out. Cheers.