How does a lit bowl change?

Yes. All the smoke, and thus the tars and byproducts of combustion, passes through the tobacco on it's way to the smoker. Basically the bowlful acts as a progressive filter. By the time you get halfway down, the tobacco is coated with all sorts of crap, and by the time you hit the last third and below, it's literally loaded with crap. So it's pretty easy to see why it tastes different. To me it starts getting funky midway, and by the bottom third it's like smoking a wet gym sock.

I love the flavors of my pipe the lower the bowl gets. By the time I am at the bottom I am chasing the flavors to the point where I have to be careful not too suck in a mouthful of hot ash. It is a rare thing where the flavors don't keep getting better and better the lower I go.

If it's wet and crappy, your tobacco is too wet going in. Full stop.

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The bottom third of the tobacco traps all the tars. If you want to smoke that crap, have at it. I'm not that cheap. And I didn't say the tobacco was wet, I said it tasted like a wet gym sock.

Virginias seem to stove as I smoke them. They get softer and smoother and sweeter.

I also don't like the bottom of the bowl. I don't think it has much to do with the moisture - that last 1/4 has been through a lot and it doesn't taste the same as the top 3/4.
It rarely gets better, and at a minimum doesn't taste the same. For me.
Virginias I can smoke all the way usually. Englishes, no. Aromatics, definitely no.

Sounds like some of you need those lil Nording pipe rocks at the bottom of you're bowl. My bowls get better and fuller all the way down.

To me the mark of a really high quality blend is that it allows me to enjoy puffing all the way down to the proverbial fine white ash. Also outright combustion is what is needed to get the bowl into action. The chemicals that provide the tastes are essentially products of the pyrolysis and stoving from the periphery of the cherry. I reckon that the temperature and quantity of the hot zone affects the specific chemicals issuing from the tobaccos, hence the variation in tastes when I change my puffing cadence and intensity.
The progressive filtering does affect the tastes, since the composition of what is being burned, pyrolyzed and stoved (and toasted) is constantly changing.
hp

les

Whatever. If it tastes bad, it's too wet to start with. No inference as to you being "cheap".
Many- perhaps most here- find good smoking all the way through a bowl. Months ago I asked if you would try, as an experiment, properly drying down your tobacco to see if that made a difference. Crickets.

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Been smoking a pipe over 40 years, I know wet from dry. I've smoked tobacco in various states of moisture from so wet it holds together when you pinch it, to so dry it's crunchy and turns to powder if you pinch it. It all tastes like crap by the bottom third, for the same reason a cigar tastes like crap in the last inch. In the bottom third of a pipe you're smoking half tobacco half tars and ash from the top two thirds. If you like that taste, great, enjoy. But just because you do and others don't doesn't mean they're doing something wrong. However I suspect of the people who claim they like the smoke all the way down, many really don't but are ashamed to admit it because of peer pressure.

Generally I prefer the last 2/3 of a bowl. The flavors are bolder and stronger and that's what I like. I usually smoke the first third of the bowl and put the pipe aside for a few hours. The flavor is much improved especially with Virginia based blends. Peer pressure or price have nothing to do with it for me.

Many- perhaps most here- find good smoking all the way through a bowl.

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I may find good smoking all the way down or half way down. If it goes bad part way down, often if I break it away from the side wall a bit or let it rest a little, then light it again, it improves greatly and smokes further.

Virginias seem to stove as I smoke them. They get softer and smoother and sweeter.

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This goes in hand with what I was going to say on another thread about lighting. Some people don't think it necessary to go through a singe and a sear light (giving it a several minute rest afterwards), but I read something once about it setting up the sugars, allows starches to convert to sugars, maybe through a process called decarboxilization (something I need to read up further on), and there seems to be something to it. Whether by heat or drying or both, this seems to set the tobacco up for better flavor and better burning. Seems to work for me since I began doing it.
As to pipe rocks, I wonder if this at all works like one pipe I have made by Combusto, which has a thread in metal plug at the bottom?
As to the bottom of the bowl, I agree, the very bottom is never great, how close you get to it before things go south depends on many things from the tobacco, the pack, the pipe, to how you smoke it. But I try to get at least 3/4ths of the bowl smoked and leave a little at the bottom to have soaked up as much tar as possible.

I had a little tin of those pipe rocks years ago. The only thing it increased was the maker's net worth.

The bottom third of the tobacco traps all the tars. If you want to smoke that crap, have at it. I'm not that cheap. And I didn't say the tobacco was wet, I said it tasted like a wet gym sock.

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However I suspect of the people who claim they like the smoke all the way down, many really don't but are ashamed to admit it because of peer pressure.

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shutterbug, lolol that has to be one of the worst generalizations I have read in a long time. Yes we all are lying about smoking to the bottom so we can be the cool guys. lol I think after almost 20 years of pipe smoking I know what I like and when I smoke my flakes in my nice artisan pipes to the bottom I am doing it so I don't waste tobacco. lolol

I know what I like and when I smoke my flakes in my nice artisan pipes to the bottom I am doing it so I don't waste tobacco.

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Pshaw! Dadgumit! I'm sceerd ya'll whippersnappers gonna dis me every time I waste a little dumpage, and it SHAMES me to think of it!