Old German Clay Pipes at P&C

Clay pipes are finicky. They can smoke very hot and harsh. A trick is to lightly wet the outside walls of the bowl (not the inside!); it allows the smoke to be cooler and tastier.

Those Markus Fohr German clays are excellent, sturdy with much less "earthy" background notes than some other clays. I own 4 and like them all, and yes it pays to smoke them very slowly and take frequent breaks as the bowls get rather hot. I like to smoke mine when I'm preoccupied with chores or some such, pack it up and puff for a bit, then set it down and come back to it at intervals.

I have one clay, but not of the P&C persuasion. Mine's a Williamsburg Pottery tavern pipe, about 6-8 inches. Calabashed is correct in stating that they should be smoked slowly. This allows one to enjoy the richness of the flavors more fully. But the bowl does get really hot, but I smoke a full bowl in one sitting anyways

With a clay pipe you never hold the bowl while smoking. You use 3 fingers and hold the stem. They are very nice when trying individual leaf.

Does the tobacco burn cooler? I don't know anything about heat and all that jazz but if the bowl gets hot would that mean you are getting more heat drawn to the outside thus cooling it down? I just bought 3 of them and now I'm a bit worried.

Well the hot bowl surface does prove that more of the heat from the burning tobacco is being conducted away through the walls than occurs with a briar. This is probably because clays are relatively thin walled in comparison, though the clay might also be a slightly better conductor / poorer insulator. Anyway I'd be willing to bet that when we smoke any pipe most of the heat is lost straight up from the top of the bowl. Clay definitely doesn't smoke cooler in terms of the smoke, but that's mostly about moisture content and clay is less absorbent. So long as you dry your tobacco and smoke slow you won't notice a big difference there.

One of the reasons I prefer the Old German clays vs. the most commonly available types is that these are true clay, whereas a lot of the other types are made by casting ceramic slip resulting in a grittier, more abrasive pipe.
Russ

Do the clay pipes Ghost?

From what I understand no and when you need to clean them just throw them in a fire and they will come out like new.

tarheel1: is that a joke or is that truly how you clean a clay? Just asking.

Good to know it will not ghost, I ordered one of those 14.99 clays on P&C, too.

It is not a joke. I ha e read in several books including Pipe smoking a 21 century guide. You can also bake them in the oven to clean them. Basically everything burns off the clay and you are left with a clean pipe.

It is not a joke. I ha e read in several books including Pipe smoking a 21 century guide. You can also bake them in the oven to clean them. Basically everything burns off the clay and you are left with a clean pipe.

Click to expand...

This only applies to pipes that are 100% clay. If you get one with an ebonite or acrylic stem, then you obviously can't toss that into a fire.

I've seen several clay pipes in a museum with my children. Smoking a clay pipe is definitely on my to do list.

Clays are actually pretty good smokers. Had the pleaure of meeting Marcus at the Chicago Pipe Show last year. A great guy with a long family tradition of clay pipe making. My brother and I became interested in clay pipes when we stumbled upon a colonial plantation site on our farm with a treasure trove on 17th and 18th century clay pipes (Colonial Clay Pipes Found in Virginia). It was actually these clay pipes that first got us interested in pipe making. There's definitely an art to making a press molded clay pipe. For us it involved a lot of trial and error in learning the skill, but the end product is definitely worth it.
When smoking a clay, it's definitely a pipe you want to smoke slow. As others have said,you really have to hold the pipe by the stem as the bowls do get extremely hot. However, the thicker the clay, the less heat that they transfer through the bowl. We make a couple late 19th century clay pipes that have thicker walled bowls than their colonial counterparts and you can actually hold these bowls for awhile, but eventually even they start to get a little too warm for comfort. Colonial clays were fairly thin walled pipes and they will heat up very fast.
While clays certainly have their negatives,they also have their positives as well. First of all, there's no "ghosting" with a clay. Clays are excellent for sampling tobacco blends as you get the true pure flavor of the blend without the pipe material affecting the flavor. Clays like cobs also wick away moisture so you typically don't have any "slurping" issue when smoking a clay. And of course, theirs the nostalgia of smoking the pipe that started our favorite hobby centuries ago.

I enjoy clays. At the last Chicago show, I bought two. One had lots of different colors in it. Virginiacob advised me that baking / burning the pipe would clean it, but it would be all white afterwards. Also, if you get an option, choose a pipe with glazing at the tip. This will prevent the pipe sticking to your lips. Otherwise, lick your lips before smoking.