Perique Biting Me

Yes - this is the pipe equivalent of someone eating a Scotch Bonnet pepper and saying "Oh wow, these things are kinda hot."
Perique adds zest, sizzle, piquant, however you want to call it - it can be downright peppery. It's aggressive tobacco, and that's why it is used condimentally - a little touch gives blends flavor and depth and interest. But a big glob makes things taste like when you screw up a recipe and put in a tablespoon of something instead of a teaspoon!

(it’s hot and dry currently) for about 20 minutes.

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That is such a relative question. If I (in Central Alabama) on the dryest, warm day put a flake outside for 20 minutes, it would absorb more moisture than it would let off. Maybe try the microwave for ten seconds. Just try it, and if too dry, after smoking it, then you eliminate that. But, perique is usually added to cool off a hot burning Virginia, but it is more acidic, and acid and steam, puffing a little more here and there to get at a very subtle flavor, spells disaster.

I may be totally wrong, but that's how I read it with my own experience. Even if smoking as slow as possible, puff puff, to get at a little more flavor, can be like pouring hot acid on your tongue.
But, experiment. All I have to go on is what I read here. Maybe it was the aromatic topping? Or, maybe you were dehydrated a little, and need to drink more water. Or, your pipe was packed to hard. There's lots of variables.

Oh yeh, "peppery", and like using peppers in recipes, it reacts with the other ingredients in the recipe. If you add cumin it cools down some peppers. Etc etc...
Perique doesn't add nicotine to blends, it increases the absorption of nicotine from the accompanying leaf in the blend, with a chemical acidity. Mark Ryan told us that the process of making perique turns the nicotine into another larger molecule, or something smart sounding like that... But, maybe the topping and the chemicals in the perique combined to make a super acid? Just a wild stab in the dark.

Different tobaccos react differently with people's body chemistry. Acidity and alkalinity play a big factor in tongue bite.

For me the Perique tingle/spice is different than tongue bite. It did, however, take my palate a while to figure that out. Once I did it really made a difference in how my palate discerns blends.

Yep, It's like when my wife screams that my homemade pepper sauce is burning her tongue, while she fans her mouth hoping around the kitchen drinking various things as experimental quenchers.

I try to explain to her that it not actually "burning", but merely a peppery sensation that releases endorphins of pure pleasure. An illusion that give us the same rush as if we survived a real fire, and afterwards we are glad to be alive.
This is all also, why I have to put the sharp objects above 5'5" high in the kitchen, ha ha.

Perique also comes from different blending houses and can act differently. I find HU tobacco Old Fredders VERY peppery while his cake with 15% Perique is super smooth and fruity.

Are you smoking it straight or blended? Maybe let it dry overnight. Not always in the mood for it but the occasional bowl or Perique is a treat, I add it to about everything too.

What do they say in cooking, flavor to taste? You might like just a tiny pinch of Perique.