Pipe Smoking Annoyance

carolinachurchwarden · May 21, 2018

What was or is the most annoying thing you experienced while learning to smoke a pipe? Was it learning how to pack it correctly? Light it properly? Learning when to dry your tobacco more? I have had a good learning curve. I enjoy my smokes, but I always get a little annoyed when I realize I might not have packed tight enough or packed to tightly. Still learning to dry my blends out more and it's certainly hard to distinguish what's dry enough and what needs more. I let some dry for 2 hours today, and it still could have used more. But then again, it's been really humid of late. That's probably my biggest annoyance. Drying for what I feel like is long enough, smoking for almost 20 minutes with only half a bowl gone and hearing that dreaded gurgle. I know I'm not a wet smoker... Oh well, things will only get better with practice.

jzbdano · May 21, 2018

I get most annoyed when I pack too tight and get a hot flavorless bowl. It only happens when the tobacco is a little too moist. It doesn't happen often but when it does it's usually Samuel Gawith flakes. They take forever to dry and can smoke wetter than they feel to my touch.

bnichols23 · May 21, 2018

For me it was packing too tight. Fixed it with the Czech tool pick until I got the right technique down for each individual tobacco.

mikethompson · May 21, 2018

I smoked waaaaaay too fast when I was starting out. That coupled with wet tobacco, my mouth didn't appreciate that.
Then Jesse or MSO said to slow down and enjoy - best piece of pipe smoking advice I ever got.

PaulTheScandinavian · May 21, 2018

Still I'm getting annoyed if and when I'm having a tongue bite/leathery feel, presumably this the result of my lousy packing techniques and often too fast smoking habits,yet I never smoke no tobacco right from the pouch but always trying to find time leaving it to air.

bnichols23 · May 21, 2018

Yeah, Mike, that'd sure do it, all right. :rofl:

Chasing Embers · May 21, 2018

After spending decades and thousands of dollars on briar pipes only to find that cobs smoke as good or sometimes better than the briars.

cosmicfolklore · May 21, 2018

Even with growing up around pipe smokers who clenched and never puffed, it was hardest for me to overcome that desire to puff a cloud of smoke. Coming from cigarettes, I just wanted that blowing smoke feeling. But, when I reflected on how the real lifelong pipesmokers of my youth smoked, and hanging out at the Briary, I realized that it is about keeping the pipe smoldering and burning on the edge of going out. This led me to much slower smokes with a lot more enjoyment. Plus, people stopped looking at me like I had no clue what I was doing. : puffy

:

saltedplug · May 21, 2018

The most annoying thing is the important technique that you did the worst, with that smoke. on that day. The beginning is the hardest time as you probably are doing more than one thing wrong, and the delightful frustration is to keep moving forward by forgiving yourself for doing wrong today what you did right yesterday. Try to be calm and focused:
1. You are practicing drying tobacco. Lots of smokers feel this works best. I don't. You decide. As you are finding, drying tobacco requires thinking in advance to put it out.

2. packing. Very important. More loose than tight. I think of loose as enabling the draw to more quickly pass down the chamber and oxygenate the coal. I used gravity packing.

3. technique, or slow smoking. Critical, otherwise your mouth gets to hurting. "chasingembers" (Duane) and Alan Kerslake have great videos on Youtube.

4. Remember to have fun! Technique and its required concentration move you forward, but enjoy the motion of that journey, frustrating as it is just now..

Chasing Embers · May 21, 2018

I hated, early on, packing and smoking that perfect pipe, and not remembering how I did it.

bnichols23 · May 21, 2018

KWYM, Cosmic. Always a fine line between keeping it *just* going, or being at the point where you have to put flame to it every 2 minutes. :
Bill

condorlover1 · May 21, 2018

Finding out your life long tobacco blend now tastes like Giraffe shit!

mikethompson · May 21, 2018

That's honestly one of the things I love about pipe smoking - that it makes you slow down and take your time.

Chasing Embers · May 21, 2018

Always a fine line between keeping it *just* going, or being at the point where you have to put flame to it every 2 minutes. :

That's what makes breath smoking great.

bnichols23 · May 21, 2018

" makes you slow down and take your time" -- You got it, Mike. There's just something very not-Type-A about the whole pipe thing.

Chasing Embers · May 21, 2018

There's just something very not-Type-A about the whole pipe thing.

Bingo

mikefu · May 21, 2018

For me, it was getting things figured out to a workable relationship between drying, packing, and cadence, and then switching blends and starting the whole process over. It annoyed the heck out of me. The worst was when I started smoking Dark Star. I still don't know if I know how to smoke it the best way, 15 years later. I dry it out, then dry it some more, then cube cut it and get a passable burn, good flavor and experience, but keep thinking I could be doing better. I guess it won't be much of an issue when the last few tins I have cellared are gone.

upnorth1 · May 21, 2018

When the bowl runs out!

npod · May 21, 2018

For me it was Time Management

I came from cigars and kinda knew about cadence and smoking slowly, etc. However, the pipe involved actual time management, bowl size, drying time, cadence, wind, indoor/outdoor, Va vs English, so MANY variables that were affected by time. In the beginning I wanted to try many blends and would try to "squeeze it in" each night. But that strategy fell to crap quickly, tongue bite, harsh tobacco, etc. Once I slowed down and budgeted my time better, it was a whole new world.
Also annoying was the strong want/need to chase the rare tobaccos everyone was talking about online. I was a lone wolfe for a few years and put this game together myself. So I thought I had to rush and get the rare stuff. But that is a poor strategy even if very common out there. Heck, learn to taste the smoke before you know why the rare stuff is so popular.

bluegrassbrian · May 21, 2018

In hindsight the most annoying thing that comes to mind is trudging through endless aromatics and English blends before having my Virginia epiphany.

Pipe Smoking Annoyance

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