I bought my first pipe that did not Com with a "pre-carbon" liner in it. Atleast that is what I always thought it was. Anyway is there anything I need to know during the break in process? Don't want to damage the inside of the chamber.
To underline this, I can confirm that cake builds up in a new pipe even when the smoker rinses and wipes all the ash out before a re-load. I think cake is the coating of solids released by combustion, and which precipitate out on the relatively cooler briar wall, and there harden. At the same time, I suppose that some ash could be incorporated into the cake if the precipitate (probably the wrong word) coated it. But who wants to start a bowl with ash all down the chamber?The covering the bowl with ash is an old wives tale. There is nothing in ash that will help build a nice hard cake.