Stocking Up

Bought some meer chips off of Ebay, as many containers as would fit in their cheapest flat rate international box. If I were to double my smoking rate, these should last me at least five or ten years.

They even came with some gummi bears!
::

In my pipe, I haven't tried the adacama pellets, which I think are expanded clay, or the keystones, which I believe are lava.
I can say that these are much better than Denicool (silica chips) because the Denicool strips a lot of sweet flavor out of the smoke. Unlike the Denicool changing the flavor, these seem to change the character of the smoke for the better, kind of like a meer pipe (or meer-lined pipe, which is what I have), but not quite as good as the real thing.
These chips might absorb a little moisture, but I think what actually happens is that they warm up a bit and allow condensation to occur further along, namely in the stem where my balsa filter is.
These will grab some tar, so you almost get a "bowl-in-review" type of flavor near the bottom. I can usually tell if I like something if I am heating them up to release the flavors at the end of a bowl.
When I dump them, some are brown or black, and some parts are white where they were covered, and they look/feel/smell dry, which is why I don't think that they actually absorb much moisture.
These also hoist up the tobacco. This is nice if the draught hole is higher than usual. Some meers are drilled this way, which I think is what these are mainly intended for. I put these in a meer pipe with a high draught hole, and I can smoke 99% / all of the tobacco without drawing in embers and ash. My meer-lined Brebbia has a higher draught hole, but I have found that I like to put these in all of my pipes.
These do not really hurt the draw unless I set them in carelessly and plug up the draught hole. All I do to avoid that is pack the pipe with a cleaner in it, sticking a little bit into the chamber. Then I remove cleaner and check the draw. If it's not good, I usually just have to put the cleaner back in and push it in a mm or so.
All I can say is don't knock 'em 'unless you tried 'em, as I miss 'em when they aren't down there. :puffpipe:
Also wanted to include that powdering this and adding egg white in the correct ratio is supposed to be good for gluing broken meer back together, in case I ever need to do that.

I feel that the meer-chips don't really seem to wick up much moisture and that I rely more on the balsa for moisture-absorption. Perhaps they dry out during the last 1/3 bowl. One day I'll split some open right after a smoke, and some after a third-bowl or half-bowl to see what is going on.