Pipe Smoking: Why Less Is More
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Kevin Godbee - Jul 28, 2011
- 6 min read
By Steve Stein
(Originally Published October 2009 in The Pipe Collector (Newsletter of the NASPC)
[Here’s some great instructions that will give the most enjoyment while smoking your favorite pipes and tobaccos. Learn how to properly pack, light, tamp, & puff for maximum smoking enjoyment.]
I’ve smoked a pipe for 41 years but have really learned how to smoke more enjoyably during the last eight years. I learned to smoke a pipe from my role models (Grandfather, Father, Uncles and a favorite cousin). I also learned their habits, many of which I had to unlearn. I started with drugstore pipes and tobaccos and consequently scorched my mouth and tongue that was explained as ‘breaking in my mouth’. During my first year of college, a friend of mine dragged me to a local pipe shop and a whole new world of pipes and tobaccos emerged. I tried some high quality tobaccos and bought my first decent pipe. From then on I was hooked and my love affair with pipes, tobaccos and the various accessories was well entrenched. I actually got a job at the Edwards shop in Milwaukee and eventually joined the staff at Uhle’s Pipe Shop until I graduated. I would also take trips with the guys to Chicago to visit the shops there every couple of months. My taste in tobaccos gravitated from the aromatics to English and burleys but I was not able to acquire a taste for Virginia blends. I did a stint in the Army Reserves in California, more school in New York State, a job assignment in Florida and eventually wound up in Kansas City, all the while still making the rounds of the local pipe shops and still unable to enjoy Virginia blends.
A number of years into my Kansas City gig, a group of guys at our favorite pipe shop (Cigar & Tabac) decided to start a pipe club. One of the guys (Quinton Wells) insisted that I try his favorite tobaccos Beacon and Escudo. He took the time to explain some of the techniques that were necessary to enjoy Virginia blends. I was still not completely converted but this began my metamorphosis. I began to take notice of the various smoking habits of the guys around me who seemed to really enjoy smoking as a hobby. My observations lead me to learn that I had some habits that were preventing me from fully enjoying my smoking. Among others, I packed my tobacco with a heavy hand, tamped too often and with too much pressure, I puffed too aggressively, and I scorched my tobacco when lighting my pipe. After adjusting my technique (really re-learning how to smoke) I am now able to more fully enjoy my pipe smoking. I’ve shared some of my thoughts with the guys in the pipe club and was encouraged to share this with others who might wish to try some of these tips, hence the submission of this writing to NASPC.
Packing
I prefer to smoke flake, cube or rough-cut blends. I enjoy the smoking qualities of these ‘dense’ blends and fill my pipe bowls using the gravity method whenever possible. This allows me to pack my pipe lightly permitting maximum airflow to allow the tobacco to burn at a slower, drier and more cool rate than tobacco that is overly packed and burns like a charcoal briquette – too hot for the sugars in the tobacco – resulting in a hot bitter and wet smoke especially during the last half of the bowl. To accomplish this, I do not rub out flake blends. I use a scissors to cut across the flake. This allows me to drop the tobacco into the bowl. For ribbon cut blends, I gently take a pinch of the blend and feed it into the bowl and form it with my ‘pinkie’ into the bottom of the bowl and feed the remainder of the bowl in the same manner so that the resulting fill is soft and spongy to the touch.
Initial Lighting
I lightly draw the flame into the tobacco moving the flame around the bowl to achieve an even light but I also remove the flame from the tobacco when not drawing on the pipe to avoid burning/caramelizing the sugars especially when smoking Virginias. This is the singing light. Next, I gently bevel the tobacco edge around the inside bowl and gently relight the tobacco using the method noted above. I then set the pipe aside for five to ten minutes to cool down and let the sugars in the tobacco to set up or make the tobacco firm up. This will enhance the tobacco’s burning without having to ‘over puff’ during the course of your light up.
Relighting the Tobacco
I relight the tobacco as many times as necessary if it goes out so be it. I do not over puff to keep it going. Also, and very important, I do not tamp the tobacco each time I relight. I tamp only when the tobacco will not relight and then I very lightly tamp only the top ash not the underlying tobacco. This was the hardest habit for me to acquire. I was amazed at how many times I could relight my tobacco without tamping each time. Learning to tamp only as needed prevents overly compressing the tobacco that will eventually result in a more restricted draw, a hot, wet and bitter end of the bowl.
Puffing
It’s been my experience that the more aggressively I puff, the less I enjoy the smoke especially toward the end of the bowl. As a result, I had to retrain myself to sip rather than gulp to avoid overheating the pipe, tobacco and my mouth. If the pipe is more than a little warm in my hand, it’s too hot for my mouth so, I set it down and let it cool for five to ten minutes. I’ve also learned to swirl the smoke around my mouth, to roll the smoke over my soft pallet and out through my nose. This greatly enhances the flavor of the tobacco.
Some Other Points of Interest
If you find yourself over puffing much of the time, you may be trying to get more flavor from a blend that just can’t deliver. Talk to your tobacconist and get some samples of more robust blends.
When sampling different tobaccos it usually takes a minimum of three or four bowls of the tobacco in the same pipe to get a realistic read on the tobacco. Also, try the blend in different pipes to see if the pipe you’re smoking is a good match for the tobacco.
Tobacco usually tastes better after you’ve recently eaten. Very seldom do I try a new tobacco unless I’ve eaten.
If your favorite pipe and/or tobacco just does not taste like it usually does, your pipe may be signaling that you may be on the verge of a cold or other illness (for me its usually a tell that within a day or two I’m going to have a sour stomach).
If your pipe draw hole frequently gets plugged, before your initial light, remove the stem from the shank. Insert a pipe cleaner into the bowl several times, remove the cleaner, encircle the bowl with the palm of your hand and blow through the opening between your forefinger and thumb (and through the top of the pipe bowl). This will usually force any loose tobacco through and out of the shank rather than into your mouth or plugging up the pipe.
Less Is More
The information above is pretty common sense but it took me over thirty years to adopt the common sense approach and really enjoy. I hope some of this information may be of some benefit to you and help you more fully enjoy your pipe smoking. After all, ours is a hobby of sharing if not our tobaccos, at least the latest tidbits of information.
Less packing, less tamping, less aggressive lighting and slower puffing equals more enjoyment. Make the time to learn new habits.
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Well there’s nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appear—lattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctions—so, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing one’s sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. Naturally a Virginia-Perique, it is enhanced with a traditional core of black Cavendish. In the tin it holds much promise, with a lightly bready and very woody, if ever-so-slightly sour, aroma. After some time acclimating to air, the bouquet softens further and offers hints of the burley with some chocolaty notes wafting through the more dominant dry grassy aspect. The tin art is of a coin-style bas-relief bust, presumably of a founding Sutliff brother, à la The Old Boss On the reverse of the tin we find the blend’s description: Reflecting on Sutliffs 175 years of tobacco excellence, we came across a brand that embodies true value, SILVER QUARTER. This name pays homage to Sutliffs roots, the legacy of two brothers who popularized pipe smoking in the burgeoning mining society of San Francisco. We celebrate this heritage with a coin cut composed of the finest African Virginias, complemented by a core of Perique and Black Cavendish. The tin notes are, forgive the pun, on the nose for a good VaPer blend: mild tart sweetness peeking out from behind dried hay and slight chocolate undertones, with a lightly tannic finish of weathered oak. It is always a joy to prepare a coin cut, my preference being to put a few in my palm and vigorously warm my hands together to fully break them apart. These well-formed discs pack and light easily, and smoke with little prodding to the end of the bowl. For technical points it scores well—it smokes light, and it’s easy to tend the ember. While it gets sharp after a few quick bowls, pacing should be heeded to easily smoke down to the heel without inviting bite. Of the flavor, though, I am left a bit wanting. There are tart and high notes aplenty, but very little of the lemony citrus I would anticipate, as well as scant midtones; they tend more toward the red wine-vinegary and sour. The flavors are muted, also, lacking the sweetness and piquancy of other marques—the small measure of Perique tickles the nose now and again with peppery hints, and there is a smidge of a deeper sweetness to be found in the Cavendish from puff to puff, but overall it lacks some dynamism. The Virginias, to my palate, come off a bit on the dry side, and here they dominate the blend. The aftertaste and mouthfeel are neutral, again evincing more of the dry, woody, tartly tannic end of the spectrum. The blend has plenty of polish, but not enough depth or richness (*yet) to make it a standout. Here, comparisons are inevitable: Luxury Bullseye Flake has more sweetness, both from its Virginia as well as its Cavendish, and a better finish; Davidoff is similar but with a pronounced umami that is absent here; as for Escudo, I haven’t had any fresh tins lately so it would be unfair to compare. 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Bewitched by a dissonant charm, we’ve created Maple Shadows. In a season that is defined by the unlikely harmony of treats and frights, we’ve joined the enchanting sweetness of maple with the earthy spice of Dark Fired Kentucky for a smoking experience that captures the senses with an otherworldly fusion of flavor. This may be the best aromatic blend Sutliff’s ever made—and they make a ton of them. First off, it’s not overbearing in the least—quite the opposite, it is also one of the more restrained aromatics they’ve ever made, with a clear but very light topping that melds oh-so-well with their choice Kentucky added to the mix. Opening the tin, the sweet maple is up front and center, but so too is the must of fallen leaves, bready pie crusts, and a crackling fire in the hearth—a perfect invocation of Herbstdüfte in a can. Packing best in an open and capacious bowl, the flavoring is subtle, and recedes to the background while puffing. With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
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Garret: I’ve been carving since 2021, and I’m guessing your next question is probably how’d you get started carving? James: Yes. Garret: In 2021 I took a break from my full time job – that included machining and assembly work and I thought maybe it was time I made something that I would like and I started looking at youtube and Instagram and putting together my shop. I did struggle on the stems to start and there was a lot of failure at the beginning. James: How many pipes have you made so far? Garret: I number my pipes, so I just finished up 186. James: What is your favorite shape you’ve been making? Garret: I really dig Canadians and pipes with longer shanks and lovat Canadian blends. I like to play with different shapes of stems on the longer shanked pipes. The billiard would be my go-to shape but I want to learn more techniques on freehanded shapes. I like to put brass and copper adornments on my pipes with my machining background it helps. 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The stummels are printed with a plastic that has wood in it 40% wood fiber, bamboo, rosewood, ebony, redwood, and walnut are the woods I’m printing. For the accent rings I just got a new material that I’m printing that has 40% copper, so its real metal that you can sand, and polish the same as wood filament. The stems are 3d printed as well. The concept is renewable and cheap from a production standpoint, with the ability to make a very high quality smoking pipe based on the experience. By combining the calabash system pipe and bottom draft hole and using 3d simulations to see airflow, I can see where I’m having eddies and ripples in my current, and see where my moisture and all the particles are dropping back out from a vapor to a liquid. Most people who have tried these say the stems are clean, and they don’t even have to run a pipe cleaner afterward because everything collects at the bottom. Chris has also been experimenting with color-changing plastics so you can see the hotspots. 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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 631. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with pipe maker Dan Keller from Good Made Better. Dan is from South Dakota. Growing up working in the family hardware store where he was always finding solutions to fixing things, he ended up always wanting to make things. He now makes elegant handmade pens, pen holders, portable desks, blotters, blotting paper, book carry cases, and of course artisan pipes. At the top of the show we are continuing the virtual tour of Brian’s pipes with his “f#@k you pipes”.
Very nice article for a newb such as myself. Thank you!
Great article. It’s definitely something we all try for and often miss because of learned or aquired habits. It’s even more challenging when we’re doing other tasks and not noticing just how we’re smoking.
Very good article. I’m a very new pipe smoker and am always looking to better my technique in order to more fully appreciate the hobby. Thanks!
Good Article – thanks for reprinting it.
Great article, jam-packed with helpful observations and advice. What I noticed on this reading is the connection the author makes between what he does earlier on, and how that affects the quality of his smoke toward the end of the bowl. So, a bad habit might not ruin your smoke right away. Great read! Most edifying!
Having seen Steve do a live demo of his techniques I can tell you that Steve practices what he preaches. This technique really works for him and many others.
Not to sound funny but treat the pipe you’ve filled as though it was something to be cuddled. Steve makes a great point of being in that moment and simply enjoying tut tobac.newbies (Andrews I) can learn a lot. Thank Steve
Some excellent ideas there. I have decided that pipe smoking is “a work in progress”… I’m no longer afraid of trying some new technique that might bring more pleasure to smoking. 🙂 I’ll have to try that “don’t tamp the ashes between relights” next.
Thanks Steve for the tips. I consider myself a novice (I started smoking a pipe in 1976…..) and am always interested in learning new tips. I will try tamping less, and being easier on the initial light.
Also, I think your suggestion for blowing some smoke out the nose is key to tasting milder flavors (as in Virginias).
Best wishes
thank you so much for you article you helped me out a lot !
So THAT’S why I was getting a wet smoke all the time! Thanks for the advice; you really helped 🙂
Thanks Steve! I have been smoking a pipe since 1975 and like many of us, I learned by observing my Dad. Well, After all these years I am finally smoking a dry, non-gurgling pipe due to your article!
I remember my Dad packing so tight that he would cover the bowl with his Zippo and draw hard, raise the lighter, back down, draw hard, raise the lighter, then back down. Between packing the tobacco too tight, and I believe lighting too fast and hard, what did I expect. Thanks again, Willy Drinkwater (BostonPipe)