Cake and cleaning

[James8855]

I heard that if your pipe bowl goes sour, you have to clean it with rum and remove all of the cake and break in the pipe again. If you do this repeatedly all the time will it damage the pipe?

I’m new to pipe smoking.

 

[Waning Embers]

Welcome to the forum!

Probably do better cleaning out the mortise, draft hole, and stem. Reaming back to the wood really isn't a good idea. In thirty years I've never had a pipe go sour.

 

[trubka2]

Yeah, that sounds really extreme - probably just need to clean it. Sometimes if you just run some hot water through a pipe, wipe out the bowl real good with a paper towel, and run a couple cleaners through it, it'll perform dramatically better (after drying out and resting, of course). Not everybody likes doing that, but a lot of people do. It works great for me, personally. If it still tastes really bad, and you're sure it's the pipe, you can also try putting wet coffee grounds in the bowl for a couple days before moving on to more drastic measures (alcohol and cotton balls, etc.).

 

[luigi]

I'm doing it exactly the way as OP is asking. It works for a better taste but it does damage a pipe's chamber a little.
You better go with thorough cleaning than playing with a reamer ar this point. The cheapest reamers (the known set with 4 heads made of plastic) are bad, I broke mine 2 times.

 

[mikethompson]

I don't know who turned me on to the coffee ground trick but it is a great way of deghosting a pipe.

Cleaning the entire pipe, not just the inside of the bowl, is important too. Some use special tools to clean away in there, I just use a few vodka soaked pipe cleaners.

 

[Waning Embers]

You better go with thorough cleaning than playing with a reamer ar this point.

I wipe the chamber out after every smoke and have only ever had to use a reamer on estate pipes.

 

[writingraav]

I don't know who turned me on to the coffee ground trick but it is a great way of deghosting a pipe.

Cleaning the entire pipe, not just the inside of the bowl, is important too. Some use special tools to clean away in there, I just use a few vodka soaked pipe cleaners.

I wonder if used loose tea leaves work just as well? We don't do coffee.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

Cake makes you fat and all the Cleaning is such a pain.
I don’t like Birthday parties either.

 

[mikethompson]

Writingraav I'm not so sure. The idea is that as the grounds dry, they soak up the oils in the bowl and shank. They are so fine that they can get down into the shank.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I'm a fan of coffee grounds if needed. (Most neighbors would be happy to donate used grounds to you!) But the hot water flush seems to obviate the need for harsher methods of cleaning. (and it will also flush the grounds out after they've done their job.)

EDIT: The emoji above won't delete! The word was "harsher" and deleting the emoji doesn't work, as it comes back on "Save".

Next edit: The word is "h a r s h e r". Very odd.

 

[mikethompson]

S h e r, maybe a short form of Sherlock?

 

[gatorlope]

I'm doing it exactly the way as OP is asking. It works for a better taste but it does damage a pipe's chamber a little.
You better go with thorough cleaning than playing with a reamer ar this point. The cheapest reamers (the known set with 4 heads made of plastic) are bad, I broke mine 2 times.

I knew I had a good reason for buying “vintage”!puf

 

[gatorlope]

Writingraav I'm not so sure. The idea is that as the grounds dry, they soak up the oils in the bowl and shank. They are so fine that they can get down into the shank.

Know anybody who uses a percolator? They use a coarser grind of coffee. (Usually)

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I've only ever had to deep clean estate pipes. Never have I had a pipe "go sour" on me. But, I usually run water through mine, rather frequently, so maybe that has kept the sour at bay. YMMV

 

[Olkofri]

Yeah, a bit (or a lot) of a silly question, but how can you tell you have a sour pipe? How does it taste? (I don't think I've ever had that happen to me, and I'd like to know how to tell. Heh, just one more thing to worry about now, I guess...)

 

[jpmcwjr]

S h e r, maybe a short form of Sherlock?

Sher Well, now there's no emoji, perhaps because it starts with an uppercase letter.

Harsher
We'll see!

Hsher asher xsher

Well, ok, I guess this is it: s h e r turns into sher when it's part of a word or by itself. Not preceeded by a capital. Whew.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Yeah, a bit (or a lot) of a silly question, but how can you tell you have a sour pipe? How does it taste? (I don't think I've ever had that happen to me, and I'd like to know how to tell. Heh, just one more thing to worry about now, I guess...)

You'll know it when it happens. Smell, taste; either or both. sher

 

[gatorlope]

There’s a new sheriff in town?

 

[gatorlope]

This could be fun!
My tamper just became a tobacco masher!
No sherit, Sherlock!

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

I don't see a pipe "souring" unless it isn't cleaned properly, the smoker smokes really wet or there are mostly heavily laced goopers being smoked in it. I can see a pipe being ghosted if different blends types are smoked in it. If you smoke heavy latakia and/or Lakeland blends in a pipe and then try to smoke a straight VA in it, I suspect it could taste rather sour while what you're really tasting is the ghost.

I've been using the hot water rinse for over a year now and haven't deep cleaned a pipe since then. I've also had very, very minimal reaming required. To be fair, I'm rotating well over 50 pipes so it isn't like any one of them has been smoked 100's of times.