A Unified Theory of Briar Pipes Gooderness

[Briar Lee]

Today I got in the mail the best quality pipe I’ve ever handled or seen in my life, a heavily caked 95 Grade Bertram.



I’ve found it best to scrape out all the cake to bare briar and completely clean the pipes I get inside and out with Everclear, and refresh the exterior with butcher block grade mineral oil before my first smoke.

I’ve smoked my new Bertram 95 three times and look how it’s already colored to oxblood. It tastes incredible, beyond description good, and I’ve arrived at a unified theory of why briar pipes are such gooderns.

God gave men the burl on the root of Heather shrubs that grow on the rim of the Mediterranean to make good pipes.

Clever men learned which burls smoked the best, by long trial and error and experience.

A new briar pipe has inside the wood good resins and bad resins, or we might call those good saps and bad saps, or good mojos and bad mojos. They are at war with each other.

When we break in a new pipe we are exorcising those bad resins, saps, or mojos. The good ones remain.

Thick cake preserves good resins, saps, or mojos under the cake. Ream it alllllll off, and smoke.

That’s why they taste so good.

Ancient, oil cured, unstained, unvarnished, unpainted, high grade Algerian tastes best, but they are all gooderns.

 

[daveinlax]

I’ve seen what’s hidden under cake and will never attempt to find bare wood again.

 

[Briar Lee]

I’ve seen what’s hidden under cake and will never attempt to find bare wood again.

Usually, Algerian briar lets go of cake easily but this Bertram 95 had a thick coat of hard lava that was tough to remove.

For years now, I’ve used a cheap semi dull pocket knife as a scraper, not a reamer.

Bad mojos hate heat. That heat explains why bad mojos quit putting a skunk taste out and get zapped, during break in.

But, when a carbon cake layer forms after that you’re smoking a carbon pipe and not a briar pipe.

To coax the good mojos out, you should only have a black, oily resin of combustion,,,:not a carbon cake layer.

 

[Servant King]

will never attempt to find bare wood again.

Sounds like something my wife would say...

 

[Barry H]

<snip>

To coax the good mojos out, you should only have a black, oily resin of combustion,,,:not a carbon cake layer.

Thanks for this. I've always thought that a thin layer of carbon was a good thing. In any case, you've given me something to think about, which is another good thing. Nothing to lose by giving it a go...

 

[Sig]

I'm very much in the little to no cake camp. Cake stinks and makes pipes sour. I have pipes I have not "cleaned" in decades. I keep the cake down and shank/stem clean. I haven't used alcohol in a pipe in many years, they don't need it.
Back when I believed the "thickness of a dime" thing, my pipes stank the room up. Now, the pipes are in the same cabinet, in the same room, but no smell.
And absolutely tobacco tastes better, to ME, in a wood bowl versus a burned up carbon bowl.
Ive never had a burn out, or any issues with a well reamed pipe in 2 decades.
I too use a pocket knife for keeping bowls clean.

 

[Briar Lee]

I'm very much in the little to no cake camp. Cake stinks and makes pipes sour. I have pipes I have not "cleaned" in decades. I keep the cake down and shank/stem clean. I haven't used alcohol in a pipe in many years, they don't need it.
Back when I believed the "thickness of a dime" thing, my pipes stank the room up. Now, the pipes are in the same cabinet, in the same room, but no smell.
And absolutely tobacco tastes better, to ME, in a wood bowl versus a burned up carbon bowl.
Ive never had a burn out, or any issues with a well reamed pipe in 2 decades.
I too use a pocket knife for keeping bowls clean.

The oil cured (to drive out bad mojos) and aged (to expel more bad mojos) and broken in (final kick to the bad mojos) briar has good tasting flavor mojos left inside the briar.

You’ll note some new pipes taste bad, get hot, even snap and crackle while breaking in. That’s the bad mojos getting the boot.

If you’ll keep a hard, carbon cake from forming and allow only a sort of oily resin of combustion the ember allows those good mojos to flavor your smoke—-

Exactly as a ghosted pipe flavors smoke with Latakia.

Another thing I’ve found is that during break in it’s good to smoke alllll the way down to the draft hole, until the pipe stops sweating and crackling and tasting like burnt briar. The heat is driving out all the bad mojos possible, even some from the shank.

Bad mojos are evil things. Kill all of them you can.