Good evening fellow pipe smokers! I find myself needing a tip regarding flakes & shapes.
I own a pretty, fully bent Savinelli Regimental 614, which I smoke most of the time. It just so happens that since my discovery of flake tobacco I've been smoking it (folded & stuffed) almost exclusively - with a tiny exception of roughly broken flake consisting of pure Virginia. I can indeed say I love it - and I won't lie a gram doing so - but there's just that one tiny-tiny thing that ruins my experience with flakes approximately two out of five times.
I've tried various flakes - pretty sure by far not as much as others here - JA (John Aylesbury) Sir John's Burley, blue Capstan, HH Rustica, and, bought just today, a pure Virginia flake, that being the absolutely raw version (not even cut into rectangles, just long stripes of flake) of the previously mentioned "tiny exception" to my flake passion. Now, when I say "various" I refer less to the quantity and more to the properties: those are different blends with different casings, and - most importantly - different slice shapes. Say, blue Capstan is, in my modest opinion, ideally rectangular, while HH Rustica, having the same length, only has about 4/10 of Capstan's width. It is so important because, when folding and stuffing, I religiously refrain from breaking pieces of flake off to suit the chamber better.
I'm perfectly fine with not being able to smoke until the very bottom is covered in white ash, for the draft channel is located around 5mm higher. But often, getting close to the last quarter of the bowl, I spontaneously find the draw compromised, which ruins the experience for me.
Let's get some things straight, so that it'll be easier to troubleshoot the problem. It's not the pipe being stuffed too tightly, or the tobacco expanding due to heat and compromising the airflow - the first three quarters give me a fabulous smoke. It's not excess moisture either, for I'd be able to whether blow it back to the tobacco, or - with an unpleasant face - suck it in. It's definitely a rogue piece of tobacco getting in.
In the morning I tend to fiddle a little, and make sure the air channel - of both, the mouthpiece and the pipe - have no obstructions (I've had quite a case with bits of cotton from JA soft slim cleaners getting stuck in there). I use an insert instead of filters in my pipe's 9mm socket, and if without it one may've had an astronomically tiny chance of running a pipe cleaner through the mouthpiece and getting it right into the bowl, with it doing so is - not even borderline - just impossible. The fully bent shape doesn't help at all, and as soon as that one damned piece of tobacco finds its way to the hole, I can forget about smoking in piece.
Poking through with the tamper's needle and trying to clean the outer arounds of the draft hole result in nothing. It's only when I, with a heavy heart, dump the unburnt flake remains out that I'm able to blow the blockage out.
This happened with each flake I folded and stuffed, so it's not the worst idea to share how I do it. My tobacco is on the drier side of things. I fold it once against the grain, and then two or three times zig-zag-like with the grain. I then lightly stuff it in, so, that the fold is up. I also take care to stuff it in so, that individual "branches" are facing the draft hole, and not a solid "wall" chunk. It doesn't matter how much space is left in the chamber upon stuffing the flake in - a half, a quarter, a little - the problem still appears late in the smoke.
Oddly enough, loose-cut tobacco is notorious for having the issue. An older gentleman I met in my tobacconist's lounge a week ago also smokes almost exclusively flake, for the simplicity of it - as he mentioned, for anything, he just couldn't get along with the "amount of fiddling and lack of room for mistake" of the loose side of the tobacco cuts. It's 180 degrees different for me. I can't recall a single time I had my pipe clogged by a broken flake, ribbon, or loose cut. They give an even burn all the way to the bottom of the bowl, but... I have to stress that I love flakes and refuse to rub them out on principle. Perhaps a straight pipe is meant to be?
With this, I nicely wrap my story up, and kindly ask for your tips and experiences.
Thanks in advance,
Demian
I own a pretty, fully bent Savinelli Regimental 614, which I smoke most of the time. It just so happens that since my discovery of flake tobacco I've been smoking it (folded & stuffed) almost exclusively - with a tiny exception of roughly broken flake consisting of pure Virginia. I can indeed say I love it - and I won't lie a gram doing so - but there's just that one tiny-tiny thing that ruins my experience with flakes approximately two out of five times.
I've tried various flakes - pretty sure by far not as much as others here - JA (John Aylesbury) Sir John's Burley, blue Capstan, HH Rustica, and, bought just today, a pure Virginia flake, that being the absolutely raw version (not even cut into rectangles, just long stripes of flake) of the previously mentioned "tiny exception" to my flake passion. Now, when I say "various" I refer less to the quantity and more to the properties: those are different blends with different casings, and - most importantly - different slice shapes. Say, blue Capstan is, in my modest opinion, ideally rectangular, while HH Rustica, having the same length, only has about 4/10 of Capstan's width. It is so important because, when folding and stuffing, I religiously refrain from breaking pieces of flake off to suit the chamber better.
I'm perfectly fine with not being able to smoke until the very bottom is covered in white ash, for the draft channel is located around 5mm higher. But often, getting close to the last quarter of the bowl, I spontaneously find the draw compromised, which ruins the experience for me.
Let's get some things straight, so that it'll be easier to troubleshoot the problem. It's not the pipe being stuffed too tightly, or the tobacco expanding due to heat and compromising the airflow - the first three quarters give me a fabulous smoke. It's not excess moisture either, for I'd be able to whether blow it back to the tobacco, or - with an unpleasant face - suck it in. It's definitely a rogue piece of tobacco getting in.
In the morning I tend to fiddle a little, and make sure the air channel - of both, the mouthpiece and the pipe - have no obstructions (I've had quite a case with bits of cotton from JA soft slim cleaners getting stuck in there). I use an insert instead of filters in my pipe's 9mm socket, and if without it one may've had an astronomically tiny chance of running a pipe cleaner through the mouthpiece and getting it right into the bowl, with it doing so is - not even borderline - just impossible. The fully bent shape doesn't help at all, and as soon as that one damned piece of tobacco finds its way to the hole, I can forget about smoking in piece.
Poking through with the tamper's needle and trying to clean the outer arounds of the draft hole result in nothing. It's only when I, with a heavy heart, dump the unburnt flake remains out that I'm able to blow the blockage out.
This happened with each flake I folded and stuffed, so it's not the worst idea to share how I do it. My tobacco is on the drier side of things. I fold it once against the grain, and then two or three times zig-zag-like with the grain. I then lightly stuff it in, so, that the fold is up. I also take care to stuff it in so, that individual "branches" are facing the draft hole, and not a solid "wall" chunk. It doesn't matter how much space is left in the chamber upon stuffing the flake in - a half, a quarter, a little - the problem still appears late in the smoke.
Oddly enough, loose-cut tobacco is notorious for having the issue. An older gentleman I met in my tobacconist's lounge a week ago also smokes almost exclusively flake, for the simplicity of it - as he mentioned, for anything, he just couldn't get along with the "amount of fiddling and lack of room for mistake" of the loose side of the tobacco cuts. It's 180 degrees different for me. I can't recall a single time I had my pipe clogged by a broken flake, ribbon, or loose cut. They give an even burn all the way to the bottom of the bowl, but... I have to stress that I love flakes and refuse to rub them out on principle. Perhaps a straight pipe is meant to be?
With this, I nicely wrap my story up, and kindly ask for your tips and experiences.
Thanks in advance,
Demian
