Are You Getting An Even Black/Tar Buildup?

[PipeIT]

Hello Everyone!

I have a Radice Rind Straight I’ve had for 6 months, that’s been getting smoked around every 3 days.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had pipes and smoked, so my Briar collection has been small, and I’ve sold off a few, this happens to be the longest owned pipe at the moment, as I’m building a new collection.

My question is, the black, sticky tar buildup that eventually occurs in the chamber is everyone seeing an even build up of this in their entire chambers?

For me at the moment, this sticky, black tar like resin of carbon is only forming on the top of the chamber, the rest of the chamber, the wood is only like a dark grayed color is all.

I assumed at some point the sticky tar like carbon would evenly form all across the chamber, I just didn’t think 6 months later it wouldn’t . Hmm

Here’s a picture I took, you’ll see the blacker tar like carbon, as I mentioned is only towards the top, and below it, just gray colored wood.

 

[Briar Lee]

Here in Missouri we call a chamber “the inside of the bowl”, but the tobacco you are smoking is likely not laced with all kinds of delicious, sugary syrups that taste like cherry candy, peach cobbler, vanilla ice cream cones, and cotton candy.

Straight tobacco blends, I think take longer to build protective oily cake that is visible.

But a grey bowl has, almost a smidgen of cake that protects the briar.

It’s good when it’s black and oily all the way down to the air hole in the bottom of the bowl.

Keep puffing.

 

[Chasing Embers]

the black, sticky tar buildup that eventually occurs in the chamber

I've never seen that one. This is one of my aromatic pipes and the carbon I'd hard and dry.

Here in Missouri we call a chamber “the inside of the bowl”

As far as pipe anatomy is concerned, the bowl is the shaped part of the stummel that the chamber is drilled into. Like saying belly when referring to the stomach.

 

[PipeIT]

I meant for the blacker looking carbon at the top in my picture. It’s sticky during and after smoking. I’ve noticed on all my pipes I’ve smoked before, it also has a tacky feel to it for a few days before it drys.

I guess as Briar Lee is pointing out, probably more natural blends take time.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I meant for the blacker looking carbon at the top in my picture. It’s sticky during and after smoking. I’ve noticed on all my pipes I’ve smoked before, it also has a tacky feel to it for a few days before it drys.

I guess as Briar Lee is pointing out, probably more natural blends take time.

Interesting. The chamber in my post is from a vanilla black cavendish pipe.?

 

[burleybreath]

Smoking Carter Hall will cake the bowl quicker, I've read here and elsewhere and have no reason to doubt. Some pipes break in much slower than others, and I've had several with the appearance of yours after many bowls. Both my Upshalls from the '70s were beasts to get any semblance of a cake started, for example, and they had no bowl coating, a potential suspect. But I've no idea what causes that lack of effect. So why my reply? 'Cause you're not alone, IT guy.

 

[kgs]

I've never gotten cake to build on the lower 1/4 of the bowl. The cake starts after the bottom 1/4, is thickest in the middle section and extends all the way to the top. My cake is tarry, sticky, and moist. I will smoke the same pipe day after day for weeks or months. I don't clean my pipes after smoking. I will pull the stem off and blow out condensation and moisture if I need to. Sometimes I will run a pipe cleaner or two through it, but I don't carry pipe cleaners with me so I don't use them often.

I have some pipes that have been resting for a long time now, maybe I will check those to see if the cake has dried and hardened. I would imagine that that the cake will just get moist and tarry again once I start smoking them again.

EDIT: I do not smoke aromatics. I smoke shags almost exclusively now, although I would still get tarry cake with flakes. I mostly smoke Gawith & Hoggarth blends, Five Brothers, and that semois shag (I think it's called Le Petit Robin.).

 

[Chasing Embers]

Smoking Carter Hall will cake the bowl quicker,

Old Dark Fired will do it even faster. It's crazy!

 

[sasquatch]

There's 2 kinds of cake, or maybe 25 kinds... but for sure you see pipes with big thick fluffly cake made from things like Carter Hall, it builds fast, it's fairly easily removed, and is touted to be protective of the briar. And there's "hard cake" and/or "shiny cake" which tends to be glassy, thin, and really hard, much more difficult to remove. And what it comes down to is the sugar quantity and the temperature you are smoking at.

In any case none of this is evidence of anything in particular, not a bad pipe nor a pariticularly good one, not of bad tobacco nor good... it is what it is, how you smoke, what you smoke... that particular pipe. Don't worry about it.

 

[sablebrush52]

I'm curious to know what blend you're smoking. The only time I've had a build up of sticky residue on the chamber (in the rest of the world with indoor plumbing we call the chamber a chamber, and a swimming pool a swimming pool and not the cement pond) walls was when I spent a few days smoking nothing but matured red Virginias. The Sutliff 5100 clone can really gunk up a pipe.

Since I usually smoke Virginias or Va/Pers, I dry the tobacco before packing, and have had no issues with getting a nice even dry carbon layer on the chamber® .

 

[leonardbill1]

I've found that over time I get slightly more buildup just below the rim of the bowl. I don't clean the bowl until I notice that buildup starting. I remove it with a pipe knife. Similar to what sasquatch said, I find two types of cake. The buildup at the top is softer and more tar-like. Lower in the bowl is hard. When I remove the buildup at the top of the bowl I'll also scrape some of the lower buildup. The overall cake works out to be fairly even.

 

[PipeIT]

Since I started smoking the pipe, I’d take a napkin or paper towel and lightly wipe the chamber out after smoking, not sure if this is messing with the buildup.

Oh I have quite a few blends. These are what I smoke, but I typically smoke something different every day.

This is my entire list of opened tins I smoke, and some I don’t smoke as often.

C&D Eight State Burley
C&D Carolina Red Flake
C&D House Reserve
Dunhill Nightcap
Dunhill SMM
G&H Co Bosun Cut Plug
G&H Co Ennerdale Flake
G&H Co Rum Flake
G.L. Pease Stonehenge
G. L. Pease Stratford
G.L. Pease Windjammer
KBV Anne Cap
KBV The Patience of Dr. Silence
MB HH Burley Flake
MB HH Syrian
McClelland Blue Mountain
SG Squadron Leader
Sillem’s Black
SPC Plum Pudding Special Reserve Flake
Solani 333 Festival
Solani 633 Virginia Flake
Sutliff Cringle Flake 2020
WCC Rouxgaroux
The Country Squire 50th Anniversary
The Country Squire Black & Tan
The Country Squire Parson’s Blend
The Country Squire Rivendell

 

[krizzose]

I’ve never had a sticky cake before, but I’ve always swabbed out the bowl with a bent pipe cleaner after each smoke. No clue if that’s the reason or if has to do with what I’m smoking. ?‍

 

[didimauw]

My meer has been dedicated to old dark fired and Ryback.




Sticky there too.

 

[anotherbob]

Hello Everyone!

I have a Radice Rind Straight I’ve had for 6 months, that’s been getting smoked around every 3 days.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had pipes and smoked, so my Briar collection has been small, and I’ve sold off a few, this happens to be the longest owned pipe at the moment, as I’m building a new collection.

My question is, the black, sticky tar buildup that eventually occurs in the chamber is everyone seeing an even build up of this in their entire chambers?

For me at the moment, this sticky, black tar like resin of carbon is only forming on the top of the chamber, the rest of the chamber, the wood is only like a dark grayed color is all.

I assumed at some point the sticky tar like carbon would evenly form all across the chamber, I just didn’t think 6 months later it wouldn’t . Hmm

Here’s a picture I took, you’ll see the blacker tar like carbon, as I mentioned is only towards the top, and below it, just gray colored wood.

View attachment 99653

normal. In fact it's part of the reason people have breaking in rituals. Never found any issue with ignoring this phenomenon completely and doing absolutely nothing to remedy it. Yes even when I had one pipe for 20 years.

 

[bullet08]

I think you are thinking too much. Just get some Everclear and wipe it out.

 

[warren]

I've been smoking a pipe long enough that when I started, I was advised to smoke the first few bowls only a third or so full. The routine for half or so of the bowl then, full bowls. This was explained to me as the correct way to build even cake. I know others follow different routes but, it's so ingrained in me that it's the routine I always follow on new briars. Meers, of course, resent having a cakey bowl. I try to keep my meers happy and content so, no cake! Ever!

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I suggest…. smoke another bowl. Enjoy the new briar aroma. Enjoy the tobacco. Then smoke another…. And don’t worry about it.

The pipe will cake in the places that need it, naturally. There’s not much to worry about in this hobby.

 

[saltedplug]

Despite all the posts to this thread, cake is a very simple matter:

Caked builds by smoking. When you are uncomfortable with its size, ream it.

 

[PipeIT]

I’m not worried or trying to think much on the subject. I just assumed, that with this light sticky tar build up that is formimg more on the top for now, that having it more evenly distributed throughout the bowl, as this thin layer I showed forming on the top, would simply create a cooler smoke.

I’m certainly aware of the packing only the bottom parts of the chamber first and working upwards on the breaking in process, a reason to form like this, I’ve just never done it. I’ll just have to try and see what it does.

Thanks everyone!