My Father gave me his 4 old pipes. He hasn't used them for maybe 30 or so years.
They all had a good amount of cake, which i first scraped out, and then i gave them all multiple treatments with the Alcohol and Salt method. When i stopped the treatments, the Salt was as good as clear, which led me to think, there wasn't any more stuff to be extracted with this method.
However, there still was a small amount of cake in about the bottom third of the bowl. It really isn't that much, just enough to be a bit rough when feeling with a finger. I don't want to scrape it vigorously though, because im afraid of hurting the actual briar.
The problem is, they all add a relatively bitter taste when smoked, except for the one which has a meerschaum inlay (but that one i could clean relatively completely, so it's no wonder). One Pipe i tried smoking multiple times, maybe 10 or so, which hasn't made the taste any better. Im hesitant to just power through it, as it's really no pleasure smoking that way, also i'm always at the brink of tongue burn, which is usually never a problem for me otherwise. If i knew this was the right approach, i would probably do it anyway. (As a side note, i have a pipe where i used pipe mud, when scraping out the cake i could taste the ashy pipe mud taste for a few bowls again but it went away quickly, so i was hoping for something similar here)
Is the problem the cake? could it be something in the wood itself? Is this just a very nasty ghost, or is this normal for pipes which sat with their cake unused for a few decades? How do i handle this, is the only way to remove the cake completely? If so, is there any good way besides vigorously scraping it down to the bare wood?
They all had a good amount of cake, which i first scraped out, and then i gave them all multiple treatments with the Alcohol and Salt method. When i stopped the treatments, the Salt was as good as clear, which led me to think, there wasn't any more stuff to be extracted with this method.
However, there still was a small amount of cake in about the bottom third of the bowl. It really isn't that much, just enough to be a bit rough when feeling with a finger. I don't want to scrape it vigorously though, because im afraid of hurting the actual briar.
The problem is, they all add a relatively bitter taste when smoked, except for the one which has a meerschaum inlay (but that one i could clean relatively completely, so it's no wonder). One Pipe i tried smoking multiple times, maybe 10 or so, which hasn't made the taste any better. Im hesitant to just power through it, as it's really no pleasure smoking that way, also i'm always at the brink of tongue burn, which is usually never a problem for me otherwise. If i knew this was the right approach, i would probably do it anyway. (As a side note, i have a pipe where i used pipe mud, when scraping out the cake i could taste the ashy pipe mud taste for a few bowls again but it went away quickly, so i was hoping for something similar here)
Is the problem the cake? could it be something in the wood itself? Is this just a very nasty ghost, or is this normal for pipes which sat with their cake unused for a few decades? How do i handle this, is the only way to remove the cake completely? If so, is there any good way besides vigorously scraping it down to the bare wood?
This, ghosts and off flavors are generally a result of a poorly cleaned shank and stem.