You are probably just kidding me, but I was not the one who said that originally about rivers (for the sake of someone who might read this), but I have said that pipes are like the way rivers are depicted in that saying.
"Breaking In" A Briar Pipe? Fact or Fiction?
- Thread starter Talon
- Start date
Pipe usually doesn't overheat, if it ever did. Smoke is more consistent. And it gets that tobacco sweet.
I think there is something to it, but it depends on the smoker and the pipe.
I suspect a few things are going on with ‘breaking in’
1. The briar was not well aged, and smoking it over a few months is actually ‘curing’ it.
2. Forming a cake sometimes improves the performance
3. The wood is no longer being charred
4. The smoker is adapting to the pipe
I have had the experience of buying a new pipe in which nothing tasted good. In fact there was almost no taste. I kept smoking it with mostly Carter Hall to see if it would change. Finally gave up after a few months consigned myself to selling it for cheap. A while later, I gave it one more try. suddenly blends started to taste great in it. It was like somebody threw a switch. During the same time, all my other pipes tasted as they always do. I think it may have finally ‘broken in.’
Of course, it could all be in our heads
I suspect a few things are going on with ‘breaking in’
1. The briar was not well aged, and smoking it over a few months is actually ‘curing’ it.
2. Forming a cake sometimes improves the performance
3. The wood is no longer being charred
4. The smoker is adapting to the pipe
I have had the experience of buying a new pipe in which nothing tasted good. In fact there was almost no taste. I kept smoking it with mostly Carter Hall to see if it would change. Finally gave up after a few months consigned myself to selling it for cheap. A while later, I gave it one more try. suddenly blends started to taste great in it. It was like somebody threw a switch. During the same time, all my other pipes tasted as they always do. I think it may have finally ‘broken in.’
Of course, it could all be in our heads
I tried casting the bottom 1/3 to 1/2 of the bowl with a dab of honey where no cake had formed. So far, not a lot has happened. We'll see.
I think a lot of the unpleasant taste in that lower part of the bowl is dissipating. Again, we'll see.
Patience has always been my shortcoming.
I think a lot of the unpleasant taste in that lower part of the bowl is dissipating. Again, we'll see.
Patience has always been my shortcoming.
Breaking in an uncoated Castello or Radice is a real pleasure. Completely enjoyable
I just finished a pipeful in the pipe I have been working on. It lasted about 42 minutes and burned most of the tobacco except for the last 1/4 of the bowl. I did not notice very much bite and did not have to relight, so maybe things are looking up.
My wife noticed the tobacco odor when I got home. She's not happy.
My wife noticed the tobacco odor when I got home. She's not happy.
I finally got some Manuka honey.
Expensive bur seems to work on a sore tongue.
I anxiously await the arrival of my new pipe and feel prepared.
Expensive bur seems to work on a sore tongue.
I anxiously await the arrival of my new pipe and feel prepared.
Neanderthals have been given a bad, unjustified rep. They actually were relatively peaceful and intelligent, but the homo sapient were a violent lot who overpowered them.
I always enjoy the break-in period with a pipe. I do a lot of pipe rotating, but when I break in a new one, I stick with it until the pipe tastes neutral. I've never done anything special besides filling the bowl with tobacco and then lighting the pile on fire.
I wonder if some of it is something of a holdover of pre-briar pipes. I’ve made them of ash, cherry, and walnut, and breaking those in (preferably without the use of your mouth) is essential.
I don't do the gradual breking in thing. I did my two or three first years of pipesmoking, but I found out many people didn't, I tried to skip it and I've had no issues since.
Back then, a theory circulated Spanish forums and I don't know if it's true. I'll leave it here just in case someone can shed some light on it. It was said that back when briar was starting to be used, artisans didn't boil and cure it to get resins out, so it tasted sour the first times. Pipemakers started sending finished pipes to prisons and prisoners worked breaking them in and building a cake so they reached the final buyer's hands ready to be enjoyed. Maybe the mothpiece was changed, I don't know. It was also said that people used to say "he smokes more than an English prisoner" in Spain. I've never heard the expression outside the context of this story.
I think this might be at the same level of the stories about camel dung smoke being used to cure latakia, but it's a funny story anyway.
Back then, a theory circulated Spanish forums and I don't know if it's true. I'll leave it here just in case someone can shed some light on it. It was said that back when briar was starting to be used, artisans didn't boil and cure it to get resins out, so it tasted sour the first times. Pipemakers started sending finished pipes to prisons and prisoners worked breaking them in and building a cake so they reached the final buyer's hands ready to be enjoyed. Maybe the mothpiece was changed, I don't know. It was also said that people used to say "he smokes more than an English prisoner" in Spain. I've never heard the expression outside the context of this story.
I think this might be at the same level of the stories about camel dung smoke being used to cure latakia, but it's a funny story anyway.
Break in a pipe like it is your cast iron skillet. You use it. Put things in it you enjoy and repeat. Don’t use soap!
Don't worry about "breaking in" a new pipe. Just smoke it like normal and it will break in itself. 
Your comment reads like the opening verses of a Hemingway novel. lol Nicely done.I've said this before, but I like to think of it in terms of the old saying, "you can never step into the same river twice." This means, that as a river is constantly flowing and changing it's banks slowly wearing away parts and depositing more sediment in others, a pipe is also in a constant state of flux. It is never static. With each different tobacco smoked in it, rinsed or cleaned, cake cut back, wiped out, a pipe is always in flux also. I like to enjoy my pipes from the first smoke forward, and I enjoy how they change and evolve over time.
A bad tasting pipe at the start has happened for me recently, but in a weird kind of way, I enjoy smoking through that as well, like a sense of accomplishment once the bad taste is gone. I see it as a period of bonding with that pipe. Getting that briar into my DNA. A merger of man and tool. In that case, I see it not some much as break in, as much as merging... but, then I am the sort that loves the poetics of pipesmoking.