Battle of the believers & non-believers.
I believe I'll have pie instead of cake and watch the show.
I believe I'll have pie instead of cake and watch the show.
Cake… Is it worth it?
- Thread starter Mantis_Shankman
- Start date
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I don't think it's so much a "cake isn't worth it" as the type of cake that's being made. Cake acts as an insulator to offer some protection of the briar from the effects of heat. So, it's beneficial.
The difference lies in what kind of a cake is built. The more traditional view was a cake made from the ash that sticks to the chamber walls, easy and quick to build, but also soft and contaminated with unburnt tobacco bits and subject to cracking and falling apart.
The sort of cake that I maintain is the thin hard carbon layer that slowly develops over time as a consequence of smoking. Wiping the chamber walls doesn't prevent any and all cake from forming, it just cleans away the mealy crap and over time a hard thin carbon insulator forms.
Orthodoxy is fine, as long as you don't blindly accept it. Humans create orthodoxies, and nothing humans do is faultless.
I don’t have a dog in the hunt. 
In general, if folks would go about their lives and forget about focusing on pipes and smoking, over time they would do better and enjoy pipe smoking more.
In general, if folks would go about their lives and forget about focusing on pipes and smoking, over time they would do better and enjoy pipe smoking more.
After every smoke I clean my pipe. I use a doubled over pipe cleaner to wipe out the bowl of any left over tobacco and ash. My pipes build a nice hard cake as I only smoke flakes or plugs. I have found that a broken in pipe with a nice hard cake makes my pipes smoke cooler and with more flavor. I ream a pipe very rarely maybe once every couple of years.
I don't care for cake so I clean it out with a pipe nail. I have one pipe that insists it wants cake no matter what I do. So it has to be reamed every six months.
basically it's been the same since the start. People have always said to trim it back. Or at least for a long time. It's more some people are more anal about making sure it's thin and some have more leway with letting it grow. I mean that's my pedantic take on it.
I am a big fan of yellow cake! However, when it comes to pipe cake, I am in the "keep it clean" camp.
This isn't a religious question. Some like cake and some don't. I don't. I create a thin carbon coating in the chamber. After a smoke I scoop out the ash, otherwise clean the pipe, and wipe out the bowl with an abrasive paper towel. This leaves the carbon coating but no cake as such. This reduces any residual flavors when I switch blends. It leaves the chamber permanently the same size, so no reaming and no reamer is required. This suits me. Others love their cake and wouldn't be without it, and I think that's fine for them. Simple.
TBH, I think cake was a "thing" back when men just smoked the same blend in one pipe all the time. For the modern pipesmoker with a cellar full of variety and a rack full of different pipes, it just doesn't make any sense. Why would I want to taste the previous mish mash of blends that I have smoked for the last 100 smokes in my freshly packed pipe?
I appreciate that...I've wondered because of some folks who claim that a cake formed from smoking a single blend can somehow enhance that blend. That seems like a longshot at best to me, at least for my palate I cannot imagine discerning the flavor of the tobacco I'm smoking being different because of the blend that created the cake. Known ghosting issues aside, is there any reason to think there's residual flavor in that carbon?
From my own experience, I can taste latakia in a few smokes after I've smoked it in that pipe, so "YES" in my experience flavors can reside in a pipe after being smoked.
In my experience, no cake through to moderate cake…….not a whole helluva lot of difference to me…… neither it’s absence not presence affects the impact of smoking for me. In other words….. either is fine with me.
When cake becomes more than moderate, I tend to dislike it because….. a) like Cosmic stated…… it decreases the space available for pipe tobacco….. not something I find useful, and b) it seems to me too much cake makes the smoke feel or at least seem hotter.
Now, more broadly…… non-pipe forms of cake…….especially chocolate or carrot….. those are the “cat’s meow”. ?
When cake becomes more than moderate, I tend to dislike it because….. a) like Cosmic stated…… it decreases the space available for pipe tobacco….. not something I find useful, and b) it seems to me too much cake makes the smoke feel or at least seem hotter.
Now, more broadly…… non-pipe forms of cake…….especially chocolate or carrot….. those are the “cat’s meow”. ?
Some of mine have a nice thick cake and some have a thin barely there cake...I honestly don't notice a huge difference simply because I don't smoke my pipes too hot. If you fall into the camp that believes you need the cake to stop burnout, then the simple solution is just don't smoke it too hot. Slow and steady, and even with no cake you should be fine under normal operating conditions.
I don’t know about that. Fashion Nugget still holds up
Not just the chamber but the whole airway will retain flavors from what has been smoked.
I wipe out the bowl after every smoke with a paper towel which maintains a thin carbon layer. I haven't used a reamer in decades.
I also strongly believe that the lower demand for briar in general and better harvesting technique has lead to less issues with burnout. Even just a few decades ago it seemed like a much more real threat. As in actually knew a person or two who had a pipe burnout when breaking it in who wasn't someone who smoked too hard. Now I talk to more pipe smokers and have heard of less burnout. I think that the kind of flaws in the briar that lead to that issue or easier to spot in advance these days. Total speculation and guess work on my part. But until someone offers a better explanation it's the one I'll stick with.
I soak the interior of the bowl with olive oil. This allows the cake to form without sticking to the walls. When I have a cake formed that's about 1/2" thick, I pop it out of the bowl, insert a Reed stem in the newly formed cake stummel, and smoke out of that, because cake is worth it.
Yet here you are. On a forum dedicated to pipes and smoking. Commenting on forgetting about focusing on pipes and smoking.I don’t have a dog in the hunt.
In general, if folks would go about their lives and forget about focusing on pipes and smoking, over time they would do better and enjoy pipe smoking more.
Well Gentlemen you have convinced me. I am officially on a diet. I am not going to stress out about maintaining a thick cake, and I just reamed out a couple of my heavily used pipes. I can stick a finger in my Bings Favorite now.
I’m thinking that I will wipe down the inside of the bowl after each smoke, i’ll try that out for a little while.
I’m thinking that I will wipe down the inside of the bowl after each smoke, i’ll try that out for a little while.