Cake: Make or Break?

[mso489]

See post two; that's what I do. Scoop out the ash and dottle. Wipe out the bowl with a paper towel or napkin, do the pipe cleaner, and polish the pipe. I have never owned a reamer. The carbon layer is thin and completely sufficient. Chamber stays the original size. Some of my pipes are 40 years old and doing fine. Not reaming is a great way to preserve briar.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Similar, as I like a thin hard cake. Rinse the bowl and airway with hot water, then dry with paper towel and pipe cleaner. Every now and then, Q-tip out the mortise.

 

[perdurabo]

Cake in my Pipe! I prefer to smoke tobacco in my pipes. You guys are getting crazy. Couple of weeks ago, we were talking about eating Tide Pods, now it's smoking cake.

 

[Olkofri]

If I can't have my cake and eat smoke it too, why bother with cake? I do as aldecaker and mso489.

 

[renfield]

Put me in the thin, hard cake camp. I wipe out the bowl with some paper towel post smoke. IME ash is not a beneficial component of cake for the reasons stated above.
The exception is in my meers, there I want as close to no cake as I can manage. Part of my several times a year maintenance is sanding out the minimal cake to just shy of seeing the meerschaum itself.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Just to clarify: Not recommending sugar coating, but if you are of the thick cake camp, that's one way to speed up the process.

 

[mikefu]

I am into the thin, hard cake as well. I used to shake the ash in the bowl before dumping, but since I converted to a wiper (paper towel or pipe cleaner) I haven't noticed any noticeable change in cake development, and my bowls taste better. I usually get 'em started with a VA or VA/Burley blend, no honey or sugar. On a side note, some of the bowl coatings taste terrible the first couple smokes, and I find that the quicker I can get them burned off or covered up with cake the better! I really prefer non-coated, and building a cake with flavors I like from tobacco I like.

 

[skydog]

I don't wipe out my bowl after every pipe, instead I just scrape any softer cake that has formed every once in a while. This seems to work for me resulting in hassle free smokes while maintaining a thin hard cake in all of my pipes.