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troyniss

Can't Leave
Jul 8, 2018
467
1,194
Michigan
Hello,

I've recently been having a problem developing a good cake in one of my Peterson pipes. I smoke mainly Prince Albert in it and it has also seen a few other codger blends, but for the last month only PA. I had a decent cake built up with aid of the new Peterson coating used inside the bowl, so much that I had to ream the pipe once already since purchase. When I reamed the pipe (about a month ago) the cake was not hard, but rather goopy and sticky. Now it doesn't really form cake that well, more specifically towards the front part of the bowl. I just cleaned it as I noticed uneven cake form and took some more goopy/sticky cake off. There is no cake in the front at the moment even though I've been smoking it daily. There is a little formed on the back and each side but very thin. My suspicion is that 1.) The pipe has somewhat thin walls and it smokes hot as I tend to have a fast cadence and heating up the cake too much and 2.) After smoking I throw it in my canvas pipe bag and zip it up. My guess is that maybe it doesn't have time to dry adequately resulting in a moist cake that doesn't harden.

I don't have this problem on any of the other pipes smoking with the same cadence and various thickness of pipe walls. All my other pipes develop cake easily.

Any help is appreciated.
 
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Reactions: Country Bladesmith

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
Like bladesmith I scoop out ash, then wipe out the bowl with a stiff paper towel, leaving only a thin carbon layer and not building cake as such at all. It maintains the diameter of the chamber and eliminates the wear and tear of reaming. I highly recommend this. It's a minority view, but works fine, over decades as I can attest.