I am beginner to. I clean my pipe after each use. I use pipe cleaner and paper towel. For the stem, i use alcohol with pipe cleaner. I have not cleaned the bowl with alcohol yet. I'm trying to build a cake (the pipe is new).
Cleaning pipe after smoke
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Me I tend to take the stem out run a pipe cleaner through the stem and then through the hole in the mortise leading into the chamber. Then I bend the stem over and swab out the mortise (the hole the stem goes into) and sometimes I fold over another clean part of the cleaner and wipe out the chamber (what most people call the bowl). And if you don't do something like that your pipe will start getting nasty and "sour". Takes a few seconds to do.
As far as ghosting and dedicating pipes. I am planning on doing my first dedicated pipe. But for lakeland blends. Cause that's the thing I don't find a little bit of the flavor of this or that blend hanging out during my next smoke to be a bad thing. But I hear that lakelands can really stick in a pipe.
As far as ghosting and dedicating pipes. I am planning on doing my first dedicated pipe. But for lakeland blends. Cause that's the thing I don't find a little bit of the flavor of this or that blend hanging out during my next smoke to be a bad thing. But I hear that lakelands can really stick in a pipe.
Don't listen to embers. Everyone here knows after he gets done with a bowl, he cleans it out with pipe cleaners, wipes the chamber down with a paper towel. Then he gently sandblasts the chamber, gives it the salt/alcohol treatment followed by an alcohol retort. After that, it spends 1 week in an Ozone chamber and is finished with a final polish and buff. If its good, he'll smoke it again after a 1 years rest. If it's not good then he throws out the bowl, goes out to the shed, gabs a new stummel and reshapes it into the same size and shape of the pipe he just chucked. Its why his pipes always look new.
I clean my pipes with pipe cleaners, what an epiphany I use bristle and smooth fluffies. I clean the piss out of my pipes after every use. I have a nice hard cake which makes my pipes smoke cooler and drier and gives them more flavor. I dedicate each pipe to either a certain genre or a specific blend like Stonehaven or a genre of tobacco say a Virginia/perique blend, a straight Virginia and a Virginia/Kentucky/Burley. I smoke flakes and plugs exclusively and I build a nice hard cake fairly quickly. I would never water my pipe. I know some people love it but my cake is too important to how my pipes smoke. I never had an old timer ever tell me to clean with water. I think they would have laughed in my face till they peed them selves.
If You are not a hardcore Lakeland tobacco fan, and you smoke them only on occasion,then please do dedicate a few pipes just to be used for these types of mixtures since these blends will ghost Your briars something fierce, and in a very short period of time,
I never clean a pipe after smoking it. The reason is that there is usually a small amount of moisture in the bottom of the bowl and (contrary to what some genius on this site said) the briar can absorb this which makes the wood soft. Repeated cleaning with a pipe cleaner can slowly dig away at this soft wood and damage the pipe. It's best to let the pipe rest and, if needed, clean it before the next smoke.
How often it needs cleaning depends on several things; the tobacco smoked, the pipe itself, and your personal taste. Or you can do like an old uncle I had and when it gets too dirty just throw it away and buy a new one....
Depending on the pipe and tabac, the amount of moisture collected, even during smoking it might be needed to run a soft cleaner through it, and certainly after smoking a bowl. Otherwise the ash and tar moisture can sour the pipe. It’s also beneficial to take a soft/thin napkin and wipe the chamber out after smoking.
If we are talking about inexpensive pipes who cares, but smoking expensive pipes, cleaners should be used often and chambers wiped.
The bottom of the chamber on a good briar pipe is not going to be damaged by a soft pipe cleaner or napkin, it is not that soft.
@hauntedmyst I always run cleaners through it when I get half a bowl smoked, most of the time there is quite a bit of moisture to wipe out, and I certainly run cleaners through after smoking.
I wipe out the chambers lightly with a napkin or paper towel. I don’t see ash as something you should leave behind drying in the chamber, especially on a quality pipe.
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"The bottom of the chamber on a good briar pipe is not going to be damaged by a soft pipe cleaner or napkin, it is not that soft."
It's not the soft part of the cleaner that does the damage, it's the wire in the center. In time it can act like a chisel and poke a hole through the bottom front of the bowl. I've seen it happen.
This is exactly what I do also. Every month or two I use a little Everclear on a pipe cleaner and a paper towel soaked with the stuff in the bowl overnight.
when It comes to having pipes for aromatics, do you sort their “ genre” by “flavors”? Or?
I have pipes for out and out aromatics like Peterson's Connoiseur's Choice and Erinmore, and ones for "American" blends like Frog's Morton and Boswell's Northwoodsthat have some Latakia in them.
Unlike some who dedicate A pipe to A single blend, my short term memory is not up to the task ?
Oh yes, you certainly have to keep an eye on your soft pipe cleaners, I’m assuming we are talking about the soft ones, not the bristled ones, to make sure there is no protruding wire.
I’ve been using the soft BJ Long and Peterson cleaners, so far I’ve not had any issues with them.
Every so often I’ll dip the pipe cleaners in Everclear and run them through the draught hole and stems.
If you wipe the chambers out after smoking, also while it’s still warm, the carbon will be pliable, you can wipe excess away too, you shouldn’t need Everclear in the chamber, unless you’re doing like an a Estate cleanup.
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Personally I pass a pipe cleaner through the stem after each smoke, then I bent the pipe cleaner and use it to clean the chamber, then I blow into the pipe so that dirt/ash/tobacco bits comes out of the stem/hole.
About once every 2-3 weeks/1 month, I will remove all the stems of my pipes (except those I haven't used) and pass some alcohol through them.
The way I do it is: I hold the stem vertically, tap the bottom hole (the side you put in your mouth) with my index finger, fill the stem with alcohol, remove my finger for a fraction of a second so that the stem is filled with alcohol and not air, add more alcohol, then tap the other extreme with my thumb and shake the stem a bit for a few seconds. I will pass a pipe cleaner through the stem after this, Alcohol will come out from yellow to deep brown depending on how much tar has accumulated. Water and soap will do nothing.
About once every 2-3 weeks/1 month, I will remove all the stems of my pipes (except those I haven't used) and pass some alcohol through them.
The way I do it is: I hold the stem vertically, tap the bottom hole (the side you put in your mouth) with my index finger, fill the stem with alcohol, remove my finger for a fraction of a second so that the stem is filled with alcohol and not air, add more alcohol, then tap the other extreme with my thumb and shake the stem a bit for a few seconds. I will pass a pipe cleaner through the stem after this, Alcohol will come out from yellow to deep brown depending on how much tar has accumulated. Water and soap will do nothing.
I've untill now not deepcleaned any pipe, not water flushed it in about a year pipe smoking. Just make sure your tobacco is dry enough it can't leave any gunk, let it cool, run a pipecleaner through it twice, fold it and wipe the bowl. If I clean my Peterson System pipe I fold a cleaner and wipe the moisture chamber. I smoke or 1 type of blend in a pipe or the pipe is dedicated to a tobacco. Or it's a meerschaum which doesnt need more or less attention than a briar.
For a meer I’d agree, for briar we are talking after centuries though, right?
Bold: it can and does, and lots, especially at the mortise. Regardless pf how dry the tobacco is, combustion generates water. A pipe cleaner is nowhere near good enough to catch moisture and gunk, all it does when used in the chamber is knock bit of dottle off the walls, nothing more. You need a twisted paper towel to gather oils, tars and moisture, otherwise you’re just building a sticky and stinky tobacco chamber.
I have many pipes I've been smoking for over 50 years. None of them have had any alcohol, water or cleaning liquids of any kind in them. Just pipe cleaners and this piece of metal coat hanger I use for a stubborn blockage. They all smoke great.
The wife is out of town spending Christmas with the greedy, screaming, little grandkids and I'm home with our 2 cats and my pipe.... all nice and peaceful. It truly is a merry Christmas.
The wife is out of town spending Christmas with the greedy, screaming, little grandkids and I'm home with our 2 cats and my pipe.... all nice and peaceful. It truly is a merry Christmas.
I started off cleaning every time. Some do that and some never do. Find your style and where on the curve you want to be. 
- me, I run a cleaner through every couple of bowls and scrape out any dottle. Do a decent deep cleaning every few months. I have a large rotation so don’t need to clean as much. Fun part of pipes is finding what you like on all these little things over time.
- me, I run a cleaner through every couple of bowls and scrape out any dottle. Do a decent deep cleaning every few months. I have a large rotation so don’t need to clean as much. Fun part of pipes is finding what you like on all these little things over time.
Like many, I clean each time I smoke (usually), and mostly the following day. I run a rum pipe cleaner through the stem and clean that pretty well, and same to the shank, then just lightly scrape any dottle in the bowl, wipe the rim with water, put it back together and polish it up. Then leave it for a week or more. I've found that I don't need to do a deep clean for a year or more on those pipes, as they stay clean.