Cutting Down on Moisture

[finnian3]

All,

Any tips on cutting down moisture when smoking? I am a big fan of the aeromatics and some just seem to have more moisture. Too much moisture interrupts the smoking experience not to mention the flavor. Besides having a pipe cleaner on hand every few minutes, I have yet to find a solution to this problem.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I dry my tobacco before smoking, but aromatics will lose a lot of flavor by drying, depending on which one. Water is the natural byproduct of combustion. But, smoking slower will prevent most condensation. If you have a bent pipe, it may be that condensation is a result of the turbulence from the bend, so you’ll just have to take it even slower. Smoking slow will give you mamy more benfits from more flavor, more absorbtion of nicotine, and even caking your chamber faster. Smoking too fast is just wasting the goodness out into the room IMO. You should merely see a drizzle of smoke rolling from your mouth, not big wasteful clouds. But, some guys prefer sharing the smoke with everyone in the room, YMMV.

 

[olkofri]

And I was about to open a thread about how to make smoke rings. :roll:
Didn't know that fact about bent pipes; interesting.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I wouldn’t call it a “fact”about bent pipes. Some bent pipes seem to smoke better than others. I’m not sure what the differences are, other than some have a better draft hole to chamber design, allowing the droplets of water to drop into the bowl, instead of setting dead bottom and gurgling.
Blow all the smoke rings you want. I have a few buddies that are really good at it, but they don’t blow them throughout their smoke.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Where do you live? What's the general level of humidity? If you cannot air dry it enough microwaves work fine.

 

[olkofri]

True about the ambient relative humidity. Once I left the cap off my plastic container for several hours so that my tobacco would dry and it actually got wetter. The humidity at the time was between 50-60%.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Also a cold stem condences more moisture than a warm one. Think, air conditioner condensers or moonshine still, in how they condense.

 

[olkofri]

Would this be then a significant issue if you smoke outside when it's below freezing point?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

To me, I do notice significantly more moisture in my smokes outside in the winter, But, as John pointed out, ambient moisture probably plays a role also.

 

[amisk]

I live in northern canada and it’s currently -23C which is -10F. If I try smoking outside even for a few minutes at this temp the stem fills up with condensation quickly... science.. so i retire to my garage which I can get up to +15C with various jimmy rigged heat sources in about 20 mins.. art! I love the intricacies of pipe smoking, so many variables come into play while searching for that cool dry flavour shangrila.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

Horrible cold, then sometimes I'm experimenting with clay stones put in the bottom of a bowl in the event my tobacco turns out to be moist or very strong.

 

[mcitinner1]

I go with my mostly European/German brethren and use 9mm filter pipes to keep down moisture. Never been a problem. :mrgreen: