Resurrecting an old thread…
Returning to pipes after an a sense of nearly 30 years, never had SWR but knew of its reputation. I bought a small pouch from SPC and it has the STG stamp on it. I was aware of the potential issues with vinegar, but as a fan of anything pickled, thought I’d give it a try. This was a couple of weeks ago.
Mild vinegar straight from the pouch. Not sure I’d have noticed it had I not been on the lookout for it, but there it was. Made a bowl of it in my new cob (only a few bowls smoked prior, HH being the only aro blend I tried beforehand). Strong sour right off the bat, not throughly unpleasant, so I finished the bowl. It got progressively worse as I smoked. By the end I felt like I’d gargled white cleaning vinegar.
Worried about an acid burn on my tongue, and already suffering mild tongue bite, I swished some water in my mouth and spit it out, which helped but didn’t cure it. It was stuck in the papillae of my tongue. So I made a solution of about a half tablespoon of baking soda in a cup of water and swished that around for a few minutes. My tongue felt a bit tingly and, once that subsided and my tongue felt normal again, I spat the solution into the kitchen sink. It was all foam, indicating that the baking soda had neutralized the acetic acid I was tasting, releasing carbon dioxide bubbles (which also caused the tingle) and it was gone from my mouth at that point.
I sealed up the pouch until today. I’m going to air it out. Vinegar is watered down acetic acid, about 5% by volume. Acetic acid is a liquid at room temperature and has a boiling point a little higher than that of water when pure. Therefore, in theory, it can evaporate out of the tobacco just as water can, but somewhat more slowly.
A confounder could be that we actually taste an acetate salt, which is non-volatile, and the acetate will have to react with any available water to steal a proton and thus become volatile. Sadly we can’t know this without chemical analyses of various types.
I’m going to air out my pouch and see what happens. I imagine the sour will weaken over time but there’s only one way to find out, and I mean to try. Note that this will be a subjective study only; I lack the means and time to do something quantitative and repeatable.
I’m not a practicing chemist though I have most of a doctorate in it and use it daily for my job. I’d never claim to know everything, so I would enjoy reading others thoughts if they have them. Especially if I got something wrong!
Returning to pipes after an a sense of nearly 30 years, never had SWR but knew of its reputation. I bought a small pouch from SPC and it has the STG stamp on it. I was aware of the potential issues with vinegar, but as a fan of anything pickled, thought I’d give it a try. This was a couple of weeks ago.
Mild vinegar straight from the pouch. Not sure I’d have noticed it had I not been on the lookout for it, but there it was. Made a bowl of it in my new cob (only a few bowls smoked prior, HH being the only aro blend I tried beforehand). Strong sour right off the bat, not throughly unpleasant, so I finished the bowl. It got progressively worse as I smoked. By the end I felt like I’d gargled white cleaning vinegar.
Worried about an acid burn on my tongue, and already suffering mild tongue bite, I swished some water in my mouth and spit it out, which helped but didn’t cure it. It was stuck in the papillae of my tongue. So I made a solution of about a half tablespoon of baking soda in a cup of water and swished that around for a few minutes. My tongue felt a bit tingly and, once that subsided and my tongue felt normal again, I spat the solution into the kitchen sink. It was all foam, indicating that the baking soda had neutralized the acetic acid I was tasting, releasing carbon dioxide bubbles (which also caused the tingle) and it was gone from my mouth at that point.
I sealed up the pouch until today. I’m going to air it out. Vinegar is watered down acetic acid, about 5% by volume. Acetic acid is a liquid at room temperature and has a boiling point a little higher than that of water when pure. Therefore, in theory, it can evaporate out of the tobacco just as water can, but somewhat more slowly.
A confounder could be that we actually taste an acetate salt, which is non-volatile, and the acetate will have to react with any available water to steal a proton and thus become volatile. Sadly we can’t know this without chemical analyses of various types.
I’m going to air out my pouch and see what happens. I imagine the sour will weaken over time but there’s only one way to find out, and I mean to try. Note that this will be a subjective study only; I lack the means and time to do something quantitative and repeatable.
I’m not a practicing chemist though I have most of a doctorate in it and use it daily for my job. I’d never claim to know everything, so I would enjoy reading others thoughts if they have them. Especially if I got something wrong!
