Dedicating Pipes to Certain Types.

[manny816]

I would say 90% of my pipes are dedicated to English/Balkan blends. I rarely smoke Aros, but when I do, it is in a Cob.

 

[Val]

most of my briars are dedicated to Virginia’s with any of the following condiments perique/burley/oriental. I smoke anything with Latakia in my cobs. I do have one pipe reserved solely for 40th anniversary. I’ve considered branching that pipe out since I don’t smoke my 40th very often.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I don't bother unless I am trying a bunch of Virginias, then I will dedicate a few for that.

How about putting location in? How:

Under your avatar, (top right, left most of three symbols) you choose "Account Details", which brings up "My Account". "My Location" is halfway down. Whatever you're comfortable with- town, city, county, state. province, etc.

 

[Chalaw87]

I purchased a meerschaum off of eBay from someone from England, and Im pretty sure all they smoked was lakelands. Theyve managed to significantly ghost the meerschaum, which is impressive. Ive tried using alcohol to clean the pipe, but I dont want saturate the meerschaum too much. The lakeland essence is still very obvious after a few cleanings, so I decided to go with the flow, and Im now a proud owner of a dedicated lakeland meerschaum.

 

[coys]

A follow up question:

Would you dedicate the same pipe to English and Balkans that contain Latakia, or would you use two separate pipes for them?

 

[FLDRD]

A follow up question:

Would you dedicate the same pipe to English and Balkans that contain Latakia, or would you use two separate pipes for them?

They're quite similar to my palate and wouldn't effect each other in the same pipe.

 

[OzPiper]

I see that some of you here restrict your pipes to smoking similar blends in each - a pipe for Virginias, or English, or Aromatics, without mixing them. I also read here that some blends can “ghost” a pipe, which I presume means that blend’s taste will haunt the pipe on later smokes.

So, is it possible to take a pipe you’ve dedicated to VA for example and repurpose it for English? Does a thorough cleaning do the trick, or is there just something about the blends that stay with the pipe?

It really depends on how sensitive your senses of smell and taste are.
It also depends on how many pipes you have or how many genres of tobacco you smoke.

There are some who are not sensitive to ghosting at all.
Or disregard ghosting altogether.
Indeed there are some who feel that smoking a different blend in a ghosted bowl results in a more "complex" smoke

Genres that will ghost a pipe (leaving a strong residual odour/aroma) are:
Aromatics
Lakelands
English(Latakia) and Balkan(oriental). I put these together as they are fairly similar.

Virginia and virginia&perique blends and burley & cavendish blends are more "neutral".

There is no problem going from a "neutral" blend to a "stronger" blend.
Smoking a virginia in a pipe used for an English/Balkan or aromatic will result in the milder tones of the virginia being overwhelmed or subsumed by the stronger tasting tobacco.

Another consideration is the number of pipes you own.
I suspect that the majority of pipe smokers (NOT Forums members ) have only one or two pipes and are happy to smoke the same blend most of the time.
If you have sufficient pipes, then dedicating them to a genre or even a specific blend is not a problem.

I have enough pipes that each is rested several months between smokes. I clean them after each and every smoke.
Even so, English/Balkan and aromatic ghosting persists after several months of resting/airing.

Alcohol soaks (and DON'T forget the shank and mortise) will go a long way to ameliorate most ghosting.
Others advocate coffee grounds and ozone ionisers, which I have not tried.

It really comes down to how much the "true taste" of the tobacco matters to you.

I come from a background of wine tasting, so I rinse and dry my glasses in between different drops.
I do that routinely if I'm drinking different wines. Or I ask for a different/another glass.
Others are happy to drink 2 or 3 wines in the same glass. Or indeed mix different wines in the same glass.

Different strokes

 

[jpmcwjr]

A follow up question:

Would you dedicate the same pipe to English and Balkans that contain Latakia, or would you use two separate pipes for them?

Same pipe.

 

[DanWil84]

I think its up to personal preference.

I have a few "tasting" pipes which are blendtype (Latakia heavy English, more Oriental forward English, VA, VaPer, Burley, blends containing DFK and aromatics) specific. After almost 2 years of pipe smoking i'm still exploring so my tasting pipes gets used the most, The VA pipe I use for tasting will be a dedicated VA pipe, I have smoked several different VA's in it and I don't sense anything from the previous VA if they are even different.

In the end it works for me the best to have a bunch (10ish) of blends I like and a commissioned pipe for each of them. I could get away with just having 1 or 2 blend type pipes per blend type I smoke, but I also like the process of commissioning a pipe, so that's more of a "want" than a "need".

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

I think its up to personal preference.

I have a few "tasting" pipes which are blendtype (Latakia heavy English, more Oriental forward English, VA, VaPer, Burley, blends containing DFK and aromatics) specific. After almost 2 years of pipe smoking i'm still exploring so my tasting pipes gets used the most, The VA pipe I use for tasting will be a dedicated VA pipe, I have smoked several different VA's in it and I don't sense anything from the previous VA if they are even different.

In the end it works for me the best to have a bunch (10ish) of blends I like and a commissioned pipe for each of them. I could get away with just having 1 or 2 blend type pipes per blend type I smoke, but I also like the process of commissioning a pipe, so that's more of a "want" than a "need".

Right at around two years here as well and this thread had me thinking again about whether I need to be more intentional about blends and particular pipes. I have two that are very specific as to what they get (Wilke No. 515, for obvious reasons given the pipes), one that is now specific to two similar Christmas aros, two or three that get the occasional Latakia influenced or Lakeland (I have a thing for Grousemoor, lol) and I do keep those types to certain pipes. I've been somewhat interchangeable with straight Va and Va based aros in general and I don't smoke one tobacco in one pipe several times a day or for several days straight and I clean them up after every use so I don't think I'm susceptible to much ghosting, but that's why I'm reading up.

 

[jwussow]

Something else to consider…some pipes just seem to work better with different blends. I have a wonderful Danish pipe that English blends were just awful in. I put the pipe aside for months thinking I may never use it again. I decided to try a C&D burley blend in it and it smoked like a champ. Burley blends are all that pipe will ever see again.

 

[ChonkyTonks]

I dedicated two pipes to latakia blends. Another pipe is used for aromatics and things like Dreams of Kadath. The rest I use for any of my Va/VaPer/VaPerBur/VaBur blend.

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

This may very well be the most popular topic here, it seems to come up 2 or 3 times per month.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Yeah, so let's wait for the next one.