I smoke exclusively meers now it’s not as big a deal to me. Now the only thing I worry about is if it’s smoking too hot it’s gonna mess up the flavor of tobacco.
Do Some Pipes Smoke Hotter Than Others?
- Thread starter grandalfpipes
- Start date
SmokingPipes.com Updates
Watch for Updates Twice a Week
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
Site Sponsors
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
Most pipes get warm but not hot. The odd one will get hot enough you don’t want to grab it. Sometimes you can figure out why, sometimes not.
Besides the reasons mentioned above, there's the reality that all briar is not the same. Some is lighter and more porous than others. This can also result in a pipe smoking hotter.
Still, smoking a pipe ain't exactly rocket science and the result is usually 25% equipment and 75% technique.
A little quiz:
Which of these two pipes will smoke the coolest? "A" is a smooth finish and "B" is a lattice finish. All else being equal, "B" should smoke cooler. Why? The lattice creates more surface area to dissipate heat. (just like a radiator) Not only will the smoke be cooler because of a cooler bowl, but it will feel much cooler in your hand. "A" will not radiate as well and the bowl can become very hot, even to the point of too hot to touch and resulting in a much hotter smoke.
I have meerschaums with both finishes. One is a quarter bent lattice bulldog I got in a collection of used pipes years ago. It's an "ugly duckling" in my opinion but smokes like a dream. If I could only own one pipe it would be a lattice finish meerschaum. In my experience meerschaums do not require as much resting as briars, therefore, if you only have one pipe you can smoke the meerschaum more often.... and they tend to smoke great.
Which of these two pipes will smoke the coolest? "A" is a smooth finish and "B" is a lattice finish. All else being equal, "B" should smoke cooler. Why? The lattice creates more surface area to dissipate heat. (just like a radiator) Not only will the smoke be cooler because of a cooler bowl, but it will feel much cooler in your hand. "A" will not radiate as well and the bowl can become very hot, even to the point of too hot to touch and resulting in a much hotter smoke.
I have meerschaums with both finishes. One is a quarter bent lattice bulldog I got in a collection of used pipes years ago. It's an "ugly duckling" in my opinion but smokes like a dream. If I could only own one pipe it would be a lattice finish meerschaum. In my experience meerschaums do not require as much resting as briars, therefore, if you only have one pipe you can smoke the meerschaum more often.... and they tend to smoke great.
Last edited:
I found the same thing. Sometimes if a bowl gets too hot I'll set it down to cool. But I find a bowl with thicker walls takes longer to cool down too, not a huge deal though. I try to slow down and not let it get too hot but sometimes it happens.
In my experience of owning and smoking —- hundreds——of briar pipes there are a few very hot smokers, ordinary smokers, cool smokers,,and ancient, oil cured, aged Algerian pipes which should be in an entirely different category. And here, I’m discussing how hot the pipe gets to hold, not necessarily how hot the smoke stream.
First, the vast difference in pipes is technique, or let’s call it skill, or becoming accomplished at the vice of pipe smoking.
We are sinnng, folks. Our parents and preachers and teachers told us not to smoke and their pleadings we denied, and we defied their wise counsel.
But once a hard bitten pipe smoker lost out to sin, there are still hot smokers, ordinary smokers, cool smokers, and old pre 54 Algerian briar pipes.
Some general observations others have noted earlier.
Bulldogs tend to smoke hot because the briar is too thin at the base of the chamber. Briar thickness is our friend against heat.
The Danes use young , fresh briar. The last new Nording I had was painful to break in. New pipes have to be broken in before you can judge how hot they’ll smoke. And I believe to further cure a pipe with the heat of the ember you must at least during break in smoke alllllll the way down to the draft hole. After that, then smoke only so much as tastes good.
Bigger bores smoke cooler than smaller bores. Just like a fine cigar. More surface area dissipates heat.
The Heath shrub where it thrives is a pestilential type of brush like thorns, locusts, and cedar trees are in the Ozarks. Anywhere you’d want grass or crops instead of heath shrubs they’d have to be cleared off.
Only in pre 1954 Algeria were there millions of hungry, oppressed, exploited, native people who lived on the fringes of the desert with greedy, cruel, merciless colonial masters who could and did pay them just enough to sustain life, for the best briar that will ever be sold through ordinary commerce again.
The do gooders, have not yet organized a boycott of old Algerian pipes. Nobody will throw blood on you for smoking one.
The dad blasted gubbermint has not yet outlawed trade in ancient Algerian briar like they have African ivory.
For now, for $24 you can buy an old Marxman pipe like this one which I guarantee will smoke as cool as a thermos jug, and came with a lifetime guarantee against burn out, at any Marxman dealer, just like a Zippo lighter, only no need to mail it to the factory.
Why old Algerian briar is so amazingly insulating and heat proof I do not for certain know.
Try a fresh example and see for yourself.
You won’t have to contact your local friendly lawyer and file bankruptcy over it, for certain sure.
First, the vast difference in pipes is technique, or let’s call it skill, or becoming accomplished at the vice of pipe smoking.
We are sinnng, folks. Our parents and preachers and teachers told us not to smoke and their pleadings we denied, and we defied their wise counsel.
But once a hard bitten pipe smoker lost out to sin, there are still hot smokers, ordinary smokers, cool smokers, and old pre 54 Algerian briar pipes.
Some general observations others have noted earlier.
Bulldogs tend to smoke hot because the briar is too thin at the base of the chamber. Briar thickness is our friend against heat.
The Danes use young , fresh briar. The last new Nording I had was painful to break in. New pipes have to be broken in before you can judge how hot they’ll smoke. And I believe to further cure a pipe with the heat of the ember you must at least during break in smoke alllllll the way down to the draft hole. After that, then smoke only so much as tastes good.
Bigger bores smoke cooler than smaller bores. Just like a fine cigar. More surface area dissipates heat.
The Heath shrub where it thrives is a pestilential type of brush like thorns, locusts, and cedar trees are in the Ozarks. Anywhere you’d want grass or crops instead of heath shrubs they’d have to be cleared off.
Only in pre 1954 Algeria were there millions of hungry, oppressed, exploited, native people who lived on the fringes of the desert with greedy, cruel, merciless colonial masters who could and did pay them just enough to sustain life, for the best briar that will ever be sold through ordinary commerce again.
The do gooders, have not yet organized a boycott of old Algerian pipes. Nobody will throw blood on you for smoking one.
The dad blasted gubbermint has not yet outlawed trade in ancient Algerian briar like they have African ivory.
For now, for $24 you can buy an old Marxman pipe like this one which I guarantee will smoke as cool as a thermos jug, and came with a lifetime guarantee against burn out, at any Marxman dealer, just like a Zippo lighter, only no need to mail it to the factory.
Why old Algerian briar is so amazingly insulating and heat proof I do not for certain know.
Try a fresh example and see for yourself.
You won’t have to contact your local friendly lawyer and file bankruptcy over it, for certain sure.
One of my little annoyances with pipe forums is the fact that people mean different things about does a pipe smoke hot. I think we need to work on a clearer way to express which we're talking about. Especially since often but not always the two happen exclusively with each other. For example a clay bowl can actually cause 1st to second degree burns if held while smoking (you'd have to hold it not touch it) and the smoke will be cool even when puffed like a train (from my experience).
Though in my mind a pipe smoking hot means it burns your tongue and a chamber being aggressively warm is a pipe getting hot.
Just a little thing that annoys me more then it should.
Interesting my hottest pipe by a country mile is a Savinelli Churchwarden with a Dublin bowl on it, I figured it was just the thinner bowl or piece of Briar. Could be the shape, or all three.
if not already mentioned, density of briar matters too, some pipes are denser heavier at the same size as others, and will burn cooler because of more insolation.
These are my work/break pipes. They smoke cool, but the bowl is impossible to touch, shortly after lighting. There just isn't enough material to dissipate heat. Walls are 1/8th inch thick, ditto for the bottom of the chamber. Lovely little shag pipes though. I imagine the temperature will drop once they've caked up some.
I have another pipe that gets hot to the touch in a 'grainless' spot. I don't smoke that one often.
I suspected the same thing and sanded the chamber back to briar to double check it a while back. It's not burn out.
It's a Stanwell second or third tier line. The "Royal Danish," sandblasted pipes with two "patches" of smooth designs.
If the original topic was intended to be the temperature of the smoke then I suspect that's a common misunderstanding about pipes.
Smoke temperature is almost entirely determined by the tempo of the smoker and the choice of pipe should have little to no effect on the smoke, although the effort to advertise smoke cooling systems seems to have been the primary pastime of pipe factories for most of the last century (e.g. filters).
In this regard nothing works better than a Reverse Calabash for reducing smoke temperature.
Not that cooling the smoke after the bowl changes the content of the smoke, puffing slower to "bake" the leaf rather than burning it achieves the most flavor.
Yes, in my short two decades of experience, one can never tell which pipe will smoker “hotter” than another. A general rule I go by is that smooths smoke hotter than sandblasteds. And each of the ten Meers I have smoke at different temps it seems. So in summary… ?
However, Algerian Briar? Smokes the hottest.
However, Algerian Briar? Smokes the hottest.
So, 2 separate issues 1) bowl temperature
2) smoke temperature
Gourd calabashes DO reduce smoke temperature due to the dilution effect of the large air chamber.
They also ameliorate nic levels very effectively.
I use mine for high nic blends eg Peterson's Irish Flake
I assume you're talking about a genuine hull of spongy plant fibers and not just a large volume air chamber.
I suspect you'd get mostly the same effect from a MacArthur Cob (air pocket pack is basically the only way you can smoke those).
So the average Briar reverse-calabash pipe would not noticeably absorb nicotine.
I have not smoked a MacArthur cob, so I don’t have a reference point.
The gourd calabash has no plant material in the chamber.
It is just essentially an air chamber below the meer cup
Every pipe has its own optimum cadence, all typically slower than a newbie might realize and a codger might ignore.
My coolest briar was a bent billiard with approx. 1/4" thick wall and big knobby rustication beyond the 1/4". It is a Lorenzo, and the briar is unusually light for such a large pipe. I blew up the mortise one day re-inserting the stem.
Cadence is the biggest influence on heat. No sin to put the pipe down and rest it for 15 or 20 min. when it gets hot if that's how you roll. It will probably smoke easier again once it has cooled.
Otherwise, slow and steady wins the race.
My coolest briar was a bent billiard with approx. 1/4" thick wall and big knobby rustication beyond the 1/4". It is a Lorenzo, and the briar is unusually light for such a large pipe. I blew up the mortise one day re-inserting the stem.
Cadence is the biggest influence on heat. No sin to put the pipe down and rest it for 15 or 20 min. when it gets hot if that's how you roll. It will probably smoke easier again once it has cooled.
Otherwise, slow and steady wins the race.