Sherlock Holmes taught us that you smoke the previous day's dottle for breakfast to help solve a case.
Dottle???
- Thread starter Starsman
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Seems like that tobacco was too wet. However I don't ever think about it. Sometimes I'm really into the bowl, and smoke it till there's nothing left, sometimes there's tiny bits remaining. I don't care either way.
Thanks for all the replies. I have some ideas. I'll pack a lot less. The photo was after smoking for 90 minutes. I'm going to put some out this morning to dry more as well.
your jaw must be made of titanium..
Some cheapos actually save the dottle and smoke it another day. Gross! I believe these are the same people who polish their pipes with nose grease and turn their milk cartons into bird feeders.
Nose grease,,,, what a great idea. I use forehead grease on lightbulbs. They always unscrew when they burn out.
From a bowl of Sutliff ready rubbed earlier today. There are unburnt bits in there, but not a lot.
Hahaha I think about this almost daily. Even have a large bottle set aside for when I empty a bowl too soon or get bored with a particular blend. It fills up quickly and you would be surprised how good it tastes despite being a "Crazy George" mixture of blends.
Maybe I missed it, but are you smoking an aromatic blend? Looks like wet tobacco to me. I prefer far less dottle, or ash more often. You don't have any reason to live by my standards, however I'm guessing your tobacco is too wet for my tastes, and the cause of this.
That can be solved too by packing much lighter and allowing more oxygen around the ribbons.
Absolutely one solution. Again, my standards are mine, but we can all help solve a problem.
Burning everything to white ash happens. However, I would not keep smoking if the taste goes sour or harsh. Yes, it is somewhat too much dottle in your photo, and you've gotten good advice on addressing that. However, a little dottle is irrelevant. Address the problem, then don't keep score by dottle. A little is fine.
I started putting a touch of Chatham Manor (to me: inexpensive and without powerful flavors) in the bottom of the bowl before stuffing with more expensive blends. Something about knowing that's done seemed to help me not think so much about wasting etc... Pitch it when it sours, I've had plenty of dottle like your pic. Reduce dottle worry however you can and listen to the others here about packing light and going slow.
From 'A Scandal in Bohemia':
"Sherlock Holmes was as I expected lounging about his sitting-room in his dressing gown reading the agony column of The
Times and smoking his before breakfast pipe which was composed of all the plugs and dottles left from his smokes of the day
before all carefully dried and collected on the corner of the mantelpiece."
Actually I got that wrong.... It was from The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb.
I'm with PipesRock. Read what he said above...then I will add that I try to make what I put in the bottom long strands that don't compress in on itself easily and try to build an air cushion there which is more forgiving of the column of tobacco getting compressed (tamping is a practiced thing I am still learning)...that air cushion helps my main plug stay burning. That throw-away dottle rarely burns anyway for me, so it does not impart any flavor and you enjoy your main tobacco all the way much easier. I also avoid relighting my pipe way down at the bottom. I have burned my mouth for sure trying to get that last bit lit again. Throwing out dottle is preferred for me over that any day.