Ever notice that burn time and bowl size differences aren't proportionate?

[brass]

I've noticed that the bowl size and actual burn time aren't proportionate to differences. For example, I have a new Stanwell that is, let's say a small 3, (pinky past first joint). I have several pots that probably have 50% more capacity, say a size 4 (thumb to first joint). But the little billiard burns almost as long.
My little Savinelli pots burn almost as long as my MM Freehand.

 

[pitchfork]

Yep, noticed that, too. I prefer small bowls, generally speaking. A Dunhill Group 2 is just about ideal, but sometimes I like even smaller bowls for ropes and strong flakes. In any case, the small bowls will often burn for 45 min to an hour (or more), whereas bowls three times as large don't burn for 3 hours.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Yep, I noticed this back when I was buying up all of the Savinelli Piumas. They have a .6" diameter chamber with variable depths, and I can smoke most of them for over an hour. And, I have a .86" x 1" pot shape that can burn out in 30 minutes. It is a diameter to depth ratio. I find that my .80" x 2.25" pipes will burn for just as long as my .60" x 1.6" pipes, which is a .35 ratio. As far a I understand it, the group 1, 2, 3 sizes by Dunhill don't just relate to chamber sizes, so they don't really mean much to me, since they take in the whole stummel size, as far as I've seen it defined on here. When I buy a pipe, I want to know the diameter to depth in inches. Group sizes, might as well me speaking Greek to me.
And, as you smoke, you are not burning the tobacco like a cigar. In a cigar, it is the tobacco directly behind the cherry that gives you the flavor. In a pipe, the cherry of the flame stays deepest right in the center, and it is the surrounding tobacco that is heating up that gives you the flavor. This is why a small diameter chamber gives me a more focused flavor than a larger one.
I used to try to post about this, when people would be looking for small bowls for short smokes on here. But, it happens so many times, that I figured I would just let them figure it out on their own. Being here for over a year, you see the same things pop up over and over.
Great post!!

 

[mso489]

Definitely, and you can expand the burn time of small pipes with flake tobacco. So if tobacco taxes drive the leaf prices up, smoke them small bowl pipes.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

When you go to a museum and see the bowl shapes of the first clay pipes and even the Native American pipes, they are all very small diameter pipes. And, some of those Native American pipestone bowls are deeper than some modern chimneys, sometimes 3" deep. And, all they had to light them with was an ember from the fire. You don't see many NA pipes with charred rims either, ha ha.

 

[brass]

I have no documentation but I thought the small bowls size of the clays were because tobacco was VERY expensive relative to our times. I read it on the Internet so it must have been true.
On the same note, I have one of those tiny Pipens and it smokes for a good half hour to 45 minutes. In my earlier days, if I wanted a short smoke, I'd just pack the bowl half full. Now a days, I smoke as much as I want, then lay the pipe down and come back to it when I'm ready. DGT is convenient.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I would think that the small bowl size was to mimic what the Native Americans were already doing. They had no European precedence for pipes. And, the prices were relatively cheap in the beginning, since they just had to "take" the tobacco away from the Natives. It got expensive when it became in fashion. But, it took almost 200 years for tobacco to find its way into European society. There were draconian laws regarding tobacco for almost 200 years also. Things like when a man was caught smoking a pipe, they would ram the pipe through the person's nasal septum, it was your duty to beat a man caught smoking with a stick, even the death penalty was imposed in many parts of Europe. So, the first white pipe smokers were those working with the Native Americans mostly or sailors. It was also the Natives who showed them how to make the clay pipes, which already existed as a "thing" in their culture.
I don't have the documentation handy, but this all from Bill Drake's Natural Tobacco book.

 

[cortezattic]

What Cosmic said, and has said in the past, rings true; but I gotta believe that the draft diameter factors into the mix too

-- and the effect just might be counterintuitive. i.e., smaller diameter, faster burn.

 

[antbauers]

These are great factors to why most feel flakes smoke well in small bowls and english in larger.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I generally smoke very large bowled pipes, but now that this has been brought up, my smaller pipes that I drive around with do nearly equal their big brothers' burn time. Very interesting. Possibly a burn/surface area equation. Some of our mathmatically enclined forum members should jump on this one.