Fill pipe and light it. The perfect smoke.
George’s History of Briar
- Thread starter Briar Lee
- Start date
Thanks for the reply. Of course there is no heart (maybe a soul who knows) or a pump. But the takeup of water in plants is not depending on the capillary capacity of the xylem alone. It’s an interaction of typical qualities of water of adhesion and cohesion inside the capillary system and also processes of vaporising water and photosynthesis are the “pump” of water taking in. Also the tapered diameter of the xylem plays a certain role.
Back to pipes. Only the capillary system is working in a dead piece of wood. Venice is built on that principle. In pile dwelling the water is allowed to creep up a certain level controlled by gravity and more so deteriorated xylems inside the stems.
A capillary system works when both sides of the tube are open. But that’s not a fact when it comes to pipes. What’s left from mechanical damage by sanding and drilling is clogged.
The outside of the bowl and the capillaries are sealed with particles of stain, and carnauba wax, once touched with grime and sweat supposed to close the xylem further. The inside of the bowl once smoked is filled with tar, ashes, half burned plant residue or an insulating carbon layer.
In addition no plumber or architect constructed a streamlined tube system from the inside of the bowl to the outside. The photos posted here obviously show some xylem cut randomly crossing the bowl. But fibre paths in that burl of briar otherwise are fairly chaotic and - in the best sense of the word - dense in structure. Maybe that’s the cause of being more resistant to amber than other wood.
Under those circumstances I can’t see any chance for a capillary system to work and extract some considerable amount of water from the bowl. And how much water goes into small tubes of a xylem like that? I suppose not even a teardrop.
Water exchange happens when by drying out wood it takes at least months if not years depending on the wood. Also rehydration takes place and it also takes a long time. A process to slow to gulp some condensation.
Superstitiousness reaches even greater heights when it comes to terms like “breathing briar”. Xylem is not suitable for gas exchange processes. That’s another story happening in the leaves: 16.2D: Gas Exchange in Plants - https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/Book%3A_Biology_(Kimball)/16%3A_The_Anatomy_and_Physiology_of_Plants/16.02%3A_Plant_Physiology/16.2D%3A_Gas_Exchange_in_Plants
Put it in water and wait. It’ll take in water. Otherwise I’m taking up scuba diving and going to find some wrecks and some solid estate finds therein.
To your point initially, I agree that it’s likely negligible in this context. My point is only that capillary action doesn’t cease when the plant dies.
To your point initially, I agree that it’s likely negligible in this context. My point is only that capillary action doesn’t cease when the plant dies.
Kaywoodie did find some amazingly large burls in Greece in the thirties.
And there were still some huge examples of briar burls left forty years later for Preben Holm to work.
Isolated and protected examples of trees in old graveyards in Missouri can be documented as centuries old. If there was a photograph of the tree at Decoration Day in say, 1883 with people under it, and it’s still there today 140 years later, the tree is very old.
What won’t ever happen again is a Kaywoodie being advertised with a man beside a giant briar burl.
Heath shrubs aren’t giant sequoias.
Commercial harvesting on an industrial scale of ancient briar ended many years ago.
Last edited:
Yes trees can get old, there is one at the cemetery in my hometown a chestnut tree estimated 400 years old, you need three men to ring their arms around the stem.
But we are talking here about Erica Arborea, it’s a shrub. Shrubs don’t usually get that old. And those “giants root” surely can grow when rain conditions are fine within 50 years. Did you read what Rainer Barbi said about the topic?
Remember “George” is an Italian pipe seller or maybe only his ghost writer. He will tell you anything you want to hear, just to sell a pipe.
But we are talking here about Erica Arborea, it’s a shrub. Shrubs don’t usually get that old. And those “giants root” surely can grow when rain conditions are fine within 50 years. Did you read what Rainer Barbi said about the topic?
Remember “George” is an Italian pipe seller or maybe only his ghost writer. He will tell you anything you want to hear, just to sell a pipe.
George ain’t the Pope.
But George made as good of faith effort to describe the history of briar as any other attempt I’ve seen.
Most briar used today for commercial pipes has to be about a half century old to be worth harvesting and it’s truly extraordinary if it’s a century old.
Nobody is really keeping score.
And it’s long been common knowledge the outer part of the burls are left with the bark showing so they can marketed as plateaux briar. The ebachons can be cut from the outside, but they’d be worth less on the market without the bark.
That man in the old Kaywoodie ad is crouched beside a huge old uncut burl, that had to be old. Whether it was good inside we don’t know.
What George wrote that I’d not considered is the outer part of the burl was spongier and had more absorbency.
The middle of course would be the oldest part, the rest growing like onion rings around it.
I just got in three pipes for $10 each made in El Kala Algeria.
They are feather light and smoke amazingly well.
According to the Briar Gospel according to George this is explained by the Algerians using the outer part of Algerian briar, and properly curing and aging it.
Suits me.
Look those pieces how big they are and Romeo has a lot of them. All ancient briar?
Is it? A carved or basted outside does disperse heat better than a smooth. You fingers can tell you that.
George is an interesting read. Hard to get worked up over one way or the other. What with the warm sunshine, Sir Walter Raleigh, Country Gentleman cob, strong black Eight O’Clock coffee and brevity of life.
I’ve watched that video before, and I don’t think the Briar Gospel of Romeo contradicts the Briar Gospel of George in any essential matter.
The now lost Briar Gospel of Chris was also synoptic.
Great Website. Chris' Pipe Pages or Pipepages.com
We know Kaywoodie used enormous burls they advertised as 200-400 years old during the Depression, rare even then, and those fields were depleted.
Outsize briars are sort of like the Chandler Tree:
Before the war American pipe makers produced about 30 million pipes each year and a third were used by KB&B.
They figured it out back then, you know?