How many bowls from a 50g tin?

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smokinallover

Lurker
Jan 29, 2023
7
15
Hi guys,

I am getting back into pipe smoking after a long layoff. I'm a cigar and snuff man at heart and didn't have much success with pipes but for various reasons pipes are it now after Brexit closed off my snuff channels.

How many bowls should I expect to get out of a 50g ( 1,76 ounce?) tin? I know pipe sizes are all over the map, so for the sake of discussion, please use a Dunhill Group 5 as the reference bowl size.

Thank you,

Joe
 
Some people know the average weight of what their pipes will hold, but I have so many that range from .5" to 1 wide chambers and many stacks as well as shallow pots. I can't even begin to calculate.
I have hundreds of pounds in my cellar, so I don't worry with calculating at all.

I just know that I get way fewer smokes from a 50 gram tin of flakes than I do from ribbon. YMMV
 

smokinallover

Lurker
Jan 29, 2023
7
15
A single hundred pounds of tobacco at European prices is probably 10,000 USD. I cannot afford to cellar what I used to be able to do before I moved to Europe. So I'm trying to figure out at least how to keep the closet from going bare and stay a few months ahead of the curve until they turn pipe smoking into a capital offense and send the MIBs to confiscate the new contraband.

I'm buying mostly flakes, so I was saddened to hear your comment :(

Thank you.
 
Last edited:

SBC

Lifer
Oct 6, 2021
1,519
7,244
NE Wisconsin
You're about to have everybody and his mother point out to you that there are too many variables to answer this. Which is true. But the closest thing to a standardized answer that people give is that slow smoke competitions are based on a 3g. bowl, which makes for 16-17 bowls from a 50g. tin.

Cosmic is right that one of the most overlooked factors is that flakes mean more density of tobacco per bowl, even if broken up some. I may start rubbing my flakes out more than I typically have, just to make them stretch further. Sure, more tobacco per bowl can make for a longer smoke, but I don't care about that. I'd rather have more bowls than longer bowls.
 
If you like flakes... then of course you should set flakes back. Is Mac Baren's products outrageous there? They makes some tasty unique flakes, IMO. It's a shame you European guys can't just do like we Americans do, and jump in the car and drive across a few countries to stock up. Hell, I did a tour of a quarter of our country when I was buying up all of the McClellands I could before they ran out.
 

smokinallover

Lurker
Jan 29, 2023
7
15
Well, I did suggest using a group Dunhill 5 bowl as a reference. But I did not consider flake vs. ribbon etc.

So let's reformulate the question to a group 5 bowl using flake. And it is understood that the answers will be ballpark answers based on the experience of the guy answering.
 
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smokinallover

Lurker
Jan 29, 2023
7
15
If you like flakes... then of course you should set flakes back. Is Mac Baren's products outrageous there? They makes some tasty unique flakes, IMO. It's a shame you European guys can't just do like we Americans do, and jump in the car and drive across a few countries to stock up. Hell, I did a tour of a quarter of our country when I was buying up all of the McClellands I could before they ran out.
It depends on which Mac Baren, some of them are priced ok. I'm partial to both Gawiths so I'm trying to get a bunch of that, but it's not cheap. Robert McConnell has most of their tins in the middle of the price range for a tin here, but I'm not familiar with any of their blends so I have been going over tobaccoreviews again. Great site!

We actually can drive but Austria or Germany would kill a whole day just getting there and back, so it would take some planning and a night at a hotel and hoping whatever shop(s) we stumble on speak English.
 
Aug 11, 2022
2,227
17,531
Cedar Rapids, IA
Okay, trying to actually contribute this time... :)

I'll probably represent one end of the spectrum here. I recently challenged myself to just smoke a tin of Escudo and I kept a tally as I went. My pipes generally correspond to Dunhill group 2 or 3 (although that's a foreign language to me), and I got 27 or 28 pipefuls (averaging one coin each) out of it.
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
I'd call it at about 20, smoking a variety of sizes of pipes. So in many cases, the cost of twenty pipe bowls (chambers) costs about the same as one premium cigar, although you have to factor in the price of the pipes too. Probably you get more bowls out of drier leaf and cuts with smaller pieces.
 

smokinallover

Lurker
Jan 29, 2023
7
15
I'd call it at about 20, smoking a variety of sizes of pipes. So in many cases, the cost of twenty pipe bowls (chambers) costs about the same as one premium cigar, although you have to factor in the price of the pipes too. Probably you get more bowls out of drier leaf and cuts with smaller pieces.

A middle of the road 50g tin of tobacco here costs $19.35 and a middle of the road premium cigar costs $11.38 using the current exchange rates. So over here pipes start to make financial sense quick, while the 2nd cigar is halfway smoked.

I really don't want a 1,000 euro a month cigar bill until I hit the lottery again. About the only advantages are that we can get Cubans without subterfuge and some of the Italian pipes that were too pricey for me outside Europe are now really not expensive.