How to Beat the Spicy Taste of a Pipe?

[kangaroo]

Yeah as the title said, i mean many people talked about treatments for the sour taste, now my question is for the spicy horror.
Since i'm a non-aromatic smoker, to have an aromatic pipe is a nightmare to me. Recently i got a new estate which has aromatic ghost but not so strong, anyhow, i tried a pack and the taste was so spicy! This is not my first experience for aromatic pipes and if you're a non-aromatic smoker too, you probably know what i'm saying!
So i decided to do some treatments. Salt+alcohol as usual, recoated the bowl with active charcoal and sour cream, then left it for a few days to dry.
Today i lighted a virginia pack and the spicy taste, again, came up after a few draws. Couldn't take it to a half of pack, i removed the tobacco and left it for a couples of hour before retrying another latakia pack to realize that i was completely failed in treating.
I'll keep browsing Ebay in the future and still gonna buy estates if they're nice, but it's such a risk as you know. So, if anyone has any advice for treating the spicy taste and make estate pipes great again, please share, i would be thankful if it works.
Cheers!
Edited by jvnshr: Title capitalization.

 

[sablebrush52]

The S&A treatment sometimes takes a few applications, and sometimes doesn't work at all. Normally I'd say just smoke your way through the ghost and it will eventually disappear. But your post suggests that this is something you can't bring yourself to do, so here's another couple of routes for you to consider.
Have you THOROUGHLY cleaned out the mortise? Scrubbed, dental pick, etc cleaned out the mortise so that it's clean wood? Deposits left in the mortise are often the cause of issues. Assuming that the pipe airway has been thoroughly cleaned from stem to stern, try using a boiling alcohol retort to rid the the airway of any stubborn stale oils lining the airway. Another way to go is to send your pipe out for a professional cleaning and an ozone treatment. Here's a link:
Get Rid Of The Stink!

 

[cosmicfolklore]

What Jesse says, and Qtips, paper towels to ream, small bottle brushes, and your solvent of choice. But, once you get it good and clean, you just have to maintain it regularly after each smoke, with a deep clean about four or so times a year. Like any tool, you want to keep it in good working order, whatever schedule fits your style. Cleaning is sort of part of the ritual.

 

[mawnansmiff]

To all of the above I would like to add the suggestion that you give the inside of the bowl a good reaming followed by a gentle sanding using a rolled up piece of sandpaper. So many lingering ghosts are to be found in the cake that is inside the bowl, no matter how thin that cake might be.
Regards,
Jay.

 

[cortezattic]

I wont buy a used pipe. The odds of encountering the ghosts of aromatics, Lakeland scents and Latakia are just too high -- not to mention the effects of physical abuse.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Another take: forget the sour cream and charcoal. Wash the bowl, mortise and airway with very hot water. Towel dry, Q-tips, pipe cleaner in the obvious places. Dry tobacco, load and smoke. Do this six times to exorcise the ghost and the "spice".

 

[kangaroo]

@sablebrush52 Honestly i have another estates that i've smokeit through more than a year, but it's still the ghost .

I've cleaned the mortise for an hour with dozens of pipe cleaner and alcohol. Maybe i should try the ozone treatment as you said. Thank you!
@Cosmic You can believe that i really love pipes so i always smoke and clean them carefully
@mawnansmiff I've gently reamed it with an ajustable reamer, never tried sanding before. What type of sandpapers shoud i use, please?
@Cortez I have enough of pipes to smoke (tasty pipes) already, but i can help getting more for their aesthetic.
@jpmcwjr Once i laught at a guy in my country for he was posting a video of boiling a pipe - in a pot of hot water literally - to treat the bad taste, because whether it works or not, it would damage the finish and decay the wood, that's what i thought. BUT, so the hot water is really helpful in treating bad tastes?? Feeling a joke on me right now haha.

 

[kangaroo]

And thank you all for the enthusiastic advices. There're too many new things i haven't learned.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

jpmcwjr will only suggest using tepid water. I am the boiling water guy. It hasn't harmed any of my pipes, and I am not even sure "how" it could even possibly harm my pipes. Briar is pretty tough, but any kind of wood can withstand hot water.

But, some will use alcohol, or some other solvent. Water works for me. And, sometimes I will use a pipe sweetener.
Try Jesse's ozone guy. Seems cheap to me. I may actually try it if I ever have to deal with ghosts again.

 

[cortezattic]

Whether you realize it or not, your pipe deals with water when you smoke it -- as one of the products of combustion, and (maybe) some saliva.

 

[kangaroo]

@Cosmic yeah just, i was imagining if boiling water could fade the surface of the finish out of pipes. Also, i was thinking that every pipe has the taste of the wooden piece itself and boiling might flatten it out. So nothing bad happened? And you could just repolish your pipes after that, to the previous condition?
@Cortez yup honestly i never thought about it before, since the tobacco juice is little and i always absorb it when smoking. That's a good hint.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Michael- Tepid water is better than no water. But I advocate hot water. (see post several above).
But I'd steer clear of boiling the pipe! Or soaking it for more than a few minutes, though most cross sections of pipes indicate very little penetrates the briar, the chamber or the outer wall.
And no water on pipes that use glue, such as cobs.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

jpmcwjr, I was just going by a conversation from months ago. I am likely just confused about something ha ha. Par for my course.

Yeh, submerging or keeping it in boiling water will immediately oxidize your vulcanite stem. No No... Just pour it through the bowl and out the stem.

 

[kangaroo]

Oh my god sandpapers were really useful in this case. I've just made a toughest decision of my smoking life: to sand down the chamber!
First I used P180 sandpaper to strongly sand all the darkened wood into bare wood, thence P400 and P1000 to finish the work. Cleaned up, lighted a pack and i could feel the sweet taste growing match by match. I was so satisfying, god bless sandpapers.
Thank you all one more time for the advices, case closed, and happy smoking!

 

[jpmcwjr]

All's well that ends well! Glad you're on your way to good bowls.