Title edited. Capitals!
I was browsing through this page as it's Saturday morning and just sipping some coffee..
how to smoke a pipe - smoking pipe - packing the pipe - lighting your pipe. Whatever you take up, whether a serious activity or just a hobby, it’s always
www.alpascia.com
... it's actually a site sponsor and I would highly recommend checking out their site if you have not already, it's the best quality online pipe shop I've seen yet. Huge photos of pipes with all the dimensions etc. clearly marked.
Anyway ... I didn't post to plug them, just when you see something good it's nice to share ... anyway, so I was reading through that article and came to the bit that said the pipe should be packed so that the draw is like sucking liquid through a straw.
Mine has never been that tight, I always packed far more loosely. My usual packing method was basically "sprinkling" the tobacco into the bowl and then just "neatening it up and patting it down", and doing that 2 or 3 times until the bowl is full. When I draw on it unlit, there is mostly no difference to drawing on it when the bowl is empty.
I thought to myself okay, maybe I'm packing too loosely here. I wonder how tight I can pack and still get a good draw while it's unlit? The answer really surprised me. I took the amount of tobacco I usually fit into a full bowl and this time with each packing I actually pushed it down a little harder and kept drawing on the pipe as I was packing to ensure the draw wasn't too tight. Nope - just like sucking water through a straw.
However, what was normally a full bowl of tobacco for me now barely took-up half the bowl. I was sceptical that this was right but thought I'd give it a shot ... it was definitely right.
Not only did I get less bite, but the tobacco burned so much nicer and tasted so much better. I never really got a "hot bowl" in my hand, but now the heat in the briar was barely noticeable against my hand. It wouldn't have been noticeable if it were a warm day. That half-bowl only required a single re-light (not that I care about re-lighting, just saying) and took the same amount of time to smoke as a full bowl of my previously loosely-packed method.
Conclusion: I've been packing my pipes like a sissy!! All the warnings "DO NOT PACK TOO TIGHTLY" ... I took them all a bit too seriously and kind of skipped over the "... or too loosely" bit. I mean, on the third packing I jammed it down pretty good while constantly testing the draw. I was surprised at just how hard I could pack it in there in the end. But maybe that's . because I've been packing them so loosely a "normal" pack felt unusual.
www.alpascia.com
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