Incredibly new to the hobby - problems with bite

[mrnovember]

I started smoking a tobacco pipe within the last few weeks and I cant figure out how stop the smoke from burning my tongue. I believe this is called bite? Is this exclusively related to poor packing or could it have to do with other factors I'm not taking into account? Pipe type/tobacco/smoking too fast...
I know with enough research I could figure this out on my own however I thought this online community may provide better advice.
Thanks for the help!

 

[mcitinner1]

Welcome MrN...Once your pipe is lit, the slower and softer you "sip" on a pipe, the better. Part of your problem could be your "virgin" tongue needing to acclimate to tobacco smoking. Certain types and blends of tobacco can bite more than others. The first thing everyone will tell you is aromatics bite the most, although a good technique can help a lot. Also some Virginia blends will bite. Main thing is don't puff strongly. That just gets everything too hot.

 

[kanse]

Try English and Oriental blends, these tend to bite less.

 

[ravkesef]

Hi, Mr. November, and welcome to the forum. We're glad you're here, in by the end of the day, you should have quite a few responses to your query. First of all, since you didn't say what pipe and tobacco you're smoking, let me say that any pipe and any tobacco can, with the right technique, provide an acceptable smoke. You don't need to spend a fortune, but let's say that laying out a few dollars for a quality pipe and tobacco will help.
Yes, smoking too fast will contribute to tongue bite. So will tobacco that is too moist. It produces steam which will bite like hell when it hits your tongue. Let me give you a few rules that I provide to every new smoker.
Your tobacco should be a LOT drier than you think it should be. I'd say getting close to the crinkly stage.
Your tobacco should be packed a lot looser than you think it should be. use gravity feed, and tamp LOOSELY.
Your pipe should be smoked a LOT slower than you think it should be. SIP, don't puff. And tamp LIGHTLY before you relight the pipe. If the walls of your pipe feel too hot, put it down, let it go out, wait a few minutes, then tamp lightly and relight. I always say that if you place the bowl against a baby's skin, the baby should smile at the pleasant warmth. If the baby screams, then you deserve to have your tongue bitten!
Keep your ash in the bowl. It will help keep the pipe cooler. While some will disagree onthis, I dump my ash only when I've reached the bottom of the bowl, by which I mean smoke the entire pipe down to the bottom. However, if it starts to develop a strong and unpleasant taste, it's time to dump. We call this "dottle." Let the pipe rest, empty it, clean it out, and let it rest for a while.
If you only have one pipe, allow it to rest at least a few hours before you smoke it again. By the way, a Missouri Meerschaum, a good brand of corn cob pipe, will allow you to purchase several excellent smoking pipes for a reasonable cash outlay. Don't look down at the cob. It doesn't denote a junk pipe.
Try and use a cool, soft flame for lighting your pipe. Here, in ascending order of temperature, are acceptable pipe lighting methods:
beeswax impregnated hemp string
wooden matches
liquid fuel lighter (i.e., the Zippo.)
Butane fuel lighter. This burns about 1000 degrees celsius hotter than a Zippo, so be careful.
Never, ever use a torch lighter to light your pipe. Even though it's a butane device, it burns 1000 degrees Celsius hotter than the regular butane.
When you light, draw the SOFT flame lightly into the pipe, then withdraw it to avoid scorching the wood.
This is a good place to start. There are some good briar pipes to be had for reasonable prices, as well as excellent tobaccos, and we'll cover those bases a bit later on.
Please don't hesitate to PM me for any further advice I can offer.

 

[ember]

Do some research on these threads under tongue bite or slow sip for starters or even newbie you will find an answer to any question you can think of in here

We come to the pipe world you it's a good time

 

[sablebrush52]

What Eric said! ^

 

[jpmcwjr]

Often—very often—the tobacco is overly moist, so try drying it down quite a bit. If you overdo it, it's easy enough to re-hydrate.

 

[pagan]

Dryer tobacco, smoke slowly and give yourself time to get use to pipe smoking, and what everyone before me said.
and welcome aboard

 

[mrnovember]

Thanks for all of the great advice.
I am currently smoking a few Dunhill blends (nightcap, royal yacht, apertif) that came with a starter set I purchased from pipes and cigars with an inexpensive briar baraccini (billard.) I think first order of business is to slow down and ensure the tobacco is dry. I also tried some MacBaren aromatics in a corn cob pipe that didn't bite as much.

 

[kanse]

Maybe you should try some lighter blends, you have some nicotine heavy-weights there.

 

[derfatdutchman]

Welcome to the forum. The only thing I can add is that if your pipe starts to get hot, set it down and let it cool.

 

[jndyer]

Welcome to the pipe community. The suggestions mentioned above are all spot on. Trust each of the wonderful folks here and give yourself time and space to learn. I know that I was guilty of trying to rush everything about pipe smoking, even the learning process. Relax as much as you can. Ask all the questions you have, and enjoy the process. I have no doubt that before long you will have learned much.

 

[prairiedruid]

I have always found having a drink to sip on while smoking helps keep the bite away.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

As far as I can tell the amount of "bite" you get is usually based on your tempo. If a blend burns too slowly you're going to be puffing too much just to try and keep it lit, and that's where most of the bite comes from.
Some Aromatics do burn incredibly well, when I tried Lane Limited 1-Q it practically smoked itself without any puffing, and that's sopping "wet" straight from the tin (some blends are just soaked in preservatives to keep the leaf pliable and don't actually have very much water in them, so they may still burn just fine), or you can get something like Five Brothers that's just shag cut. The cut of the blend is probably the biggest factor in how well something burns (it's the same principle as using tinder to start a fire, a log won't burn if you set a match to it, but ribbons of wood shaved off the log will burn readily).

Oppositely something like brown rope is incredibly hard to burn, and flakes are generally difficult as well. Some blends will burn slowly even when they're bone dry, in those cases you want a narrow bowl and lots of fire (I prefer a jet torch for flakes).

I've also read that some people run all their tobacco through a coffee grinder, maybe something to look into if you find a blend that you really like but that doens't behave well. I've tried using a blender, but even after you beat a flake enough to separate every single shred of leaf, and leave it to dry for a week (in the dead of winter) sometimes the base size of the cut is still way too large to burn well.
If I could go back two years to when I was starting, I would have smoked the fast burning blends exclusively for the first few months. Find a few blends that you think taste ok and burn exceptionally well, then spend a while concentrating on how to get through a bowl with the least amount of irritation.

If a blend is well behaved it can take most of the "work" out of smoking a pipe, which I assume is why the blends we now call "old codger" blends or "OTC" blends (Over The Counter) were so popular half a century ago. They're easy burning blends that aren't too particular about storage or handling, you can just take it straight from the tub and shove it in your pipe, they burn well enough that drying and packing technique are mostly inconsequential. Recently I've become a big fan of Carter Hall.
I should note that in my particular case I've always had trouble with dry mouth (usually from sleeping with your mouth open) so all the tissue in my mouth is especially easily irritated.

I'm still figuring out how to get a pipe lit with the same sipping draw as a regular puff, which should feel like practically no air movement at all. It only takes a couple of "big puffs" to make my mouth feel parched and rough.

Speaking of parched, it always helps to have something to drink with your pipe, specifically something acidic to counter the high alkalinity of the smoke.

 

[newbroom]

Part of your problem could be your "virgin" tongue needing to acclimate to tobacco smoking.

Welcome to the forum. The only thing I can add is that if your pipe starts to get hot, set it down and let it cool.

have always found having a drink to sip on while smoking helps keep the bite away.

As a newbie I realized I got bite from trying too hard and from packing too tightly, causing me to attempt too hard a draw.

Iced water or tea is a great tongue refresher as is biotene.

We are all a bunch of liars and can't taste anything because we all have denied our own tongue bite reality.

I do think that a spicy tobacco tingles the tongue, but once you've trained your mind and body to endure this calamity it can be a masochistic pleasure.

 

[panamacharlie]

Tobacco makes all the difference. I can't smoke Borkum Riff, terrible bite. But PS LBF and LNF don't bite at all, I smoke them right from the bag with no drying.

 

[disinformatique]

It takes time, the first time I smoked a pipe I BURNED my tongue, it wasnt just a bite, but full fledged case of the leather tongue. Avoid straight virginia and aromatic blends and smoke English (Latakia) and Burley blends more.
For a new comer, I would suggest buying the Frog Morton Blends by McClelland and a few from GL Pease. If you are an ex-cigarette smoker, you would need a few strong blends for nicotine craving and a few for taste. It takes a few months to adjust to pipe smoking but the end result is rewarding. You dont get cravings at all.
Cheers,

Chris :puffpipe:

 

[mso489]

I get chemical burn from many or most aromatics. I think its from the burning non-tobacco flavor ingredients. I can smoke some heavy duty full-strength leaf and blends with no problem, think Tambolaka, C&D Dark Burley, SG black rope and such. No problem with those. But one little bowl of no-nicotine aromatic, and when I go to brush my teeth with peppermint toothpaste, I really feel the burn. 'Could be your problem. Don't transition to full-strength blends, but do try non-aromatic and see if you don't do better. (It's worth a try.) Many other good suggestions here offer others approaches too.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

Burley based Classic blends such as Carter Hall and Prince Albert and Ampohra regular might be good ones to try,those are med strong and not aromatics+ pretty easy to smoke, meanwhile, even If do like virginia tobacco they tend to bite me very often,+ Biotene is good stuff to reduce a bite after your smoking

 

[smoky]

mrnovember, I would avoid smoking wet aromatics- especially in the beginning. They do take a lot of skill to smoke without getting bitten. I'm an experienced smoker and I still avoid them because there's usually not much flavor there. Mostly just hot air compared to other blends.
Try a good English Blend like Old Dublin and My Mixture 965. Also look into trying Amphora Red Full Aroma. Just be sure to properly dry them before smoking, and pack lighter.