Is Having a Rotation Necessary?

[cigrmaster]

In the picture below, the opaque containers with the white lids are where I keep my open tins. This picture is from 2012. I bought a 6 pack of different sizes from walmart. It was dirt cheap and I have been using them since 2012 and they still work great.

 

[forloveoffreedom]

Unless you don’t live on Earth, we are all always rotating!

 

[sablebrush52]

Nothing about pipes and tobaccos is necessary. It’s all a choice.

 

[keith929]

I tried to set up a rotation schedule for my pipes but I abandoned that idea after a couple months.
I have some pipes that I just always reach for which throws my schedule off. In addition to that, depending on what tobacco I'm smoking sometimes the next pipe up in rotation doesn't match the tobacco I am smoking at the time.
Granted I could just switch tobacco but that's not how I roll. I usually let the tobacco determine which pipe I choose. Areos are strictly assigned to my Meers all others are chosen based on the cut. Flakes are designated to my smaller bowls while all others are hit or miss depending on my mood and what I'm sippin' at the time.
Currently I try to make it a point to smoke any pipe in my collection at least 6 times a year.
That sounds easy until you realize we're talking about a collection over 160 pipes. It doesn't sound like a lot but consider i smoke only about 4 bowls a day.

 

[ray47]

I used to rotate my pipes, but I got bored and went back to just grabbing what I felt like smoking.

 

[hauntedmyst]

No and no.

This! I am a believer in owning multiple pipes but Didi proved you can smoke the same pipe every day. (I think that was the conclusion, I got bored stopped reading the thread)

 

[OzPiper]

A very random choice rather than a set rotation. I try to smoke each pipe at least once every few months. Some get smoked more frequently than others somehow.

 

[lochinvar]

Nothing is necessary. The first tobacco I smoke in the morning is the one I feel like, and so on, maybe the same one all day. The only "rotation" I have is I usually don't smoke a pipe again until its had a chance to cool down and dry out. I smoke the same type of tobaccos in certain pipes, other than that, its the Wild West out here.

 

[mikethompson]

Certainly the old timers in days past would scoff at the idea of a rotation, which suggests to me that a 'rotation' of pipes was merely to show wealth or status. Just because you could afford multiple pipes didn't mean you needed them necessarily.

 

[romaso]

I use certain pipes for certain blends, and usually have at least 2 pipes per blend, in case one needs drying time. I pretty much always keep burley, virginia, and latakia blends separate in their own pipes, but will sometimes mix within those categories. I also use larger pipes in the evening when I have more time.

If I were on a budget, I'd just get a few Peterson System pipes, because you can swab out the reservoir and leave the stem off and they dry out very quickly. I use them for travel for this reason.

 

[Christos D. Tsatsaronis]

I don't dedicate pipes to blends, smoke everything in everything.
I didn't have a rotation either, my choice was random.
Lately, I smoke my cobs one by one, then the briars, then the olive woods, the meerschaums, the Falcons... and start again. This "discipline" gives me a strange satisfaction...
But, I suppose that sooner or later I will come back to the random/"follow your heart" choice, because it's more my style generally.

 

[judcole]

It would seem to me that, as pipe smokers, we can have a looser definition of "rotation" then, say, the manager of a pro baseball team in regard to his pitching staff.
If one has, for the sake of an example, 10 pipes, only smokes lat blends, and grabs the one that suits your fancy at the time, you are rotating your pipes - unless, of course, you always grab the same one. It's just a fairly flexible rotation.
I tend to move fairly consistently down my racks, except when I don't - but that's because I've found it to be convenient.

 

[makhorkasmoker]

I smoke cobs and stick to a fairly strict rotation for the simple reason that a smoke seems to taste better when I’ve let a pipe rest a day or 2–and if I didn’t keep a pattern I would get distracted and forget which ones I smoked when

 

[jpmcwjr]

Not necessary. I have used the word loosely, and that would describe my lack of dedication to a strict rotation.

 

[mikethompson]

So a rotation is just a pipe collection then?

 

[SBC]

So a rotation is just a pipe collection then?

Maybe sometimes it means something like, "The pipes over here, on the rack, which I actually select from when I'm going to actually smoke, as distinct from those pipes over there in a box on a shelf,"?

 

[wayneteipen]

No and no. I have a single pipe designated for English blends on the rare occasion I get the hankering for it and one designated to Bob's Chocolate Flake because of the ghosting. Other than that, my normal rotation of tobaccos compliment each other well when smoked in the same pipe. I grab whatever pipe strikes me at the moment. I have a handful of favorites that never disappoint. Sometimes they get smoked more than once a day.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Don't know about necessary but I just pick up what looks good at the time! Still picking out different kinds of pipes and tobaccos and I guess out of joyful ignorance just keep trying something new. When I think a pipe is a "favorite" then better drying/packing/experience with one that maybe I didn't do so well and I find out I like it, also, lol. Had a gurgly experience a couple days ago, dried out the tobacco better yesterday (and of course tried a different pipe) and the drying was yet again the key.

 

[Fralphog]

There’s enough things in life to keep track of everyday!

No ordinal, pedantic rotations here.

My “simple“ approach to pipe selection is determine by:
1. How much time do I have to smoke
2. What type of baccy am I craving
3. Choose a pipe that has proved to smoke that baccy well for the time I have allotted.

If there are a few pipes that meet the above criteria, I choose the one that “catches my eye”. I do have favorites ?

Forrest Gump may have said,
”Life is like a beautiful rack full of tobacco pipes, you just never know which one your gone smoke- Jenny“

 

[burleybreath]

I smoke cobs and stick to a fairly strict rotation for the simple reason that a smoke seems to taste better when I’ve let a pipe rest a day or 2–and if I didn’t keep a pattern I would get distracted and forget which ones I smoked when

Sounds like me, too, with cobs. They sort of all look alike. Plus I tend to favor them over anything else as far as heavy usage goes, so some sort of rotation seems desirable, versus none at all. Briar rotation: pffft! Whatever suits the fleeting moment.