Learning When To Dumb Out The Bowl, Signs Of Diminishing Returns

[atjurhs]

I'm cheap, and I want to get as much out of a bowl as I can. Is there a "rule of thumb" as to when to dump out a bowl and start a new bowl? or when I see white ash, I usually just cover it over with more and keep going, but sometimes I think I'm loosing flavor other times not.
So what are the signs leading to the point of diminishing returns, and I just need to dump it?
And when you dump out a bowl, do you leave the partially burned "embers" at the bottom of the previous bowl, or do you fully empty the bowl and repack it, or do you just start with a whole new setup?

 

[didache]

The cost of tobacco in the UK being what it is, it makes us ALL cheap and inclined to waste as little as possible. For myself, I have never been able to get that fabled smear of white ash at the bottom of the bowl: usually I get a smallish clump of wet dottle. As I tend to smoke just one pipe throughout the day I will usually just repack the pipe over the dottle which I will eventually discard after two or even three bowlfuls. The purists will probably want to drum me out of the pipe fraternity for that :nana:

 

[aimlesswanderer]

If I'm enjoying it, I keep going. If not, I stop

 

[madox07]

I usually smoke my pipe to the bottom, unless I pack it too tightly. If I do pack it to tightly, and it doesn't happen that often - but I must admit it does happen, I just throw the rest away. I don't like the texture, it's harsh and brittle, so I hardly want to repack it with fresh tobacco. I also think it tastes funny, but that may be just me. I am, as you say, cheap myself - I hate ruining tobacco, but what I hate more is a bad smoke.

 

[didimauw]

I dump out a bowl when it is no

longer delicious, or when its too wet to keep lit. And I always dump everything out before I repack.

 

[grue]

I empty it when I taste ash on the last relight.

 

[toobfreak]

Taken to the logical conclusion of cheapness, if saving money and tobacco were all I was after, I would just go out back and rake up some oak leaves. Maybe put a little dandelion in there. But we smoke tobacco for the flavor, and while conserving is a good thing, don't over-pack, smoke well, and get as much out of the pipe as you can until the quality really suffers.
Once the quality really suffers, regardless of cost, what's the point of going further? You are right back to the oak leaves then if you are smoking something you do not enjoy.

 

[alexnorth]

I puff it down to where it's no longer enjoyable. Usually some dottle left that gets thrown out.

 

[mso489]

Flavor, flavor, flavor. When it gets sour, harsh, nippy, or won't stay lit, that's it. I'm not interested in saving two cents smoking garbage.

 

[fitzy]

Yup when it starts getting off flavors or just bad tasting I dump it. MSO is right. You'd save how much? A penny worth?

 

[prndl]

Life is so short.
Dottle is so wrong.

 

[bassbug]

I empty it when I taste ash on the last relight.

Me too

 

[pipestud]

I quit smoking when the tobacco is no longer tasty to me. With some smokes that means when there's no tobacco left and with others that means when 1/3rd of the tobacco is still hasn't been consumed. Life's to short to waste time smoking something that doesn't taste great (IMO, of course).

 

[unkleyoda]

As long as it doesn't go bitter, I smoke it until it will not light anymore. I always dump and run a cleaner before I repack.

 

[lestrout]

Being uber-cheap myownself, plus hating to waste anything, especially good tobacco, I use the pointy thang on my Czech tool to stir up the dottle and ashes, tamp and relight. This is the easy way of getting to the proverbial fine white ash.
hp

les

 

[madox07]

lestrout I personally care less about that white ash, if the smoke doesn't taste good.

 

[mawnansmiff]

If you consider that the last quarter of a bowl has the greatest accumulation of tars and other unpleasant by products of combustion do you really want to add fresh baccy atop it only for that accumulation to become more concentrated?
I admit to having done so myself in the past but not anymore. Life is too short.
Regards,
Jay.

 

[atjurhs]

(note that I still consider myself a newbie to the pipe)
So after a point, the top half of the bowl will have white ash that seems to be suffocating the un-consumed tobacco that still lies waiting at the bottom of the bowl. I say suffocating because my observation is that re-lights become more frequent and less smoke is drawn through the stem.
When I lay more tobacco atop the white ash, sometimes the burning of the new tobacco continues "ok", other times it does not help, and is difficult to burn, sometimes I'll stir it all up, which rarely seems to give desired results. Still, sometimes one of these methods works and other times they don't. Not at all sure, but I think these may simply be the relationship between certain tobacco cuts and a specific pipe? More often I dump the top half off (trying not to loose the tobacco at the bottom which is where I'm being cheap), and put the new atop, stir it around with a poker, run a pipe cleaner through it, re-light and hope for the best.
So I guess the motivation for my question is, should when should *I just be adding atop the new, or dump off the top (wasting), or stir it up (keeping), that the top white ash will help ignite the new tobacco laid atop, or in general loose flavor or gain me nothing?
The motivation for my question is of course retain the flavor of the smoke without wasting tobacco, but the answer to my questions are probably too general to make a blanket statement.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Do people actually say "dumb out the bowl"? Or was that a typo?

 

[atjurhs]

The whole bowel or just the top half?
I guess I'm looking for a balance between cheapskate flavor. Then again with an engineer mindset I'm probably way overthinking this.
Probably at his point in my "career" of pipe smoking, I should just go for flavor and dump it all.