Disclaimer: never smoked a Meerschaum before, so please bear with me.
Well, I gave my first Meerschaum its inaugural smoke to-day and towards the end of the smoke (not the end of the bowl, though, there was a pinch left of unburnt tobacco, which I wouldn't really call dottle) I started to get this funny taste like burnt plastic—well, not quite plastic, but like something burnt, real funny taste. Is this normal? I was under the impression that these pipes are tasteless thus giving one "the true taste of a blend".
Mind, I had to be relighting like crazy, and I didn't pack it all the way to the top to begin with: this is a capacious, cavernous, vast, huge, enormous chamber I wouldn't be able to smoke through in one sitting (especially sitting in my car outside with my feet getting freezing cold). Due to the chamber size I had to be sticking the flame into it and at the end of the smoke the lighter wasn't cutting it and I stuck 2-3 matches in right above the tobacco—the chamber woulda been ~1/4 full by then.
Did I cause burn damage? Hence the funny taste? Will this go away?
This is the chamber after the smoke:
I chose to shew you the left side because that's the side that gets toasted more by the flame of whatever I'm using—Kiribi, Bic, matches...
TIA for any helpful input.
Well, I gave my first Meerschaum its inaugural smoke to-day and towards the end of the smoke (not the end of the bowl, though, there was a pinch left of unburnt tobacco, which I wouldn't really call dottle) I started to get this funny taste like burnt plastic—well, not quite plastic, but like something burnt, real funny taste. Is this normal? I was under the impression that these pipes are tasteless thus giving one "the true taste of a blend".
Mind, I had to be relighting like crazy, and I didn't pack it all the way to the top to begin with: this is a capacious, cavernous, vast, huge, enormous chamber I wouldn't be able to smoke through in one sitting (especially sitting in my car outside with my feet getting freezing cold). Due to the chamber size I had to be sticking the flame into it and at the end of the smoke the lighter wasn't cutting it and I stuck 2-3 matches in right above the tobacco—the chamber woulda been ~1/4 full by then.
Did I cause burn damage? Hence the funny taste? Will this go away?
This is the chamber after the smoke:
I chose to shew you the left side because that's the side that gets toasted more by the flame of whatever I'm using—Kiribi, Bic, matches...
TIA for any helpful input.