Moisture Tobacco

[James8855]

How many bowls of pipe tobacco you have to smoke without resting to make your pipe(briar) sour permanently?

 

[BROBS]

15.



Honestly I don’t think anyone has the answer to that.
I believe you cannot smoke a pipe to “sourness” permanently as it will eventually dry out and be fine. It just might take a long time.

 

[Chasing Embers]

How many bowls of pipe tobacco you have to smoke without resting to make your pipe(briar) sour permanently?

I usually smoke the same pipe twice per day for a week before changing pipes. I've gone as long as a couple of months with the same pipe and have never had a pipe go sour. I do disassemble and clean after each smoke though.

 

[mso489]

Never having a sourness problem with a pipe, I have to say I don't know. Similar to ghosting, I think the key factor is maintenance habits and how many pipes you have. If you wipe out the bowl with a paper towel/napkin after you scoop out the ash, you won't build cake, and that will help, and keep the chamber the original size. If you have a dozen or more pipes and rotate them after every smoke or after every day of smoking, that should help. Just like ghosting and funkiness in a pipe, these should prevent sourness.

 

[jpmcwjr]

If you smoke dryish tobacco down to the heel, and then give it a hot water flush, towel dry, pipe cleaner in the airway, you can avoid a sour pipe for decades. You can also smoke it immediately after the flush; briar absorbs virtually no water with a quick flush and dry.

 

[James8855]

Never having a sourness problem with a pipe, I have to say I don't know. Similar to ghosting, I think the key factor is maintenance habits and how many pipes you have. If you wipe out the bowl with a paper towel/napkin after you scoop out the ash, you won't build cake, and that will help, and keep the chamber the original size. If you have a dozen or more pipes and rotate them after every smoke or after every day of smoking, that should help. Just like ghosting and funkiness in a pipe, these should prevent sourness.

But don’t you need cake to protect the briar pipe from overheating?

 

[logs]

Cake is overrated if you ask me. It doesn't accomplish anything that I've ever found, other than make the bowl smaller and contribute to ghosting, but some people swear by it. In any event, the easiest way to keep a pipe from overheating is to control the way you smoke.

 

[alaskanpiper]

Cake sucks.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Cake sucks.

I like it.

 

[Chasing Embers]

contribute to ghosting

I suppose it can though I've taken pipes back to bare wood and still had to use alcohol to remove Latakia ghosts.

 

[Casual]

I smoke so little that the cleaning doesn’t become a chore. If I smoked 10 bowls a day out of the same pipe while I worked, I would probably just live with the inevitable cake buildup with the occasional ream, as in didimaw’s grabow thread.

 

[B18]

I think it depends. My very first pipe was a no-name basket pipe and for the first month or 2 I only smoked Aromatics 3-4times a day. After these 2 months of non-stop aro smoking journey; my pipe became permanently sour. Salt treatment didn't help at all.

 

[cortezattic]

This is mere conjecture, but IMO, you can keep your pipe smoking "sweetly" just by keeping the shank and stem clean. No need to mess with the bowl beyond what mso advises.

 

[jpmcwjr]

If you smoke dryish tobacco down to the heel, and then give it a hot water flush, towel dry, pipe cleaner in the airway, you can avoid a sour pipe for decades. You can also smoke it immediately after the flush; briar absorbs virtually no water with a quick flush and dry.

I should have added: This will also keep cake to a minimum, and what is there is pretty hard carbon. The only crumbly cake I like is in tobacco, not in a chamber.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I have no idea what a sour pipe is.
Just clean it after each use. I will sometimes smoke the same pipe 10 times a day, not often, but every now and then, as I can't always bring a dozen pipes with me everywhere I go.

 

[craig61a]

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop...? ?

 

[Frozenoak]

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop...? ?

3 IIRC

 

[lawdawg]

I don't think a pipe can permanently go sour. I have had pipes start to taste a little nasty when smoking too frequently, and I've found that a good cleaning and a couple days of rest will bring a pipe back to life. I will smoke the same pipe a few times per week and have no trouble with any of my pipes "going sour."

 

[anotherbob]

I've had pipes sour. From not cleaning them. And the fix was to clean the pipe. I like cake but cake in a pipe is sort of like the way cake in your supper is. You want a little bit but too much is a problem too. It doesn't take much cake to protect the pipe. Too much can help break a pipe supposedly. Basically if your pipe is sour clean it. Honestly cake is something that happens regardless of whether you cultivate it consciously or not.

 

[anotherbob]

I have no idea what a sour pipe is.
Just clean it after each use. I will sometimes smoke the same pipe 10 times a day, not often, but every now and then, as I can't always bring a dozen pipes with me everywhere I go.

You'll know a pipe is sour when you smoke it and you find yourself wondering if a small animal used the bowl as a toilet for solid wastes. It happens when you don't pack enough pipe cleaners for an extended trip even though you packed a good amount of tobacco.