I disagree. I find my pipes to remain sweeter and drier when I break them in with a few half bowls before filling them up. The key whatever one does is to smoke to the bottom on these first few pipefuls, which can be hard to do (especially in a new pipe) unless only filled halfway.
New Pipe arriving! What to do?
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I have experienced minimal to no issues smoking to the bottom after filling up a new pipe. Cannot see why it would be any more difficult to do so with a new pipe vs a broken in pipe. Obviously, you're welcome to your opinion and to break in pipes the way you wish. I am curious though how filling the bowl up half way results in a pipe that is sweeter and drier? Perhaps you can enlighten me with some facts for how the new pipes I fill to the rim and smoke to the bottom will smoke sweeter and drier down the road than if I just filled them up halfway?
If you actually read what I wrote I said that it’s easier to smoke to the bottom with a half bowl. With a full one you are more likely to experience some dottle. Smoking to the bottom seasons the chamber whereas leaving dottle just perpetually wets the bottom of the chamber without forming any kind of insulating layer. I never said you couldn’t fill up a whole pipe, just that for most people it’s going to be easier to smoke a half pipe to ash.
Also I heard the taller you are , the better your pipes break in.
If you want a sweet pipe consider using honey. I picked up this trick from my neighbor Mr. T who smokes honey spliffs. You'll be surprised!
If I experienced a problem, I'd take that advice. Long, long ago, I used to do it your way. Then i decided to just start filling them up first bowl and beyond, experienced no difference. I've broken in well over 100 new pipes filling it to the rim from the first bowl on without a single issue. YMMV.
I have also read that somehow the smoking experience is better for taller people, I don't know if this is an urban myth, or has to do with barometric pressure etc. I am average height so I guess my pipes break in and smoke average.
I think it has to do with lung capacity, flavor receptors, and skeletal muscle.
That makes sense. Do you think those boots that allow you to hang upside down to increase height fractionally actually work?
It has to do with how your balls hang. Taller you are, more chance they will hang closer to 0600. What that has to do with smoking? No idea. But damned pitbulls will have harder chance taking a bite out of 'em.
It’s common knowledge, handed down from Interwebs Sages going back to the beginning, when Algore invented the World Wide Web… And he looked and he saw that it was good.
Back in the early days of my pipe smoking career, we had to dial up a phone number and connect via a modem to a. Bulletin board for this hard won knowledge. Or go to a building and meet with other human beings who happened to smoke a pipe.
yeah if I told you who you'd probably not be surprised. It probably wouldn't have caused so much harm if the recipient wasn't enjoying a new bottle of scotch at the time. You know a little prank
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or you could use Yorktown or Davidoff flake medallion which for some reason are the only two blends that smoke down to a flake or two. Why I have no clue. And it always leads to a it was smoking so good why the hell did it just go out like that oh it's mostly gone that's why. As always anyone that disagrees is just wrong and probably smokes tea leafs thinking it's tobacco.
The idea behind smoking half bowls is to get a carbon coating at the base of the chamber and round the draught hole. There are two reasons you might want to do this, firstly it's the hardest bit to get cake going, and secondly it's the part of the pipe most likely to get scorched by over enthusiastic attempts to smoke every bit of tobacco. So, while smoking to the bottom of the bowl is desirable lighting up that last bit of tobacco defeats the point of the exercise.
Sometimes I do the half bowl thing, other times I don't. When I do, it usually takes a couple of half bowls to get the carbon layer started, sometimes three. It might take a fourth or fifth bowl if I just start with full bowls. Either way the result should be the same. I'd ignore any advice that you must do so many quarter bowls then so many half bowls. It's better to know what you're aiming to achieve and just do it however suits you.
Sometimes I do the half bowl thing, other times I don't. When I do, it usually takes a couple of half bowls to get the carbon layer started, sometimes three. It might take a fourth or fifth bowl if I just start with full bowls. Either way the result should be the same. I'd ignore any advice that you must do so many quarter bowls then so many half bowls. It's better to know what you're aiming to achieve and just do it however suits you.
If you dry the tobacco sufficiently, tamp properly, use a lighter judiciously and smoke with an even cadence there shouldn’t be any problems.
Newer pipe smokers haven’t developed a technique and would probably benefit most from some sort of bowl coating.
I will dampen a naked chamber the first few times I smoke it. Otherwise I just load like I regularly do.
Newer pipe smokers haven’t developed a technique and would probably benefit most from some sort of bowl coating.
I will dampen a naked chamber the first few times I smoke it. Otherwise I just load like I regularly do.
Pretty much exhausted this topic, and it was starting to go off the rails. Thanks Duck and craig61a for bringing it back. Good place to stop.
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