New Pipe Smokes Hot?

[Yadkin1765]

Been smoking pipes off and on for over twenty years. Last time I felt a hot pipe must have been more than 10 years ago. Recently bought a Zulu for VAs and similar flakes. Otherwise, been smoking the same blends in a handful of other briars that are also rather light and delicately built (though well broken in but minimal cake). Never felt heat through them even once. No puffing, only sipping through the new pipe. Flavor's come out wonderfully. Draw seems nice. Burns with superb evenness. Admittedly, it's not an expensive pipe, but the briar appears nice enough. Really light weight. No pitting or divots seem to be appearing in the bowl. No temp discoloration on the outside. It gets hot, but not scalding. But definitely hot. Too hot for my liking. Same two spots each time.

Do some briars just not dissipate heat of the ember properly? Are there flaws sometimes hidden in the bowl beneath the maker's application of a bowl coating? Or might the briar itself be hiding a flaw? Any chance it will work itself out? Could it be a dud? Or am I just deluding myself, and despite getting all the wonderful flavors from my VAs, I'm just unknowingly freight-training it?

 

[Coreios]

I had a pipe that did have a hairline crack in 3 spots hidden by the coating. It burned hot in those 3 spots always. I found them when I took a rag and reamed the bowl out with it and used a flashlight and a magnifying glass.

 

[Yadkin1765]

I had a pipe that did have a hairline crack in 3 spots hidden by the coating. It burned hot in those 3 spots always. I found them when I took a rag and reamed the bowl out with it and used a flashlight and a magnifying glass.

Any remedy for it like, for instance, applying a new coating of ash mud? Or will it resolve itself with cake buildup? What ended up happening with the pipe?

 

[Coreios]

Any remedy for it like, for instance, applying a new coating of ash mud? Or will it resolve itself with cake buildup? What ended up happening with the pipe.

You can try using honey, maple syrup, corn syrup or believe it or not I've heard of sour cream. Either way, Clean the pipe well choose one coat the whole inside of the bowl, and then fill the bowl half way or so with ashes and shake up the pipe, with your hand over the top. Then rest the pipe for at least a week. It will start a carbon cake that might fill the cracks and insolate it better. Everytime you smoke it shake the ash inside and dump it to try to get it building more and more. If you're lucky it will start to cool down over time or even right away. With my pipe it cooled down and never blew out. I still smoke it.

 

[Yadkin1765]

Great. Thanks. That's what I was hoping to hear at the very worst. I'll accelerate the caking with honey as suggested.

 

[Coreios]

Great. Thanks. That's what I was hoping to hear at the very worst. I'll accelerate the caking with honey as suggested.

Good luck!

 

[Briar Lee]

Been smoking pipes off and on for over twenty years. Last time I felt a hot pipe must have been more than 10 years ago. Recently bought a Zulu for VAs and similar flakes. Otherwise, been smoking the same blends in a handful of other briars that are also rather light and delicately built (though well broken in but minimal cake). Never felt heat through them even once. No puffing, only sipping through the new pipe. Flavor's come out wonderfully. Draw seems nice. Burns with superb evenness. Admittedly, it's not an expensive pipe, but the briar appears nice enough. Really light weight. No pitting or divots seem to be appearing in the bowl. No temp discoloration on the outside. It gets hot, but not scalding. But definitely hot. Too hot for my liking. Same two spots each time.

Do some briars just not dissipate heat of the ember properly? Are there flaws sometimes hidden in the bowl beneath the maker's application of a bowl coating? Or might the briar itself be hiding a flaw? Any chance it will work itself out? Could it be a dud? Or am I just deluding myself, and despite getting all the wonderful flavors from my VAs, I'm just unknowingly freight-training it?

Give it time.

Smoke at least a couple of dozen bowls.

I seldom buy a new pipe made this or last year, but I’ve broken in too many 75 year old Lees to count.

Tonight I’m reading old issues of Pipe Lover’s magazine from the late 1940s. Oil curing and other proprietary methods of further curing briar were common then. All that trouble was done to make break in a more pleasant experience.

Briar is an almost miraculous wood. The cherry red ember reaches almost a thousand degrees but we can’t hold anything long that’s more than 140 degrees. That’s a lot of heat lost in a few fractional inches of briar.

New briar will get hot, it will sweat, it will snap, crackle and pop, until the heat cures it fully. This is true even with my magnificently cured and sweet to break in Lees.

Don’t start to judge a pipe until it’s smoked at least two dozen times completely to the bottom, and don’t condemn it until you’ve smoked it a hundred.

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

Build Cake by smoking it. I'm not a believer in honey or sharing the ash or any tricks. In fact, I'd propose wrong the bowl after each smoke so the cake you build is hard and firm. One that will last. Takes longer but worth it when you get there. Honey will burn hot, Carbonize and will build Cake IMHO, it won't hold up and will Flake away over time.

 

[bullet08]

Shaking with ashes will build cake, but it will not be dense cake meaning it will break apart easily and will have to be reamed out quicker. Not a good quality dense cake that helps with pipe smoking. Some pipes just smokes hot then suddenly they smoke fine. Had one pipe that used to get hot whenever I smoke VA. Now I use it for Lat blends and no issue. If there's a problem with quality of the briar, it might take some time before it surfaces. Check every inch of the briar using good light inside and out. If you don't see anything wrong then just have to play it out. Clench it, never have to feel the bowl

 

[gervais]

Just keep smoking it and light paper towel swipe after each bowl. The cake will slowly build up and the pipe will smoke better

 

[monty55]

Do some briars just not dissipate heat of the ember properly? Are there flaws sometimes hidden in the bowl beneath the maker's application of a bowl coating? Or might the briar itself be hiding a flaw? Any chance it will work itself out? Could it be a dud? Or am I just deluding myself, and despite getting all the wonderful flavors from my VAs, I'm just unknowingly freight-training it?

YES

 

[Yadkin1765]

Lots of great advice and wisdom here. I have inspected the bowl before and after each smoke, but see nothing concerning. I've never promoted a cake by using honey or what not, but I have seen it mentioned a few times, knew some old guys back in the day from up around old Brushy Mountain Bee Farm that would promote it. But, if it'd save the life of a sweet smoking briar, I'd do it. But I'll hold off.

In good faith, I'll smoke it without additional measures for a couple more weeks or so to give the briar a chance to catch up to its new experience with heat. I didn't really think about the fact it was diminishing a 1000 degree ember, so mayhaps it is doing its job well enough.

I tend to clench 99% of an hour long smoke, but as this was a new pipe, I was feeling it out, so to speak, getting to know it (ahem, caressing and appreciating its form). Don't really want to make it a Lat or English pipe, though the thought crossed my mind. If I do, it only means I need to buy another pipe. So, well, there's that.

I've never been one to shake for a cake, always have done a dry ream with a paper towel after each smoke to let a firm cake build. I have an inkling something's going on here, but also remain unsure if it'll just work itself out, cause I've never had a pipe do this. As I said, the pipe's got a nice draw, smokes evenly, and fairly dry in these cold humid wet Maine days and eves.

 

[PipeIT]

It helps to know what pipes, some pics. so we know what were dealing with?

While to you, with your other pipes broke in, and you might be thinking I’m smoking at the same cadence, if the chamber is uncoated, you really have to go slow sipping on new uncoated chambers.

 

[Yadkin1765]

It helps to know what pipes, some pics. so we know what were dealing with?

While to you, with your other pipes broke in, and you might be thinking I’m smoking at the same cadence, if the chamber is uncoated, you really have to go slow sipping on new uncoated chambers.

Thanks. But nah. Not going remotely fast--especially following the first instance of notice. Definitely sipping it. That's the point of this post: pipe bowl is coated; smoking slowly, yet despite this, a couple of spots (same spots each time) heat up.

I'll look in to adding some pics, but I think the possible variables have been offered for exploration, time and trial, now, being the only necessary ingredients towards a solution.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

SMASH it with a hammer! Life is too short for shitty pipes.

JK… patience…

 

[Yadkin1765]

SMASH it with a hammer! Life is too short for shitty pipes.

JK… patience…

You say this as a joke, but, honestly, there is something to this. I'd rather just smoke it and not have to fuss with anything else but relaxation and ruminations.

I'm looking past my mallet at my ball-peen.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Most of my straight bulldogs will get hot at the bottom, but after a few years they start to cake up enough at the bottom. But, I clench, so it doesn’t usually bother me, because I don’t touch the pipe.

 

[Briar Lee]

Most of my straight bulldogs will get hot at the bottom, but after a few years they start to cake up enough at the bottom. But, I clench, so it doesn’t usually bother me, because I don’t touch the pipe.

I’ve noticed that on straight bulldogs (the outside of the bottom of the briar is closer to the ember) and I have a magnificent smoking medium Lee Two Star Pot that heats up the entire flat bottom of the pipe like a stove. It’s better now not to heat up than the day I broke it in.

I’d put a rose on my grandmother’s grave at Wheatland, and all the way to Humansville that Lee was the sweetest, and hottest new old stock pipe I’ve ever smoked.

Yesterday I noticed the flat bottom of my Lee Pot was darkened, and there was an even ring of darkness creeping up the bowl from the bottom, like a meerschaum coloring.

If it was a Four or Five Star, there’d be tears.

Pipe making is an art, not a science.

The hardest part of that art to master must be selecting a certain briar for a certain shape.

 

[makhorkasmoker]

I have a Kaywoodie Zulu--a.k.a. Woodstock--that gets hot like that. It's a mystery to me. I mean, I can smoke a clay and unless there's a wind blowing I can comfortably hold the bowl with my fingers, yet that Kaywoodie gets hot as hell. my solution was to smoke other pipes.

 

[Yadkin1765]

The walls of a bowl can get mighty thin in some places, especially on the more compact shapes. Amazing, when you realize these things are made of wood, cured wood at that. If I knew where my kid put my calipers, I'd see what I'm dealing with.

@Briar Lee - I think you're right, the true skill of pipe making probably means knowing what shape to seek from the grain a particular piece of briar shows. Even then, what's revealed may deviate from even a master shaper's expectations--at least to my imagination.

But I'm no pipe maker. Far from it, all I've learned about pipes I've learned from you guys off and on over the past 12 years, and about smoking, in the early days through trial and error, or in passing from greyheaded old men on porches tucked away in the Carolina foothills when I was still a boy. I'll never be more than a consumer of tobacco that seeks a reasonably fine tool for the job, even if at times I'm a bit too frugal to have reason to expect expectations to be met.

Still, I was rather fortunate with the first handful of pipes I purchased over a decade ago--back before kids--when expense wasn't as much of a thing (and prices for better bets weren't so high). Those older, tried and true pipes still comprise the bulk of my weekly smokers. They also, for better or worse, look and perform the same as they did when first broken in. I guess I was just shocked to feel so much heat. But, we'll just see where it goes and I'll practice some patience.