No cake for me. As mentioned, you only need a tin layer. Cleaning with a damp paper towel keeps it at bay… for me.
No Cake?
- Thread starter Old School 3319
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nope talking about different pipes with the same tobacco, but yeah different tobaccos cake and smoke and even taste different
.Eh reading an entire thread is overrated, though you do miss when the thread takes a left instead of a right, ect., and yada yada. lolnope talking about different pipes with the same tobacco, but yeah different tobaccos cake and smoke and even taste different
I use the same thing, bend over a pipe cleaner and work it to clean off any loose particles.
I’m in the “no cake” camp, or at least the “very little cake” camp.
I take a paper towel to the bowl after each smoke, and then occasionally ream with a sharp knife.
I take a paper towel to the bowl after each smoke, and then occasionally ream with a sharp knife.
I'm not about to read the whole thread. I just came here to say that cake sucks. I'd rather have more room for tobacco.
I’m no eating birthday cake either, only steamed broccoli with sprinkles on it, mmm. I just wipe with a paper towel and a pipe cleaner in the stem. As mentioned you will get a cake, but it’s the best kind IMO, thin and strong.
As an outdoor-only smoker in a windy region, I welcome at least a little cake to help protect against burnout. But I'm not in a rush to build up a crappy one. After each smoke, I like to use the backside of the spoon on my 3-way tool to gently knock off any blobs of unburned tobacco and smooth out the cake that's there, then brush out the ash and soot with a folded up pipe cleaner.
I am currently breaking in a Peterson 303 estate which had been reamed down to bare wood, and also had the 91%ISO+COTTON treatment. Based on my experience with my new Rossi Piccolo which tasted a bit hot and sour until I chose to run some BCA through there, I made a 50/50 mix of BCA and Pegasus. After two carefully smoked bowls, there is a very smooth, slightly glossy layer over the chamber, which is also a touch tacky. (One bowl might have actually done it but I neglected to smoke it all the way to the bottom.)
I'm actually thinking I might just put a little dash of activated charcoal in the bowl and give it a shake, then let it sit for a few days. OR, I might just load some straight Pegasus and let it rip. Not looking for huge cake, but none of my pipes have a dime's thickness, so I feel like I am missing some of the benefits.
I'm actually thinking I might just put a little dash of activated charcoal in the bowl and give it a shake, then let it sit for a few days. OR, I might just load some straight Pegasus and let it rip. Not looking for huge cake, but none of my pipes have a dime's thickness, so I feel like I am missing some of the benefits.
I cannot explain exactly why it’s so, but a half century of pie smoking has convinced me that it’s best to take a used pipe down to bare wood, and it never hurts to use alcohol to clean it completely.
Then smoke about three bowls, allllll the way down to the last scrap, until there’s that tacky, resinous sort of a cake but not completely a cake.
Keep clean with twisted paper towels and Everclear, but leave that tacky resin.
I'm glad you shared that. I think I've been a little too fastidious with cleaning in my first couple of months as a pipe smoker. My thought was that off flavors were being caused by TAR so I was really aggressively cleaning with alcohol but it oddly seemed to get worse, probably because I wasn't allowing any cake to develop.
Now I realize I was tasting the bare wood when it got too hot. Fortunately, I know to set it down when the flavors go bad so I haven't torched any bowls.
I prefer a thin (dime sized) layer of cake. I ream as required to maintain that. Some of my pipes build cake really quickly, others, very slowly. It’s a mystery.
That was for my Grabow year thread. But yes in order to keep the cake that huge that's all I did. These days I just use a folded pipe cleaner inside the chamber, untill it's time to ream.