On Smoking Slowly and the Benefits...

[KaunThePiper]

You know I can't Tell you how many times I've come down into my basement/ dungeons/ workshop, to smoke my pipe during the winter, and not come upstairs for over an hour, on a smaller billiard or shop cob. The gentle warmth of the soft smoke of a balkan blend rolling around in my mouth for a while before even releasing it. The less cloud, the better...

 

[Cyxelsid]

You're making me hungry

That is my mission in life!

 

[samuelgawith01]

Yesterday, it dawned on me why smoking slowly is also smoking easlily.

I’ve been smoking pipes a half century, and this Marxman is so much better smoking than even the best pipes I’ve smoked, I can’t describe it.

View attachment 203269

Only balsa wood could be lighter, than my latest Marxman. It has impossibly tight grain. The heath shrub this burl came from had to cling to life for maybe a century on top of some windswept mountain in Algeria until a hardy soul harvested it three quarters of a century ago.

Tobacco burns just under a thousand degrees jn a pipe. My super light Marxman dissipates that heat about as well as any material possibly could. I get to smoke it not just slower, but easier.

Just a tiny bit below, the burning ember the flavorful oils get released as smoke.

The very best briar allows this better than lower quality briar, but the principle remains the same.

As the old saying goes, it’s not the arrow nor the bow that hits the mark, it’s the Indian.

We enjoy our pipes, by smoking them was easy as we can.

Nice Dublin, Mr Lee.

 

[Morsoth]

Great post! Most of my briar pipe bowls takes around 1 hour to smoke. When I got sessions ending around 45 minutes, I knew that I had made something wrong (but sometimes, I think it's the wind that accelerated it). I have one-hour lunch break at work, and because I only smoke on Fridays at work -- which is usually a more relaxed day -- I stopped looking at my watch to make sure I'm back on time. If I got a little bit longer than one hour, lets say, ones hour and 15 minutes, nobody cares. So, I can take a full hour to enjoy my pipe and relax.

 

[crashthegrey]

Great, now someone will have to post that we are smoking too slow and losing flavor. Even an extra five to fifteen minutes per bowl could lose some flavor.

 

[K.E. Powell]

Excellent advice, Cosmic! It's something that has to be learned over time and is difficult to teach to others.

For me, I learned to ignore the smoke itself as a sign of proper cadence. What I mean by that is a few things. First, as you said, making big clouds of smoke shouldn't be a goal. But the inverse is true too: small clouds are not always indicative of a good cadence. I noticed certain kinds of tobacco just don't produce much smoke no matter how much you push them, and others produce a fair amount even when being pushed gently. And often, the volume of smoke produced can depend a lot other external variables beyond breathing, such as how well the false light is done or the weather itself if you are smoking outside.

I think better indicators of proper cadence would be to pay attention to the pipe's bowl's warmth, any gurgle, and overall what flavors are being teased out. These are all things you mentioned as well.

I still have a long way to go myself, but I've improved a lot and enjoy the more complex tobaccos more as a result. There are times, admittedly, I do just want to puff away and not think about it, and I find that to sate those urges, a good codger blend is a great to have. SWR is what I bust out should I get an urge or be put in a position where I may have to smoke a little more quickly than I care to.

And your comment about smoking being a time machine? *chef's kiss* I agree. For me, when things go right, pipe smoking is like a time machine that stops time. For one hour or more, I can keep everything at a standstill and just be present. It's what made me stick with it even though my first forays into pipe smoking were difficult.

 

[fMf Piper]

I am still having to really concentrate on slowing down and sipping my pipe, but it is getting easier and I am enjoying each smoke a little more than the last.

 

[Cyxelsid]

I am still having to really concentrate on slowing down and sipping my pipe,

Yup, I am still doing the same. After reading this thread, I took it as a personal challenge to slow down and try to get 45 - 60 minutes out of every bowl. I don't always make it 45 minutes, but always at least 30 minutes, and most times 45-50 minutes.

 

[fMf Piper]

Yup, I am still doing the same. After reading this thread, I took it as a personal challenge to slow down and try to get 45 - 60 minutes out of every bowl. I don't always make it 45 minutes, but always at least 30 minutes, and most times 45-50 minutes.

That's great. I think the longest smoke I have had so far is about 30 minutes, so there is definitely room for improvement. I am going to try and get at least 45 minutes out of my next bowl - I guess we'll see how that goes.

 

[Caktranaruci]

Thanks alot for spend your time to write this good post, cosmic!
Personally beside I can get better experience by smoking slowly, I also had another motivation for doing it. Here in Indonesia pipe tobacco is quiet limited, so everytime I puff too fast I kept telling myself "Wow easy!!! the tobacco vendors has run out of their stock goddamnit!" immediately I'm back to slow cadence with much faster heartbeat

 

[aspiring_sage]

I like this, but I also like to blow smoke rings sometimes.

 

[Scottmi]

I'm taking it on faith this post is good advice because Cosmic probably has about 10 normal lifetimes worth of smoking experience.

I'll just say, if anyone has time to read the OP, they have time to smoke slower.

OMG I totally did a LOL for real!

 

[Scottmi]

Still working on learning to smoke slowly myself. I've been trying to smoke a lot more straight virginias in order to condition myself to go slow, and I'm beginning to notice a lot more flavor when I deliberately go as slow as possible.

One piece of advice - that I learned from this forum - is to smoke thinner walled pipes. Since the thinner walls provide less insulation and heat up much faster, it will train you to smoke very slow in order to keep the pipe from becoming uncomfortable to hold.

or in my recent experience, burn it before i even realized.

 

[anotherbob]

I have a question about lighting and keeping your pipe lit but I don’t know how to formulate the question. Does going as slow as possible mean more relights? Do you start very slow as well? I’ve burnt my tongue lighting my pipe recently just out of frustration, especially lighting flakes. But the real question is about going slow and relights.

seems to actually be the other way round. I guess it might make sense maybe a hotter ember eats more oxygen and also more tobacco making it easier for gaps or something to appear. Also eases you into the point where you need to use the tamper. You get a lot more warning that it needs a tamp.

 

[Scottmi]

Just came across this a few minutes ago, from In Search of Pipe Dreams--Sydney Bertram put out a brochure in the 1930/40s that included: "Remember, it is not the man who gets the most smoke who derives the greatest benefit from his pipe, but the man who smokes slowly and cooly."

 

[Scottmi]

Another benefit of slow smoking is that, when you visit your dentist, he won't tell you that you have precancerous lesions on the roof of your mouth and refer you to an oral surgeon for a biopsy.

yeah, i absolutely want to avoid that!!

 

[Scottmi]

i learned a lot from this OP and thread. Thank you @cosmicfolklore !
just got 1h20min on my pipe while reading this thread.

 

[sablebrush52]

What a great write-up! Thank you for sharing your insights.
One question: when I try to smoke slowly, I am inevitably faced with constant relights, which in turn seem to sour the flavor my tobacco. Any suggestions in that regard? Is it just a matter of finding the perfect cadence to avoid the pipe going out?

Keep some pipe cleaners on hand to swab and absorb some of the tars and oils in the airway. Finding the moisture sweet spot for the blend you're smoking may also help and be sure to clean out the pipe, especially the airway, mortise, and the slot after a smoke and certainly after a day's smoking.

I've found this helpful for avoiding any sour notes. It isn't rocket science, just a matter of practice to find the combination that works for you.

Cosmic's observations are spot on, and his comment about people who are intent on creating billowing clouds of smoke reminded me of sitting with some fellow experienced pipe smokers at a table while attending the West Coast Pipe Shows. We'd all just be sitting there, lost in quiet contemplation of what we were smoking and as the hours passed there would be nary a wisp of smoke and even less in movement. All was just the quiet and relaxed sipping of a favorite blend.

 

[CallMeSangy]

My normal cadence is generally absolute crap, but i was a big smoker of lat heavy english blends. Now a days virginias take up the majority of my time, and I can't say i regret a moment of it. Getting to know when something's burning too hot just from the feeling on my tongue has been interesting, and the more subtle nuances of tobacco are definitely shining through while trying to pace myself.

And that bit of yours on the nic hit is definitely a hit out of the park, Cosmic. These virginia flakes I find myself reaching for daily take forever to smoke and hit harder than anything i've smoked before. I never time myself smoking, but i wouldn't be surprised if an average bowl now takes me about 2-3 hours depending on the size of the chamber.

 

[crashthegrey]

I have a question about lighting and keeping your pipe lit but I don’t know how to formulate the question. Does going as slow as possible mean more relights? Do you start very slow as well? I’ve burnt my tongue lighting my pipe recently just out of frustration, especially lighting flakes. But the real question is about going slow and relights.

Check out the UPCA and slow smoke competitions. The slowest smokers in the world are competing with no relights. Obviously, you don't have to get it perfect in real life, but sipping the whole time is what it takes to smoke slowly. When you get a feel for it there are no more or less relights than usual. I had a win time of an hour and forty seven minutes with no relight, with the standard three grams of tobacco.