On Smoking Slowly and the Benefits...

[anotherbob]

One of the little discussed benefits to smoking slowly is that unless someone is paying careful attention, they never see smoke. On many occasions I have walked into a store and spent several minutes in there before I realized that I had my pipe in clench. I have completely done my grocery shopping while smoking, and no one noticed. They just thought that I was some nice old man who liked to chew on a pipe. You can get away with so much more with slow smoking, ha ha.

actually they probably just thought you had rabies. I know if I saw you smoking a pipe in a store I'd warn other people about the man who probably got bit by a rabid raccoon. Honestly I could see you getting in a fight with a raccoon. Or maybe you're right. I know I once did my grocery shopping while still smoking and somehow no one said anything. In my case they probably just thought it was safer or that they imagined it.

 

[anotherbob]

I have been practicing this for the last three months. Today I nailed it ! In fact the person I was driving with didn't even know my pipe was lit. And flavor ? WOW ! With each sip I experienced what you wrote ie: "Plus, if you are just allowing smoke to drizzle into your mouth, you are giving the flavor time on your tongue, enjoy that flavor, relish in it."

I can't imagine going back to puffing now. Its also gonna save alot on tobacco because the bowl is going to last 3-5 times longer now ! Thank you !!!

what is really fun is when you get so accustomed to slower (I prefer gentler, think it's more accurate) it eventually just becomes smoking. You'll know you've gotten there when you smoked that last one hard and fast and only lost a little flavor and the bowl is still pretty close to cool to the touch. Also found you can smoke more bowls in an evening without any latent discomforts.
Oh that also gives you a great excuse to retry blends you found meh previously.

 

[felix Cappuccio]

Agreed slow down on the puffing you get more out of the pipe as well the tobacco always be aware of your surroundings when there to wind out side and the smoke goes straight up you are in heaven.

 

[EvertonFC]

The Benefits of Slow Smoking

For guys who didn’t grow up around other pipe men, and watching the experienced smoker ssssllllloooooooowwwwllllyyyy sipping away at their pipes, it might take a lot of trial and error to figure out that almost every problem you might encounter from smoking a pipe would come from just smoking too fast. How fast is too fast? I’d say that you just can’t slow down enough. When you think you are going as slow as possible, slow down even more. I see guys making large billowing clouds of smoke, and if you are into smoking just for the visual effects of making clouds, then keep on, more power to you. However, here are some of the benefits to slowing down and keeping the clouds minimal...

First, thank you for this thoughtful post. Can I assume from other things you've written in this thread, that you're an advocate of the breath method? And if so, do you feel that slow smoking can be done with any consistency without the breath method? Thank you.

 

[AppalachianPipe92]

Nice thread to revisit @cosmicfolklore
Great reminder to myself especially. The concept of smoking slow and cool was one of the early epiphanies for me. If my pipe begins to warm up, I set it down for a few minutes. It was truly a game changer. Though it was a hard practice coming from many years of cigarettes. I actually wish I could smoke even slower, but I think I've found what works for me.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

First, thank you for this thoughtful post. Can I assume from other things you've written in this thread, that you're an advocate of the breath method? And if so, do you feel that slow smoking can be done with any consistency without the breath method? Thank you.

My take on the breath method is that it is not the same for everyone. On my earliest posts about the breath method, I made it seem like there was only one way. But, in my years I realize that it’s not. I now mostly just keep a pipe chocked in a clench and forget about it, and it seems to just smoke itself. For others it might be different.

 

[Milverton1868]

Beautifully written article and sound advice.

 

[bent1]

Solid post. I don’t even fire up if I don’t have the time to sip. I’ve revisited blends that initially did little for me, only to find their hidden gems when slowing down the pace & just sipping, almost to the point of extinguish.

 

[RookieGuy80]

It's something I'm still struggling with. Although I've come to this realization. A very time I've "gotten it", every time it's been nice and slow and perfect, have all been times I'm doing something else with a pipe in my mouth rather than just on the porch smoking.

 

[Lucashly]

It has been 8 years since I have posted a thread about the benefits of slow smoking. I took a break to let other smokers step up and address this issue. But, I notice that a lot of new posts can easily be summed up with taking notice that smoking slow is the goal.

So, here is goes...

The Benefits of Slow Smoking

For guys who didn’t grow up around other pipe men, and watching the experienced smoker ssssllllloooooooowwwwllllyyyy sipping away at their pipes, it might take a lot of trial and error to figure out that almost every problem you might encounter from smoking a pipe would come from just smoking too fast. How fast is too fast? I’d say that you just can’t slow down enough. When you think you are going as slow as possible, slow down even more. I see guys making large billowing clouds of smoke, and if you are into smoking just for the visual effects of making clouds, then keep on, more power to you. However, here are some of the benefits to slowing down and keeping the clouds minimal.

Taste is affected by how slow you smoke. When you get a really flavorful tongue pleasing taste of tobacco, it is not coming directly from the smokes and combustion. This is cigarette mentality. What you taste is the surrounding tobacco to the combustion heating up and giving off its essential oils. This goes for aromatics, latakia blends, to Virginias. Slowing down and not allowing the full width of the bowl to cherry up, is giving the surrounding tobacco time to heat up and give off its flavor before combusting into smoke. Plus, if you are just allowing smoke to drizzle into your mouth, you are giving the flavor time on your tongue, enjoy that flavor, relish in it. Puffing harder faster doesn’t give you more flavor, just more smoke. In fact the harder and faster you draw the smoke in, the more your flavor receptors on your taste buds will get overloaded and overheated. Slow down and sense every nuance of flavor the experience provides.

Thusly, by heating surrounding tobacco to have them release their essential oils, you also speed up the cake process and breaking in of a pipe. The oils and tars are released and get pushed to the inside of the chamber. The faster you smoke, the more you increase the temperature of combustion, destroying those oils that are needed to cake the bowl. So, smoking faster does not help you break in a pipe nearly as much as just slowing down. I realized this when I started practicing for a slow smoking contest. As I limited my puffing and just allowed the smoke to drizzle into my mouth, I noticed that I had to scrape my pipes much more often than I did the years I had been smoking at a moderate (too fast) a rate.

You don’t get more nicotine from smoking faster. This is cigarette mentality also. You are only pulling in nicotine from the small blood vessels of the mouth and sinuses, unless you are inhaling. And, you may be inhaling because you are smoking too fast, not giving your blood vessels time to absorb. The pipe hobby delivers nicotine much slower than cigarettes. You have to go slow and allow the nicotine time to pass through the walls of your skin and blood vessels. Stretching a small bowl out to an hour gives you way more nicotine than a large bowl huffed in thirty minutes. No one celebrates smoking faster. This is why we have slow smoking contests. Smoking fast is just a neophyte behavior. If you want the full benefits of smoking a pipe, then stretch that experience out as long as you can. This is what makes the nicotine reaction in our bodies different and more relaxing than that of the cigarette smoker’s. We actually process way more nicotine, but only over a much longer period of time.

Your pipe will smoke better the slower you smoke. Whether a bent or straight pipe, it has the potential to gurgle if smoked too fast. Gurgle comes from condensation formed from temperature and pressure changes, like the condensation coils on your air conditioner or the copper coils on a moonshine still. I hear, so often, people suggest drying out aromatics to reduce condensation. It seems logical, but you are removing all of the flavor toppings by doing that. And, bone dry non-aromatics have just as much potential to gurgle a pipe, because the natural bi-product of combustion is H2O. Drying out a tobacco will not solve the problem. Air pressure is most affected by turbulence. This is why well-made straight pipes don’t tend to gurgle, and a well-made bent pipe can. Curving the flow, rough surfaces inside the stem, small diameter holes, and drawing too hard by puffing, increases turbulence. You can actually take a gurgler of a pipe and just slow way way way down and get way more enjoyment from that pipe in flavor, nicotine, and a gurgle-free experience.

Live slowly. The reason for the boom of the cigarettes over the pipe came, when we were persuaded that we needed to rush, rush, rush to make a living and get everything that needs to be done, done. All of our time-saving inventions were taking up all of our time. Cars go faster, microwave meals, drive thru, iPhones, computers going faster and faster to download less and less relevant crap. You get the feeling that you don’t have time to smoke a pipe. If that’s the case… then why did you want to smoke a pipe in the first place? Is it a decoration or accessory for you? For me, my pipe is a time machine. It takes me back to an age when men had time to live and enjoy living and being alive. I savor those flavors that men enjoyed back in the time of Isaac Newton, George Washington, etc… From the time I light my pipe till I have finished the bowl, time just melts away. I never feel rushed to finish a bowl. It’s not a contest to get to the bottom. I could care less if I finish a complete bowl. I smoke at my leisure. I try my best to make it stretch as long as possible. I don’t want the sensations to end. If I do have something hounding me to get finished, I just set the pipe aside. Feeling anxious or rushed does not mix well with the pipe.

I remember as a kid when I used to run up to my granddad with some daunting question, he’d tell me to hold on… he’d pull out his pipe and make me wait, wait, wait, till he packed the bowl, lit it, sat down, and eventually he’d get to my question… He taught me patience in a world wanting me to rush faster hurry up and come on. In fact, I can’t think of many things that are designed to make us slow down as much as this hobby. Sure, sure, sure, if billowing clouds of smoke are your thing, I won’t tell you that you’re wrong. If hot-boxing a pipe down in 45 minutes or less is your thing, by all means continue. But, not to brag, but I have yet to find a pipe small enough that I couldn’t make it last an hour or more. There are no rights and wrongs. I didn’t write this to make anyone feel bad about huffing huge clouds of noxious smoke. I just wanted to share some things that I noticed about the hobby. Smoke however you want; however, if you are a billowing cloud of smoke sort of guy, please don’t stand next to me. I don’t want someone to think I just bought a pipe and started smoking today. I grew up around pipe men, and they’d definitely crack a giggle at the clouds.

Slow down, give it a try…

I smoked slow while reading your thorough post and yes you are absolutely correct. Really thank you for that information. I also avoid electric devices when smoking. And also smoking slow I had no tongue stain.

 

[gkunkel]

I’m convinced that given enough time, you’ll figure it out.
I found there’s not many YT tutorials for smoke rings, but many tutorials if you search for “vape rings”

 

[markophonic]

As a new pipe smoker, I've found the OP's post to be the most important thing I've learned about "technique".

Like the tortoise and the hare....Slow and easy win the race.

 

[Epip Oc'Cabot]

I agree with Cosmic…. slow is the best….. and it is wonderful that way, and is what I usually do.

Yet, most of us who are “old-timers” also know that “slow” may not always be possible every indulgence. For the “newer” folks, I just wanted to mention that IF “slow” is not possible when you are hankering for a pipe…. it is “ok”….. “less than slow” or even “fast” CAN be enjoyable if need be. You simply want to minimize the potential negatives of “less than slow” or “fast” during the effort. In those cases for me, I tend to find that ample water or fluids of your choosing during smoking can ameliorate many of these potential negatives. This is perhaps why the adage I live by is:

“There is never a bad time to smoke a pipe.”

You can if need be, adapt, to make damn near any opportunity an enjoyable one.

 

[JWB]

Its like most things, practice practice practice with a good dose of patience, in time it becomes second nature. The rewards are well worth the investment.

 

[JWB]

I agree, never a bad time!

 

[JWB]

Well said

 

[Kirklands]

Like the tortoise and the hare....Slow and easy win the race.

Well said. I enjoy the ritual of pipe smoking: choosing my pipe and tobacco, getting settled in my spot, lighting, tamping, relighting, tamping, all the while pondering, meditating a bit, relighting, and on it goes. Every aspect of this is important to me, making pipe smoking really enjoyable.

 

[pipesolitude]

It has been 8 years since I have posted a thread about the benefits of slow smoking. I took a break to let other smokers step up and address this issue. But, I notice that a lot of new posts can easily be summed up with taking notice that smoking slow is the goal.

So, here is goes...

The Benefits of Slow Smoking

For guys who didn’t grow up around other pipe men, and watching the experienced smoker ssssllllloooooooowwwwllllyyyy sipping away at their pipes, it might take a lot of trial and error to figure out that almost every problem you might encounter from smoking a pipe would come from just smoking too fast. How fast is too fast? I’d say that you just can’t slow down enough. When you think you are going as slow as possible, slow down even more. I see guys making large billowing clouds of smoke, and if you are into smoking just for the visual effects of making clouds, then keep on, more power to you. However, here are some of the benefits to slowing down and keeping the clouds minimal.

Taste is affected by how slow you smoke. When you get a really flavorful tongue pleasing taste of tobacco, it is not coming directly from the smokes and combustion. This is cigarette mentality. What you taste is the surrounding tobacco to the combustion heating up and giving off its essential oils. This goes for aromatics, latakia blends, to Virginias. Slowing down and not allowing the full width of the bowl to cherry up, is giving the surrounding tobacco time to heat up and give off its flavor before combusting into smoke. Plus, if you are just allowing smoke to drizzle into your mouth, you are giving the flavor time on your tongue, enjoy that flavor, relish in it. Puffing harder faster doesn’t give you more flavor, just more smoke. In fact the harder and faster you draw the smoke in, the more your flavor receptors on your taste buds will get overloaded and overheated. Slow down and sense every nuance of flavor the experience provides.

Thusly, by heating surrounding tobacco to have them release their essential oils, you also speed up the cake process and breaking in of a pipe. The oils and tars are released and get pushed to the inside of the chamber. The faster you smoke, the more you increase the temperature of combustion, destroying those oils that are needed to cake the bowl. So, smoking faster does not help you break in a pipe nearly as much as just slowing down. I realized this when I started practicing for a slow smoking contest. As I limited my puffing and just allowed the smoke to drizzle into my mouth, I noticed that I had to scrape my pipes much more often than I did the years I had been smoking at a moderate (too fast) a rate.

You don’t get more nicotine from smoking faster. This is cigarette mentality also. You are only pulling in nicotine from the small blood vessels of the mouth and sinuses, unless you are inhaling. And, you may be inhaling because you are smoking too fast, not giving your blood vessels time to absorb. The pipe hobby delivers nicotine much slower than cigarettes. You have to go slow and allow the nicotine time to pass through the walls of your skin and blood vessels. Stretching a small bowl out to an hour gives you way more nicotine than a large bowl huffed in thirty minutes. No one celebrates smoking faster. This is why we have slow smoking contests. Smoking fast is just a neophyte behavior. If you want the full benefits of smoking a pipe, then stretch that experience out as long as you can. This is what makes the nicotine reaction in our bodies different and more relaxing than that of the cigarette smoker’s. We actually process way more nicotine, but only over a much longer period of time.

Your pipe will smoke better the slower you smoke. Whether a bent or straight pipe, it has the potential to gurgle if smoked too fast. Gurgle comes from condensation formed from temperature and pressure changes, like the condensation coils on your air conditioner or the copper coils on a moonshine still. I hear, so often, people suggest drying out aromatics to reduce condensation. It seems logical, but you are removing all of the flavor toppings by doing that. And, bone dry non-aromatics have just as much potential to gurgle a pipe, because the natural bi-product of combustion is H2O. Drying out a tobacco will not solve the problem. Air pressure is most affected by turbulence. This is why well-made straight pipes don’t tend to gurgle, and a well-made bent pipe can. Curving the flow, rough surfaces inside the stem, small diameter holes, and drawing too hard by puffing, increases turbulence. You can actually take a gurgler of a pipe and just slow way way way down and get way more enjoyment from that pipe in flavor, nicotine, and a gurgle-free experience.

Live slowly. The reason for the boom of the cigarettes over the pipe came, when we were persuaded that we needed to rush, rush, rush to make a living and get everything that needs to be done, done. All of our time-saving inventions were taking up all of our time. Cars go faster, microwave meals, drive thru, iPhones, computers going faster and faster to download less and less relevant crap. You get the feeling that you don’t have time to smoke a pipe. If that’s the case… then why did you want to smoke a pipe in the first place? Is it a decoration or accessory for you? For me, my pipe is a time machine. It takes me back to an age when men had time to live and enjoy living and being alive. I savor those flavors that men enjoyed back in the time of Isaac Newton, George Washington, etc… From the time I light my pipe till I have finished the bowl, time just melts away. I never feel rushed to finish a bowl. It’s not a contest to get to the bottom. I could care less if I finish a complete bowl. I smoke at my leisure. I try my best to make it stretch as long as possible. I don’t want the sensations to end. If I do have something hounding me to get finished, I just set the pipe aside. Feeling anxious or rushed does not mix well with the pipe.

I remember as a kid when I used to run up to my granddad with some daunting question, he’d tell me to hold on… he’d pull out his pipe and make me wait, wait, wait, till he packed the bowl, lit it, sat down, and eventually he’d get to my question… He taught me patience in a world wanting me to rush faster hurry up and come on. In fact, I can’t think of many things that are designed to make us slow down as much as this hobby. Sure, sure, sure, if billowing clouds of smoke are your thing, I won’t tell you that you’re wrong. If hot-boxing a pipe down in 45 minutes or less is your thing, by all means continue. But, not to brag, but I have yet to find a pipe small enough that I couldn’t make it last an hour or more. There are no rights and wrongs. I didn’t write this to make anyone feel bad about huffing huge clouds of noxious smoke. I just wanted to share some things that I noticed about the hobby. Smoke however you want; however, if you are a billowing cloud of smoke sort of guy, please don’t stand next to me. I don’t want someone to think I just bought a pipe and started smoking today. I grew up around pipe men, and they’d definitely crack a giggle at the clouds.

Slow down, give it a try…

Thank you sir for sharing this. I did not read through the whole thread, sorry if I repeat something. I am a virginia smoker, and I am always trying to smoke very slow, but I am the only pipe smoker I met so I can't really compare what is slow or not. : ) But I often find myself wanting to smoke even slower, bcs of the benefits you speak of, but the main problem is that the pipe will be hard to keep lit, and it goes out, so I have to keep up the puffing more than I would like. This is a related topic I assume, and it would be interesting to hear you experience/thoughts on this. For slow smoking, you recommend any particular packing and tamping technique, or bowl type, etc.?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Thank you sir for sharing this. I did not read through the whole thread, sorry if I repeat something. I am a virginia smoker, and I am always trying to smoke very slow, but I am the only pipe smoker I met so I can't really compare what is slow or not. : ) But I often find myself wanting to smoke even slower, bcs of the benefits you speak of, but the main problem is that the pipe will be hard to keep lit, and it goes out, so I have to keep up the puffing more than I would like. This is a related topic I assume, and it would be interesting to hear you experience/thoughts on this. For slow smoking, you recommend any particular packing and tamping technique, or bowl type, etc.?

Just pack a little looser than normal, and give that a try. Most of the time, I am not actively puffing, just letting it smolder and trickle down the draft as I breath through my nose. Yeh, it goes out from time to time. I am not proud of it, but sometimes I will have a pipe clenched for a while before I realize it has goes out. And, sometimes I will have a pipe clenched for an hour before I realize that I have finished a bowl.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have times where I am watching TV, and will hold the pipe and maybe puff a little more than I should. It's human. But, my goal is always to try to smoke as slow as possible.

Keep at it. It may very well be that this way isn't your favorite, or most enjoyable way... sometimes we have to find our own. But, if this helps, that would be awesome.

 

[pipesolitude]

I have tried a lot of different packing, trying to keep it loose, but too loose is also not the best, it can go out because the tobacco is too disintegrated. Tamping will help to get the tobacco just tight enought. So yes, one must find a good balance here. I'm not an every day smoker, but been smoking the pipe for over 15 years now, and I am still experimenting! I think that is actually what makes pipe smoking fun, because there are so many small details that you can always try and see what works, or what works best for individual pipes. I can share some things I experiment with, perhaps it can resonate with someone. I want to stress that these are just some ideas for experimenting.

1. Lighting: Hold the flame as high as possible and draw a bit harder. The flame can gently touch the tobacco once or twice (draw less hard), but then you don't need to touch it, keep it high and you can draw harder. The idea being that you get less heat this way, but you draw the flame into the tobacco so that it lights further down. I am figuring that it gives a more lasting burn this way. Perhaps less needed in the beginning of the bowl, but helpful when the amber is charred.
2. On a less wide bowl, I find it important to toss out the burned ash more often.
3. Fold and stuff: When I pack a flake folded and stuffed, I have experimented with putting a pinch of well rubbed out tobacco at the bottom then adding the flake. The idea with this is to prevent too much expansion of the tobacco in the bottom which can easily prevent a good draw, or even block the draw causing problems. Again, probably more helpfull in a tall and less wide bowl. My next experiment will be to try to do a "cone formed" flake, making the bottom part thinner than the top. My idea is to fold the flake and rub it more in the bottom, perhaps use the loose tobacco as desribed above. Not sure if I will have any success with this method, but just an idea in my mind to try. Another method is to use less flake, pack it very loose, with lot of space in the bowl, and then rub out some of the tobacco into shag and let it fall down in the empty spaces, perhaps even push it down a little with the pipe tool.
4. At the finish of the bowl there is often more fine ash that can obstruct the draw, even if one hardly notices it, and it often helps to use a pipe cleaner to clear the whole. The only problem is that I smoke with filter, and I am not patient enought to wait 15-20 minutes to let the pipe cool down. I hate myself for removing the stem on a pipe that has not cooled down fully, but sometimes I do it anyway, very gently. Well, not sure this counts as an advice, it is more an issue I sometime have.