On Smoking Slowly and the Benefits...

[cosmicfolklore]

Beautifully written.

Great to see you back, Funk. And, thank you.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Good also to see you posting now, too!

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Good also to see you posting now, too!

I’ve been in the mountains, walking segments of the AT, and just enjoying nature. Not much cell coverage.

 

[Danimal92sport]

But smoking slowly is so hard

I have been working on this and this thread helped me continue to consider slowing down - thank you! I’m relatively new to pipes, so it’s hard to tame my enthusiasm and proclivity to turn my pipe in to a red-hot kiln, but I’m getting there with practice! And enjoying the flavors and lack of stinging tongue as a reward.

 

[dingdong]

As a general principle "take it slow" is a good policy.

i will definitely try this

 

[gord]

My progress in slow smoking is going, at least imho, going very well indeed. I'll look forward to posting on this but right now, I'm outta the house. Really nice day and it's no time to be inside.

 

[dunnyboy]

By no means an expert, but I find that certain tobaccos lend themselves more easily to slow smoking. Folded or lightly rubbed-out flakes and broken flakes seem to work better for me than ribbons or fully rubbed-out flakes. I think it's because there's more air around the strands to keep the tobacco smoldering without having to puff and because there's less resistance to fight against. Packing ribbons more loosely accomplishes the same thing but I'm always tempted to stuff in a bit more to "fill" the bowl.

 

[gord]

By no means an expert, but I find that certain tobaccos lend themselves more easily to slow smoking. Folded or lightly rubbed-out flakes and broken flakes seem to work better for me than ribbons or fully rubbed-out flakes. I think it's because there's more air around the strands to keep the tobacco smoldering without having to puff and because there's less resistance to fight against. Packing ribbons more loosely accomplishes the same thing but I'm always tempted to stuff in a bit more to "fill" the bowl.

Yes, I've found similar results. And as cosmicfolklore said in my now (to me) infamous post on gurgling, so does learning how to smoke and drying your tobacco more. I don't go bone dry, but go at least two stages farther than I used to. Going to cover this in an upcoming post.

 

[Distant Roads]

Cosmicfolklore, thanks for the beautiful and very useful article! The „time machine“, so inspiring!
Also reading everyone's comments (real experience) is a real treasure!

I am still very new to pipe smoking (two months of smoking 5 bowls per week). As for smoking SLOWLY, the first lesson I've got was after smoking FAST the aromatics with a short-stem pipe. It resulted in a severe tongue bite that didn't go away for a week. That was quite a week. I bought some Biotene mouthwash and spent the whole week trying different ways to soothe my tongue. And I don't want to repeat that experience, so I tried to watch and read about smoking slowly.

At the same time, I love to see some smoke coming out of my pipe and mouth. Could be my immaturity, but completely smokeless pipe smoking for me beats the half of the reason to smoke. But the amazing value of this article and every advise to smoke slowly is that I am reminded to stay mindful about the quality of my smoke. I cannot smoke slowly (yet), but I can always smoke slower! For now, the greatest achievement for me is that I can still see some smoke coming out of my pipe and enjoy it, yet I manage not to overheat the bowl and avoid the tongue bite.

By the way, yesterday I smoked Vintage Latakia blend for the first time. That smoke seemed very different. It was present, but at the same time very light, almost transparent. For me it was a new experience. And I loved the blend very much...

 

[gord]

Cosmicfolklore, thanks for the beautiful and very useful article! The „time machine“, so inspiring!
Also reading everyone's comments (real experience) is a real treasure!

I am still very new to pipe smoking (two months of smoking 5 bowls per week). As for smoking SLOWLY, the first lesson I've got was after smoking FAST the aromatics with a short-stem pipe. It resulted in a severe tongue bite that didn't go away for a week. That was quite a week. I bought some Biotene mouthwash and spent the whole week trying different ways to soothe my tongue. And I don't want to repeat that experience, so I tried to watch and read about smoking slowly.

At the same time, I love to see some smoke coming out of my pipe and mouth. Could be my immaturity, but completely smokeless pipe smoking for me beats the half of the reason to smoke. But the amazing value of this article and every advise to smoke slowly is that I am reminded to stay mindful about the quality of my smoke. I cannot smoke slowly (yet), but I can always smoke slower! For now, the greatest achievement for me is that I can still see some smoke coming out of my pipe and enjoy it, yet I manage not to overheat the bowl and avoid the tongue bite.

By the way, yesterday I smoked Vintage Latakia blend for the first time. That smoke seemed very different. It was present, but at the same time very light, almost transparent. For me it was a new experience. And I loved the blend very much...

I'll second this post, and add here that I have copied Cosmicfolklore's article, pasted it, printed it out, and put it into my "smoking book." It's well worth doing. The best synopsis of slow smoking I've read. Be assured, sir, that your words eventually penetrate our thick heads!!

Salut!
Gord

 

[FalconForever]

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…

Absolutely fantastic post, thank you very much for sharing. Some great points made very well.

 

[PipeIT]

Not sure why I didn’t see this last year, maybe I did and forgot…

Great post!

I personally never try, or worry about keeping a pipe lit, it’s never been my thing, and every time I try to keep it lit longer, the flavors of the blends aren’t as complex/rich.

I’ve always barely lit my pipes, take a few sips, let it go out cool down and repeat, and it always been the most rewarding.

With basic one dimensional types of blends it’s might not matter much, other than taking the flavor of Burley or VA, and turning it ash like as an example, but then there are complex blends, that if you want the full reward, you have to go slow, some even extremely slow.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[occidentalist]

Thank you for this post!

I struggle with slowing down. We are often told to go slow but I've yet to hear a explanation of how to slow down.

No puffing and let the smoke trickle in? Occasional puffs? If so, how often and how little? For slow smoking experts, are relights frequent? If so, how much on a typical bowl?

I'm a data driven guy. Tech/engineering background. My career has been taking the guesswork out of processes and standardizing so that any schmuck off the street can take a process that has been detailed and standardized and excel in it.

I realize it takes the "romance" out of smoking and turns it into yet another data point but it's the way my brain works. I've often found that taking the ham-fistedness of a newbie out of the equation with regard to processes that are prone to error, such as pipe smoking, results in several benefits. More people willing to take it on, as the awkwardness of the beginner is negated. A "buy in" to the process as the beginner proceeds with much more confidence since the guesswork is removed from the process, turning into a devoted ambassador for pipe smoking.

 

[gord]

Thank you for this post!

I struggle with slowing down. We are often told to go slow but I've yet to hear a explanation of how to slow down.

No puffing and let the smoke trickle in? Occasional puffs? If so, how often and how little? For slow smoking experts, are relights frequent? If so, how much on a typical bowl?

I'm a data driven guy. Tech/engineering background. My career has been taking the guesswork out of processes and standardizing so that any schmuck off the street can take a process that has been detailed and standardized and excel in it.

I realize it takes the "romance" out of smoking and turns it into yet another data point but it's the way my brain works. I've often found that taking the ham-fistedness of a newbie out of the equation with regard to processes that are prone to error, such as pipe smoking, results in several benefits. More people willing to take it on, as the awkwardness of the beginner is negated. A "buy in" to the process as the beginner proceeds with much more confidence since the guesswork is removed from the process, turning into a devoted ambassador for pipe smoking.

A most thoughtful reply, to which I can Identify.

 

[jdlander]

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.

What is this? I'm new to pipe smoking, and this is the first I've heard of scraping a pipe.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

What is this? I'm new to pipe smoking, and this is the first I've heard of scraping a pipe.

RTFM
You should research the topic in forums, articles, google it, read a beginners pipe book, as this is important to know. Carbon build-up in pipes, particularly briar pipes, has many implications, both positive and negative: mellowing the pipe, reducing tobacco capacity in the bowl, potentially cracking the bowl if left too thick, "ghosting", etc.
I prefer a thick coating on my large bowls, but I scrape often with my smaller pipes.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Thank you for this post!

I struggle with slowing down. We are often told to go slow but I've yet to hear a explanation of how to slow down.

No puffing and let the smoke trickle in? Occasional puffs? If so, how often and how little? For slow smoking experts, are relights frequent? If so, how much on a typical bowl?

I'm a data driven guy. Tech/engineering background. My career has been taking the guesswork out of processes and standardizing so that any schmuck off the street can take a process that has been detailed and standardized and excel in it.

I realize it takes the "romance" out of smoking and turns it into yet another data point but it's the way my brain works. I've often found that taking the ham-fistedness of a newbie out of the equation with regard to processes that are prone to error, such as pipe smoking, results in several benefits. More people willing to take it on, as the awkwardness of the beginner is negated. A "buy in" to the process as the beginner proceeds with much more confidence since the guesswork is removed from the process, turning into a devoted ambassador for pipe smoking.

I will attempt to provide you with a partial answer. A conversation would be more appropriate I think than attempting to put it all in writing at one go. And you should seek alternate perspectives.
I have long experience as a pipe smoker but others will likely have different, equally valid, perspectives.

Slow smoking requires, above all, concentration. When I smoke a pipe, it is a meditative pleasure. I avoid all distractions such as conversation, reading, watching video, or intense thought. A little light background music or ASMR sounds is all I can tolerate. Audio books is pushing my limits of concentration.

An average size bowl lasts me 1.5 to 2 hours, depending on the blend. My preference is for a well rubbed and exceedingly dry tobacco, packed somewhat tight.

Embrace the need for frequent re-lights (10 or so per bowl). Puff gently (sip)--shallow puffs, not deep puffs. The frequency of puffs, and the depth of the puff, are determined by how well the tobacco is burning. One needs to develop a sense for how warm the bowl is in the hand--the pipe, and the smoke, should never be permitted to grow hot, or cold!

Sense the amount of smoke entering your mouth with each puff. Strive to keep this smoke density constant--neither too little nor too much. When the smoke thins, it is time to do something--puff harder, or more frequently, until the smoke thickens--or tamp and re-light if the combustion can no longer be maintained by puffing.

After the first light, if the tobacco rises to a point where it might fall out of the bowl, I gently tamp it down.
If the bowl is properly packed, I have no need to tamp again until after the halfway point, at which point the need to tamp grows more frequent.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

@occidentalist.. There seem to be two schools of thought, one as @Professor Moriarty has posted about staying focused, and mine, light the pipe and forget about it. But, Moriarty is right, especially in the beginning. Think about learning to drive a stick shift. You have to focus on letting up off of the clutch as you gently give it gas, then shifting, down shifting, etc... then after a while you no longer have to think about it. You just drive, no longer even thinking about the gas/clutch exchange. That's when you can just get a pipe going, and walk around doing things without having to think about it al all. I tend to walk around with unlit pipes in clench between smokes. And, mostly, I never even remember packing or lighting anymore.
But, if I had to maintain that level of focus as I did in the beginning, I would not smoke pipes. I have way too many thing to get done in a day to give smoking that much thought.

 

[chumleeroy]

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…

What you said about the flavor coming from the tobacco around the ember heating up and releasing its oils and flavor is sage knowledge, and wish it was passed to me whem I first started down this rabbit hole. As I was worried about getting the whole bowl blazing.

Very nice post

 

[Professor Moriarty]

@occidentalist.. There seem to be two schools of thought, one as @Professor Moriarty has posted about staying focused, and mine, light the pipe and forget about it. But, Moriarty is right, especially in the beginning. Think about learning to drive a stick shift. You have to focus on letting up off of the clutch as you gently give it gas, then shifting, down shifting, etc... then after a while you no longer have to think about it. You just drive, no longer even thinking about the gas/clutch exchange. That's when you can just get a pipe going, and walk around doing things without having to think about it al all. I tend to walk around with unlit pipes in clench between smokes. And, mostly, I never even remember packing or lighting anymore.
But, if I had to maintain that level of focus as I did in the beginning, I would not smoke pipes. I have way too many thing to get done in a day to give smoking that much thought.

Yes. I smoke, at most, one pipe a day. It's my down time.
Totally different situation from folks who smoke throughout the day.