You've been given some good advice so far, so I'll just ignore that anyone said anything and offer me 2¢. After smoking a bowl, either take a pipe cleaner that has been bent over and wipe down the chamber walls, or use a wad of paper toweling to do the same thing. Run a pipe cleaner or two through the airway to sop up any moisture or bits of dottle that's collected in it. If you wipe the chamber walls you won't build up any soft crumbly cake - cake that's fairly useless as protection and insulation. You will eventually build up a thin, hard, layer of carbon which will do the job. Put a bit of spit on a rag and wipe the rim.
At the end of a day's use I remove the stem so that I can clean out the mortise by taking a fluffy pipe cleaner, bending it over itself twice so that I have a wad 4 times thicker, and rotate that into the mortise to soak up whatever is stuck in it. I'll use alcohol to clean out the stem airway, spit on a rag to remove and mouth crud build up on the stem. I'll scrub out the shank airway with tapered bristle pipe cleaners. If I've been smoking a blend that tends to gunk up the pipe, I'll do a hot water flush of the bowl and use a wad of paper toweling to remove build up from the chamber and pipe cleaners to clear out the shank airway. I really like how a hot water flush leaves the bowl, fresh and ready to go. However I NEVER wash the vulcanite stem with hot water as it will lead to discoloration, and I NEVER use alcohol on an acrylic stem as it causes fissures to form in the plastic, weakening it.
I just cant seem to put my pipes through hot water... I have no idea why, I just feel that they shouldn't be wet. lol...