Pipe Smoke PH Tongue Sting and Alkaline Bite

[birdog]

Hi all,

when I smoke virginias or sweet virginia based cavendishes, I get discomfort.. "tongue sting"...you know, when followed by a carbonated drink, it tingles more..... Some call this tongue bite.

Others have described "bite" as an extreme discomfort , caused by alkalinity in tobacco that doesn't agree...( I've never experienced this, as with any alkaline burley based tobacco, I can smoke all day without any tongue sting, or discomfort.........plenty of nicotine, however.
Our bodies are different in this regard. I know about mitigating sting in virginias with added perique, and smoking slow, drying tobacco, etc.

Anyone ever tried to measure the PH of pipe tobacco smoke? Can it be done, with a measurable difference between brights on one end and air cured burley on the other? would this be valuable info to know before purchasing?

With some basic testing, I put a pinch of OJK blue with an ounce or so of 1Q and it made a noticeable difference...didn't seem to take much.

I am sorry, if this is outside the logical box...just seems if that could be measured, one could find out why certain tobaccos affect them certain ways.

Terry

 

[David D. Davidson]

From some casual googling in the past, it looks like it's possible, but a bit of a pain in the rear to accomplish outside of a lab

https://healthycanadians.gc.ca/en/open-information/tobacco/t100/ph?wbdisable=true

I was hoping there might be something already written that was a little bit more straightforward and garagehack-y like blowing onto some glass and swabbing the residue, but I haven't been able to find anything.

That being said, I still think it's doable, and I bet you could get some degree of an idea through trial and error, soil PH testers, and some PH-neutral buffer fluid you can soak the smoke residue in. Maybe this would be a good use for a filtered pipe? Would collect more than enough residue in a disposable filter pretty quickly I would be willing to bet.

 

[bluegrassbrian]

I have a digital Ph meter that measures liquid and soil.
Never tried anything else - smoke itself wouldn't work.
As mentioned by DD above, theoretically, you could take the residue or a filter and create a solution using the "teabag" method.

While I wouldn't trust this to accurately measure the real Ph of a given "smoke" or tobacco matter, you could compare different blends in this manner to see which ones rate more acidic or alkaline.

 

[yanoJL]

I wonder if you could exhale smoke through a straw, blowing bubbles in pH neutral water, then test the water

 

[bluegrassbrian]

I wonder if you could exhale smoke through a straw, blowing bubbles in pH neutral water, then test the water

Understanding how a ph meter works, I doubt the efficacy of this method. You'd really want to create a stable solution for the electrode.

 

[kcghost]

Don't buy Virginia based products is an easy solution to your problem.

 

[birdog]

KC.....agreed, but when tobacco is listed as having cavendish ingredients, the cavendish can be made of virginias, or burleys ...for ex., ...I understand C & D unflavored black cavendish is made with cigar leaf...certainly alkaline... a lot of Lane cav is virginia based....

 

[AJL67]

I just smoke a pipe, that's all, no PH meters, no CAT scans, no lab work, just light and smoke.

 

[birdog]

ok, thanks all for your feedback...it's been helpful.

 

[anotherbob]

in a way you should be able to tell to some extent by things like taste profile and mouth feel. Certain Ph have a slightly soapy mouth feel. But flavors should match up pretty clearly.

 

[birdog]

yes, will just rely on taste and stay in the lane....

 

[FLDRD]

Hi all,

when I smoke virginias or sweet virginia based cavendishes, I get discomfort.. "tongue sting"...you know, when followed by a carbonated drink, it tingles more..... Some call this tongue bite.

It's very likely that with the passage of time and the addition of more blends tried - that things just might change on your palate. Mine has broadened over time, but I've kept trying repeatedly to push just a little outside my comfort zone. That carbonation bite though can still get me pretty hard.

I recently got some pH test strips to see if my saliva was out of range, trying to figure out a couple of personal things along these lines, wondering if my personal oral pH was "off" - I didn't really learn anything.

Well, I might have learned that smoking my old vulcanite stems with obvious oxidation wasn't making the internal part of my lips feel very good...

 

[Swiss Army Knife]

I get this too, particularly with straight red virginias but they're one of my favorites and I refused to stop smoking them.

The solution for me was to offset the pH in my mouth some other way while smoking. Seemingly my mouth leans more on the base side and virginias were sending it further down that path and causing discomfort. So I needed to move the needle more towards the acid side. Stuff like watered down orange juice work but my preferred method is highly carbonated sodas, specifically the Cherry soda Cheerwine.

Pairs well with cherry cavs as well lol

 

[birdog]

Interesting what methods work for all of us...what I have settled on is to use small amounts of higher ph (burley) to adjust, when needed.
I am also playing around with the effects of stoving, or casing with small amounts of white vinegar (heat /pressure) let it sit for a week, and see if that has a pleasing effect. thanks Ernie Q!

 

[crashthegrey]

As a chemist, I never put this much thought into tobacco. I smoke it if it agrees with me, or don't if it bothers me. With so many good tobaccos to choose from, trying to modify the pH of tobacco seems fruitless. As long as you are still having fun with it, though, who am I to judge?

 

[Lumbridge]

This topic is a dead horse which has been subject to many beatings. Some people claim to know, but no one seems to have any reasonably scientific evidence to back up assertions of it being a PH issue (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Virginias and aromatics typically have more sugar than, say, a burley, and more sugar equates to an increase in combustion temperature of the tobacco, so you are probably just experiencing a scorched tongue. Slow down, don't puff like a steam engine going uphill, and don't over-apply flame when lighting and relighting. If all else fails, switch to cooler burning tobaccos for a while, like a natural black cavendish or some such.

 

[birdog]

thanks, yes I put my curiosities to rest after a couple replies.