After marinating over a half year: Is your problem solved by now- I hope!
Was it a new pipe when you had the problem of sulphur odor?
Oh long live my first post!
I honestly still have no clear idea, but I have some clues. First yes the pipe I bought was new at the time. It seemed that I was over puffing and not seeping it, and that turned the tobacco acridiy and sour. But I honestly never got that taste again. I bought different Elizabethan tins and never occured to me except that “one” tin. And even that tin was fine as long as I puffed on it slowly, or rather ”sipped the tobacco. I use charcoal filters, and I do blame them to a degree from getting oversoaked and producing all those acrid flavours. But honestly it was not tar-acrid taste, it was genuinely a sort of rotten egg.
That exact pipe I have smoked the Elizabethan mixture in has soured and has a weird funky taste which seems it is beyond repair. I have tried every method from a water cleaning “method” that I believe you have founded. I cleaned it with isopropyl alcohol till I saw the bear wood on the chamber, still it smoked sour and that weird funky taste came back as soon as I lit it. I honestly have no idea why, and I may post a forum soon on it. For now, I am trying to find what is wrong with it.
Now that I am thinking about it, that pipe was my first pipe. I smoked it to hell. Every day about 3-4 bowls with no day rests for about 5 months, and even after I bought another pipe, it was my first choice since it was a pocket pipe and pretty portable. The Elizabethan mixture issue was early on, and this “sourness“ issue of the pipe is more recent. I realized this sourness issue when I when I bought about 6 new pipes, So I’m figuring the pipe was sour from the beginning? That sourness or weird funky tastes resembles a sour apple. God only knows exactly what is wrong with that pipe, but I never reach for it and with each blend I put on it, that exact funky sour apple taste pops up. No exceptions to any blend.
So that is life for now, will I ever know the truth? Maybe when I grow a full beard.