Possible to ruin a pipe on first smoke?

[oneiric]

I've been smoking pipes for almost two years, and still consider myself an amateur on nearly every level. I infrequently smoke, maybe once or twice a month. With spring being here, I've started to smoke once or twice a week. I've just begun to develop my good habits. Packing less aggressively, managing tamping, draw, and preventing the pipe from bubbling fairly well. My tempo has gotten a lot better, cooler smoke and less moisture than what I started with. I've got a couple of briars in my collection. Recently, I picked up a nice, smooth Peterson saddle-stemmed billiard lovat. I feel like this one is going to be my favorite for years. I love everything about it.
I decided to have my first smoke from it and chose a mellow, aged cube-cut tobacco. I filled the bowl 2/3rds of the way and went to town on it. Smooth, mellow smoke all the way down to the bottom of the bowl. I found it a bit difficult to keep the bowl lit, being new to the tiny cubes. I found that it let out a lot more moisture than what I was used to. I used a few cleaners throughout the smoke to sop up some of it before it made its way too far into the stem. Overall, I kept at it until I reached the bottom, careful to pay attention to the heat as it made it's way down.
I could hear what I thought were the cubes sizzling a bit after I took a long, cool draw. I hadn't really packed it given the shape and density of the cubes, and instead tapped the edge to settle them down into the bowl before lighting it. In the end, I loosened the ash and tapped out mostly powdery, white ash. I left the thin coating on the inside of the bowl, wiped the rest off of the rim, swabbed out the stem, and let it rest for a couple of days.
Last night, I packed a short bowl of C&D Mad Fiddler Flake and lit up. I had smoked this blend out of my meerschaum a couple of times and really enjoyed it. It's smooth and flavorful in the meer. Oatmeal raisin cookie. I had a very, very different experience this time. It tasted almost sour by comparison and I didn't enjoy it. I'm worried that I may have accidentally scorched the bowl on the first smoke. I got about halfway down before I gave up. After letting the pipe cool, I loosened the ash and shook it, leaving a somewhat thicker layer of darker, wetter ash on the bowl, wiped the rim, swabbed the stem, and let it rest with a pipe cleaner inside of the stem to soak up what I had left inside.
I've read on a few forums that briars can take some time to break in, and that your first few smokes from a briar may be less than enjoyable until you've been able to develop a nice cake. Am I just being paranoid? I was lucky enough to break-in my first briar with a whole tin of Frog Morton's Cellar, and I've yet to have a sour or acrid-tasting smoke out of it since. I'd appreciate any input, and am worried that I may have somehow ruined my new lovat by smoking too eagerly the first time around. It doesn't taste burnt necessarily, just sour. Maybe my expectations are too high, having only smoked that blend in the meer?

 

[bnichols23]

Granted it's not my pipe, so it may sound flip & callous to say this, but to be honest I wouldn't worry about it. Yes, you may want to take it a little easy on the first few bowls, but I doubt seriously you've done any real damage to it unless you deliberately & consciously held fire to the bowl itself till it started to scorch.
The sizzle you're hearing most likely is just moisture condensing & turning to steam. You're way more likely to burn your tongue from locomotive type puffing than you are to hurt the pipe. If you want to take some pictures of it we can get a better idea, but I really do think the odds are minuscule that you've done anything bad to the poor pipe.
Bill

 

[mso489]

I kept waiting for the moment of ruin that never came. The blend didn't taste as good a second time in a different pipe, and you think you've ruined the pipe? I think you didn't have a good smoke, didn't get it packed right, didn't tamp enough, maybe didn't let it dry out enough, and so forth. So far as I can tell, the pipe is just fine and only requires a little more use and practice. Things can go wrong, burn-outs and such, but those are rare and relate to basic flaws in the briar itself, etc. This sounds like new pipe anxiety. Try again and figure things out a little more, and use a different blend. Likely things will come along fine.

 

[anthonyrosenthal74]

It sounds like it was just a not so stellar smoke. Could have been the blend, the weather, the temperature and humidity. Plus it's a new pipe. I'd chalk it up to needing some break in time. Plus, sometimes a blend just doesn't work particularly well in a certain pipe. I bet the pipe is fine. Also, meers can be more forgiving of a blend if it's particularly moist.

 

[sablebrush52]

While it's possible to ruin a pipe with one bowlful, it's very rare, usually because there was some undetected flaw in the wood, and it doesn't sound like that's what happened here. Briar is tough and can take a beating.
From your description of the cube cut smoke, it sounds like your tobacco was way too moist. Having to work to keep it lit, having to sop out the moisture in the airway both point to too much moisture in the tobacco. Try drying out your tobacco a lot more. You will get a cooler, more flavorful smoke with less moisture in your tobacco. A lot of us smoke our blends nearly bone dry.
The other thing is the business of just leaving the deposit on the chamber walls rather than wiping the walls and then letting the remaining deposit dry. Building a cake in the manner you're describing will develop a soft crumbly cake that is a poor insulator, loaded with bits of unsmoked tobacco. Wipe the chamber walls when you're done and let it dry. A thin hard carbon layer will eventually develop, one that is more durable.
It may be that the two blends just don't agree with each other. It may be that too much moisture has left a sour deposit in your pipe which you can easily remove. Clean out the mortise.
A number of Peterson aficionados report that they smoke numerous bowls before their pipes break in, so part of this may be the breaking in process. I consider a pipe broken in when I no longer taste heated wood in the smoke.

 

[jpmcwjr]

A couple of Petes I have took quite a few smokes before they settled in for me. Theory: the briar was not as deeply cured or aged as some others, so took longer to hit the sweet spot.
Drying the tobacco extra for break in is a good idea. The heel of the pipe should not be wet at the end of a smoke. And as Jesse says, get rid of that ash!
Enjoy!

 

[cachimbero]

This is just my opinion, but I try not to use flakes, cubes (only have smoked tumblin´dice in that genre) or shag for the first 10 or twelve smokes out of a new pipe. I prefer to use a well packed ribbon. And I am a mainly flake smoker and love one shag cut tobacco (G&H Dark bird´s eye). It is easier, in my opinion, to control packing with a ribbon cut tobacco.

 

[oneiric]

Thank you all for the replies. I'll start by letting my tobacco dry out a lot more before packing it. I'm not spending nearly enough time drying it out. The pipe is/looks fine. I'll start wiping the inside out once I'm finished, too.

 

[mso489]

cachi' has a point, that to get that nice even carbon layer started, loose cut tobacco works best, gives a uniform even burn. Some well-accomplished smokers can do the break-in with other cuts, but even most of us old timers prefer loose cut to get a briar started.

 

[pufferfish]

Come to think of it all my pipes have gone through a sort of adjustment stage. Sometimes the poor smokers end up as really very good but it does take time for a pipe to adjust. Not experienced a burn out yet... I reckon gentle smoking is the way to go, even when a pipe has broken in. Gradually a pipe will be able to take deeper draws and the reward is excellent. Not sure if the same goes for Falcon metal pipes, they seem to take almost any amount of abuse.

 

[aldecaker]

What Jesse says is sensible, and true. But the only way I've ever seen a pipe ruined on the first smoke involved a Lakeland.

 

[jeff540]

From your description, it sounds like the briar pipe wasn't adequately cleaned and/or dried between smoking days.
Even after 20+ years, I still get lazy or impatient in my rotation, and these same symptoms of a sour taste happens. I can get away with it in the fall and winter when the relative humidity is so much lower, but it's a struggle to smoke cool and dry when the humidity is up from April through August here in Virginia.

 

[cigrmaster]

Definitely keep your pipe clean. Always wipe the bowl out after every smoke. I use a doubled over fluffy pipe cleaner to do mine. I also clean the shank, mortise and stem after every smoke. I double over bristle cleaners for the shank. quadruple them for mortise and fluffies for the stem. I use around 5-6 pipe cleaners on every pipe I clean. The easiest way to get a lousy smoke is to not clean your pipes properly.
Petersons are notorious for being difficult to break in. I would stick with the cube cut flakes and be patient.

In my experience breaking in pipes with cube cut flakes always builds a nice hard cake. I now use fold and stuff but the cube cut did just fine on plenty of my collection.

 

[bnichols23]

even most of us old timers prefer loose cut to get a briar started.

I'm not sure, but I think I was just insulted. :mrgreen:
B