I have heard the term "breathsmoking", and had a vague but uninformed idea of what it actually was. Frankly, I have never had the types of problems that breathsmoking might seem to address, and so did not delve into it at all. However, just today, reading a randomly found pipesmoking article, I find that breathsmoking involves actually deliberately exhaling into your pipe stem! Sweet Molly Malone! Blowing moisture-laden breath into a pipe stem? The very place the dryness of which is the subject of such unending debate on pipe construction, tobacco humidity, smoking cadence, etc. and etc. ad nauseum? The very sanctum sanctorum of all things dessicatory? I would have heretofore NOT EVER believed that such a counterintuitive practice would even exist. It seems to defeat the entire purpose of a dry smoke, or a dry-smoking pipe. Am I missing something here, or does even the lightest wisp of exhalation carry a ton of moisture, and deliver it directly into your pipe stem?
Revelation Concerning "Breathsmoking"
- Thread starter aldecaker
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Read about it. Never tried it. It's an interesting question. Hope one the experienced ones will chime in.
Don't a lot of us do this without even thinking about it? Just my opinion, but I think it does sort concentrate the flavor by making the smoke just a bit thicker. Also, exhaling through the nose does help with the flavor aspect. I'm not sure if this technique contributes to moisture build by any great degree. I've never had much of a that problem with that.
"Breath Smoking Technique"
"Breath Smoking Technique"
Don't know about anyone else's experience with this technique but for me, a relatively newbe, it allows me to slow my cadence and still keep the bowl lit. If it does add any moisture it doesn't seem to make any difference in the amount of Dottle left over or how wet it is.
https://youtu.be/0o8Sfg6EH9k
Been doing this for over two decades now. Really improves the experience as the pipe almost smokes itself.
Been doing this for over two decades now. Really improves the experience as the pipe almost smokes itself.
I had to light up a new bowl and find out! But, yes, I've been doing a short gentle puff back into the stem for years.
I suspect most of it is just blowing back the fairly dry smoke that's already in the stem, so not much - if any- moisture from the breath gets to the chamber.
Interesting topic. Wish there were a better term than "breath smoking". Sounds gross, but it isn't.
All you are doing, is blowing the smoke in the shank and stem back into the bowl. A faint wisp if any should be seen. Don't force enough air back tthrough to include breath. Just a slight bellows effect of coaxing smoke into the stem and back.
The technique is hypnotic to me. When I really get into it, the world and time slip away and I'm lost to the pipe.
If you have the pipe in your teeth and talk, it's highly probable you're exhaling a little into the pipe. That said, I have never purposely exhaled even a wisp back into the pipe. Back when I started, the point of smoking a pipe was to draw smoke into your mouth, and anything else was purely accidental. Then the internet came along and decided pipesmoking should be treated as "a hobby", replete with a set of rituals which must be practiced if one is to hold oneself up as a "real pipesmoker"...among them numerous intricate packing techniques, smoking all the way to the heel no matter how vile it tastes, and "breath smoking". If puffing too fast is your problem, there isn't any need to blow wisps back through the stem. Just draw more softly and less frequently. Simple as that.
We really need a new term for this, whatever it is.
I prefer to keep smoke away from my face, so when I smoke a pipe all of the smoke goes out the bowl.
Which might sound like "breathsmoking", but there isn't any breath involved, my breath and pipesmoking cadence are totally separate.
You can stop breathing entirely and still smoke a pipe.
The point is that you can sit and cycle air through the pipe with almost no movement whatsoever, just a gentle expansion and contraction of the space in your mouth.
I'm fairly certain that dottle is a bit more of an issue when using this technique, but I always fill the bottom of my bowl with carbon pellets to get rid of the dottle problem.
I prefer to keep smoke away from my face, so when I smoke a pipe all of the smoke goes out the bowl.
Which might sound like "breathsmoking", but there isn't any breath involved, my breath and pipesmoking cadence are totally separate.
You can stop breathing entirely and still smoke a pipe.
The point is that you can sit and cycle air through the pipe with almost no movement whatsoever, just a gentle expansion and contraction of the space in your mouth.
I'm fairly certain that dottle is a bit more of an issue when using this technique, but I always fill the bottom of my bowl with carbon pellets to get rid of the dottle problem.
Not much of a dottle issue here. When I do it, inhaling through my nose, I create a vacuum in my mouth just strong enough to coax smoke out of the stem. On the exhale, I reverse the vacuum, and keep the smoke moving back a forth in the stem and shank. On the second or third exhale, I retrohale the smoke. I do this so gently, that my wife can only tell that I am smoking because she can smell it. I don't produce volumes of smoke, but barely perceivable wisps. I suppose if I really got the pipe burning with smoke rolling, moisture and dottle would be an issue, but thus far, it hasn't been.
If you systematically dismantle many things that we do unconsciously, like shifting gears in a car, steering a motorcycle, or swimming, we would find things that seem counter-intuitive. But, since we do them with our brains in autopilot, we don't notice the minutia of the activity. Breathsmoking is the same.
To start with, I am not 100% convinced that the technique "requires" us to blow into the stem. But, I blow into the stem quite often, on purpose when a pipe gurgles. A gurgle is a droplet of water resting at the point where the draft meets the chamber, and blowing slightly pushes that droplet out into the bowl, where it will no longer gurgle.
That said, just put a pipe in your mouth and forget its there. You'll be breathsmoking naturally in no time. Just stop puffing, stop paying attention to it, and don't touch the pipe with your hand. You will naturally start breathsmoking without worrying over the subtle nuances.
When I was a kid, men just lit their pipes, and carried on doing what men do, stacking firewood, reading the paper, balancing the checkbook, etc... This was breathsmoking. No big plumes of smoke coming from them, just smoldering tobacco, in their clinch. No reason to overthink it. Just a slight trickle of smoke constantly circulating through their gullet. The pipe just melds in with the teeth, mouth, person, and becomes an appendage. Not some affectation that is fiddled with by fingers, or held with pinkies out. Held in the teeth, it becomes a part of the person.
YMMV
To start with, I am not 100% convinced that the technique "requires" us to blow into the stem. But, I blow into the stem quite often, on purpose when a pipe gurgles. A gurgle is a droplet of water resting at the point where the draft meets the chamber, and blowing slightly pushes that droplet out into the bowl, where it will no longer gurgle.
That said, just put a pipe in your mouth and forget its there. You'll be breathsmoking naturally in no time. Just stop puffing, stop paying attention to it, and don't touch the pipe with your hand. You will naturally start breathsmoking without worrying over the subtle nuances.
When I was a kid, men just lit their pipes, and carried on doing what men do, stacking firewood, reading the paper, balancing the checkbook, etc... This was breathsmoking. No big plumes of smoke coming from them, just smoldering tobacco, in their clinch. No reason to overthink it. Just a slight trickle of smoke constantly circulating through their gullet. The pipe just melds in with the teeth, mouth, person, and becomes an appendage. Not some affectation that is fiddled with by fingers, or held with pinkies out. Held in the teeth, it becomes a part of the person.
YMMV
@Cosmic- That's kind of the way I look at it. Like I said in my OP, I never had any of the "problems" with pipesmoking that breathsmoking is purported to address, so I didn't really know what it involved. When I stumbled across it, I was just struck odd by the amount of focus on "dry smoking" versus letting moisture, however little, back into the pipe.
I am perfectly satisfied with my current smoking technique, which involves, as you say, not worrying about subtle nuances, but going ahead and smoking. Far from soliciting advice on how to "breathsmoke", I was simply curious if those who do pursue this technique find that it puts moisture back into the pipe.
I am perfectly satisfied with my current smoking technique, which involves, as you say, not worrying about subtle nuances, but going ahead and smoking. Far from soliciting advice on how to "breathsmoke", I was simply curious if those who do pursue this technique find that it puts moisture back into the pipe.
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