Ruminations on Error of Smoking Quality Theory

[OzPiper]

It is both soft as butter, and incredibly dense.

I just put a scratch in my newest pipe using my thumbnail.

That just does not compute

The only thing I know that can be both is the human brain.
Someone can be as dense as all hell, but brains are as soft as mush

 

[beefeater33]

Some of us like lighter pipes, so dense isn't categorically the best.

Some of us are dense, so we just don't understand.

 

[beefeater33]

Brair Lee is a robot................ his fingernails are made of stainless steel............. HE CAN scratch briar..........

 

[Raisedbands]

Fifty years ago, Bugler made a desktop machine that might have equaled or bettered this Zig Zag box roller.

View attachment 291345

The Zig Zag works using the same kind of cloth belt and the cigarette pops out the top when the box is closed.

But as for the flavor of better briar, Kaywoodie used to advertise their pipes had a “Kaywoodie taste” and Bob Marx sold a lot of ugly pipes for twenty years based on old, aged briar being better smoking.

It can’t be disproven.

But increasing the diameter of a cigarette 25% makes such a radical improvement it is questionable how much better grade briar improves smoking quality.

And it helps explain why today my Brunk Bros Best Briar Superior GIANT isn’t a giant size pipe at all, but about the size of the average Dr Grabow on the racks in the smoke shops.

Bigger bore pipes smoke better.

View attachment 291353View attachment 291354


If all that gorgeous briar makes a difference it only could so long as there was no cake. Once there’s a cake you smoke a carbon lined chamber.

I must say that for over 30 years I’ve subscribed to cleaning pipes after each and every smoke, just like I would do after birding with a revered shotgun. This includes reaming the pipes to prevent caking. I’ve read that this is not advisable, but with a fine fleet of briars, I have found that this practice is superior for discerning the flavor of each special blend of tobacco and for the overall preservation of the pipe collection.

 

[Briar Lee]

Some of us like lighter pipes, so dense isn't categorically the best.

As to cake, I don't smoke Carter Hall, but have read it makes big cake fast----exactly the opposite of the cake I like: thin, hard and even. CH makes soft and crumbly cake, or so I have read.

I found the 1947 Kaywoodie catalog page for their $15 to $25 pipes, then new.



Carter Hall is a mild smoke in a new pipe, is why I like to break one in using it.

Marx pipes aren’t heavy, by my standards.

Marx even advertised his Morocco as the lightest pipe available (it was deeply cross cut).

When Kaywoodie said a 95er had 100,000 lines an inch I don’t think the unaided eye could discern that many, it would blur.

The best grade of briar from anywhere, had very dense, tightly grained structure, lots of layers. But those wood layers were soft, full of passages, they breathed and were permiable.

Three smokes has noticeably darkened a very well used pipe after I removed the varnish (?) and all the cake.



With top grade briar, wherever it’s grown, you’ll get density and porosity both.

 

[Briar Lee]

Brair Lee is a robot................ his fingernails are made of stainless steel............. HE CAN scratch briar..........

Just a push.

You made me scratch my Marxman!



But it buffs out easy too.



Algerian briar was not highly regarded, until it was nearly impossible to get.

A book written just before the war by a famous pipe maker Ram repeated official colonial French statistics Algeria shipped 48 million pounds a year ranging in price from $16 to $100 per bag of 750-1000 blocks.

The cheap stuff went in pipes as cheap as 25 cents.

Marx likely used the top grade, maybe 15 cents per block.

The Marxman magical mojo may just be using only well cured and aged ten years top shelf briar.

A new Castello might be just the same formula.

 

[rmpeeps]

Marxman pipes were so ugly to start with that I’d imagine most smokers didn’t have a problem with gunking them out.

 

[Briar Lee]

Marxman pipes were so ugly to start with that I’d imagine most smokers didn’t have a problem with gunking them out.

I’m no good at percentages but no more than half the A size and less than ten per cent of the larger sizes show any sign of use beyond a few smokes, often a half a smoke, in my huge stash of Marxmans.

This is common with Lees, as well.

As many as 90% of American soldiers smoked the cigarettes in their rations.


A Lee and a Marxman were super expensive luxury items in the forties.

A Yellow Bole pipe, made of imported briar, cost one dollar in a sea of fifty cent briar pipes.


A Three Star Lee wasn’t a Kaywoodie but had three gold stars and cost ten dollars and was conventionally beautiful.

His mother, sister, girlfriend or wife needed a Christmas present and all the Marxman racks had $7.50, $10.00, and on top a $15 pipe styled for the rugged man of action, as advertised in national magazines.


A men might pay three fifty or five dollars for a Marxman if he wanted another pipe.

But his women bought him the expensive, big ones.

And if he was a cigarette smoker he had to smoke the thing a time or two to show how much he appreciated it.

Twenty years later the makers of those wild colored phenolic Venturi and The Pipe pipes did a survey and over ninety per cent of their more expensive pipes sold to women as gifts.

Marxman pipes, especially the larger ones, were a fad. The large ones cost as much or more than the best London makes.

During the war and even afterwards a woman could earn a dollar an hour and have lots of extra purchasing power.

 

[Uguccione]

With pipes, I suspect the perceived flavour of tobacco is affected by many different factors. Chamber size, airflow, humidity, pipe material, cadence of smoking, how you lit the tobacco—so many variables.

I think exactly like this.
A parallel can be made with pasta: there are various shapes, but not all of them go well with all seasonings. And the same seasoning goes differently with the various pasta shapes. Yet the raw material with which the pasta is made is the same, only the shape changes.

 

[telescopes]

That means any brand new pipe could smoke as well, if the briar were as dense.

How many years did it take to ascertain this?

 

[Briar Lee]

How many years did it take to ascertain this?

Pipe theory is an ongoing, open ended work in progress.

If it’s construction and not briar quality, that rules smoking quality the briar, sort of stands in the way.

Ergo, if quality briar cannot help smoking quality we want pure, inert, tasteless briar, with lots of thermal insulation plus porosity, like meerschaum and cobs possess.

A briar pipe, is a smoking tool, like a watch is a tool for timekeeping.

We want absence of bad, the least error possible.




That watch keeps satellite GPS time, as perfect as a watch can.

Our Marxman 400s and your fine Castellos are the least skunky tasting, if construction is the master of all.

The best briar pipe ever made, might have been the one that tasted the least bad.

Unless you believe good briar has good mojos inside that help the smoke.

This is briar pipe smoking quality theory, not Briarlee’s Law of Briar Smoking Quality.

I’ve not decided yet.

 

[FLDRD]

I'm not a statistician, but I may be observing a trend in the "ruminations". If so, I predict the next big one from Lee will be in regards to the draught hole diameter, perhaps followed by ideations of the bit style.

And I tell ya', I look forward to reading about those just as much as I've enjoyed reading about soft/dense Algerian briar that breathes, to the discovery of chamber volume characteristics...

Carry on brother Lee

I'm just not sure I want your input on my favored Peterson System characteristics - I could be scarred forever

 

[Cracklin' Tobaccy]

I enjoyed reading this post and it lead me down the proverbial rabbit hole to read about Buchanan ( already knew about a bit), the Shady Nook and Humansville. I have always thought that your use of "Humansville" was a euphemism for the small town in which you were raised. It now is one of my favorite town names in the country!

I live in Slaughterville, Oklahoma.

 

[Briar Lee]

I'm not a statistician, but I may be observing a trend in the "ruminations". If so, I predict the next big one from Lee will be in regards to the draught hole diameter, perhaps followed by ideations of the bit style.

And I tell ya', I look forward to reading about those just as much as I've enjoyed reading about soft/dense Algerian briar that breathes, to the discovery of chamber volume characteristics...

Carry on brother Lee

I'm just not sure I want your input on my favored Peterson System characteristics - I could be scarred forever

Actually, the non adoption of the Peterson System across the Peterson line up argues in favor of little unseen mojos in the briar ruling smoking quality.