Shaking Your Ash?

[ray47]

I'm curious. How many of you, when breaking in a new pipe, shake the burnt ash after each bowl, to start a cake to form? I've done this in the past with new uncoated bowls and really haven't found it effects the building of cake one way or another.

 

[Casual]

I am a born-again member of the Warm Water and Paper Towel cult, so I don’t let much of anything build up. If I smoked more, I think the regimen would be too much for me, but for now I like not having to pay attention to cake.

 

[whsergent]

I do that with a new pipe and sometimes with ones that have cake already if i suspect that the bowl didnt smoke completely or maybe ended up a little damp.

I think it adsorbs some moisture and help keeps the bottom cake in good shape.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I'm not a cake fan. But, despite rinsing my pipes in water and then reaming it with a paper towel after each smoke... or almost each smoke... cake still seems to happen.

I find that ashy cake tends to be brittle and breaks easily... But YMMV

 

[ray47]

I think it adsorbs some moisture and help keeps the bottom cake in good shape.

I never can get bottom cake to form. Maybe I'm scraping the bottom of the bowl too much.

 

[whsergent]

Well i always wipe the bowl out, i dont leave the ash there, you only need a fingernails thickness or so of cake to make the difference so i try not to encourage too much build up.

 

[whsergent]

I never can get bottom cake to form. Maybe I'm scraping the bottom of the bowl too much.

If the tobacco isnt wet and you smoke all the way down it just forms on its own. If its a new pipe start with partial bowls to build it.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I used to worry about why the heal of the pipe kept looking like it had no cake... till I had to scrape out one of my favorite pipes at the bottom because the cake had formed over the draft hole in the chamber. It will cake, and so what if it never does (but it will). It's just the heal, so it doesn't really have to have cake.

 

[ray47]

I find that ashy cake tends to be brittle and breaks easily... But YMMV

I've heard this also

If the tobacco isnt wet and you smoke all the way down it just forms on its own. If its a new pipe start with partial bowls to build it.

I never did the partial bowl break in. I just load the bowl to the top and start smoking. Guess I'm just Old School.

 

[whsergent]

I think old school is the partial bowl break in to build bottom cake and then to "smoke the hell out of it" for a while before you put it into regular rotation.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I never did the partial bowl break in. I just load the bowl to the top and start smoking. Guess I'm just Old School.

I don't ever do this either. I just smoke the pipe, without worrying one iota about cake. I guess I just was so anxious in the beginning about building cake, that when I found that cake didn't make something magical happen, I just lost all concern.

 

[sandollars]

I am not a cake builder. I have ZERO problems with heat or keeping a pipe lit so I figure why bother.

My pipes are squeaky clean at all times. The ash comes out too.

I see no advantages to building cake. It just makes your bowl smaller.

I EAT cake with frosting.

 

[perdurabo]

I'm not a cake fan. But, despite rinsing my pipes in water and then reaming it with a paper towel after each smoke... or almost each smoke... cake still seems to happen.

I find that ashy cake tends to be brittle and breaks easily... But YMMV

Cake? It happens!

 

[perdurabo]

I have one pipe that Ive allowed to build cake because it had a huge hole in the bowl, which Stanwell tried to cover with that “ bowl carbon coating bull fucking shit!” What a joke! That stuff is used to cover mistakes that the company made. I swear it! uggggggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Yea, there was a little fake outrage there. It seems to be all the rage with the Generation Zoomers. So I’m playing along.

 

[whsergent]

I have one pipe that Ive allowed to build cake because it had a huge hole in the bowl, which Stanwell tried to cover with that “ bowl carbon coating bull fucking shit!” What a joke! That stuff is used to cover mistakes that the company made.

Yeah the couple of stanwells i bought back when had that terrible bowl coating and i swear it tasted like tar.
i agree that its real purpose is to protect substandard, badly cured briar and to cover visible flaws in the wood.

Its really hard to burn out a pipe, i have never done it in a pipe that didnt already have a flaw in the briar. No excuse for that coating BS imo.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I am offended by your outrage!! Or maybe not.

As to ash, no, no, no! I remove all ash with a hot water flush, after every smoke, unless of course I smoke several bowls in a row from the same pipe.

Hard thin cake is my druthers, and ash has no place in that.

 

[krizzose]

I do the ash thing in new untreated pipes, but only for the first 2 or 3 bowls. Then I just smoke it as normal, wiping out the bowl after each smoke

 

[cigrmaster]

You should never shake around pipe. It does nothing to build a good cake and it will make your tobacco taste like ash.

 

[BROBS]

 

[Dissident_Mantis]

I learn something new on this forum every time i log in, sometimes it blows my mind. I am now hearing that there are people who actually do not want to form cake? The other week some members were saying that you can smoke a briar pipe every day.