I know, this has been discussed here over and over again, but I have some specific questions to you successful SG flake smokers and thought that this may bring up something new.
First of all, I dried my Gawith Flakes even to bone dry crunchiness and still do not get from them, what I would call a pleasant relaxing smoke. Given the dryness, I tried cube cutting and even cube cutting with the cubes rubbed out, also did I rub them out to total deconstruction of the flake to its single fibers. Not to speak of fold’n’stuff, which resulted in a catastrophe. I generally pack them extra lose and do not fill up to the bowl’s top as I found out, that this gives the most acceptable result.
I mean, I can get the flavours and can get some minutes straight without relighting. But, if I want those flakes to stay lit for more than maybe five minutes, I need to draw stronger and more often than I want, which results in tongue bite and bad flavours. Also do I get way more of a dottle with SG flakes than from “normal” blends. And when I do the cube cut thing, the embers make their way through the tobacco, but leave the areas around the walls unburnt, which permanently requires rearrangement of the tobacco to get an even burn.
Long story short - Is it still my technique, which needs to be optimised, or are those phenomena, which bother me normal and something to deal with even for the experienced smoker?
When I smoke a pipe, I normally read or do something else, that gets my attention partially, so I do not want to focus my thoughts and doings too much on the pipe. Are those tobaccos not for smokes like I prefer them or is there still hope, that I one day might see the light and have a normal, effortless bowl of maybe FVF or St. James?
PS.: I do not have these problems with plugs, as I just shave off the thinnest possible slices of those, which are then rubbed out and dried, but not all the plugs are available as flakes...
First of all, I dried my Gawith Flakes even to bone dry crunchiness and still do not get from them, what I would call a pleasant relaxing smoke. Given the dryness, I tried cube cutting and even cube cutting with the cubes rubbed out, also did I rub them out to total deconstruction of the flake to its single fibers. Not to speak of fold’n’stuff, which resulted in a catastrophe. I generally pack them extra lose and do not fill up to the bowl’s top as I found out, that this gives the most acceptable result.
I mean, I can get the flavours and can get some minutes straight without relighting. But, if I want those flakes to stay lit for more than maybe five minutes, I need to draw stronger and more often than I want, which results in tongue bite and bad flavours. Also do I get way more of a dottle with SG flakes than from “normal” blends. And when I do the cube cut thing, the embers make their way through the tobacco, but leave the areas around the walls unburnt, which permanently requires rearrangement of the tobacco to get an even burn.
Long story short - Is it still my technique, which needs to be optimised, or are those phenomena, which bother me normal and something to deal with even for the experienced smoker?
When I smoke a pipe, I normally read or do something else, that gets my attention partially, so I do not want to focus my thoughts and doings too much on the pipe. Are those tobaccos not for smokes like I prefer them or is there still hope, that I one day might see the light and have a normal, effortless bowl of maybe FVF or St. James?
PS.: I do not have these problems with plugs, as I just shave off the thinnest possible slices of those, which are then rubbed out and dried, but not all the plugs are available as flakes...
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