Struggling Coming Back after a Hiatus

[PipeIT]

This is genius. Never occurred to me. Going to try it. Thank you, Grangerous

My eyes are playing tricks on me, I saw his avatar say;

 

[danimalia]

Relighting isn’t a sin. Just relax and do it as many times as it takes.

100%. My pipe smoking experience got a lot better when I stopped trying to be the perfect smoker who can smoke a bowl on a single light all the way to nothing but a fine gray ash. Especially with flakes, I think relights and stirring and having to mess with your bowl a bit is just part of the deal. I've also found the method others have described of covering the bowl with a couple of fingers, puffing, then lifting your fingers to be great for stoking an ember on verge of going out.

I am also smoking more after a hiatus, and I had some trouble picking up on flavors initially as well. I'd thought it might be related to Covid, but maybe it just takes a bit of time to retrain your olfactory senses to pick up on the flavors again.

 

[antonine]

3.) Load and enjoy two pipes at one sitting. Sometimes same tobacco in each, other times not. But when one becomes difficult, light the other. This goes perfectly with remedy one above. And is something I often enjoy doing.

Added benefit: You can really taste tobacco’s when comparing them side by side. The flavor differences are more apparent.

And if both pipes contain the same tobacco, now you’re comparing pipes! By alternating pipes you can identify the better smoking pipe.

This is an incredibly good suggestion, OP.

My consistent advice to people starting out (or in your case coming back) is: experiment until you find what works for you... and one of the basic tenets of experimentation is "isolate your variables"! Smoking the same blend side-by-side (with the same packing method) in two different pipes should help you narrow down your issue to pipe vs. packing method vs. tobacco.

 

[fishmansf]

100%. My pipe smoking experience got a lot better when I stopped trying to be the perfect smoker who can smoke a bowl on a single light all the way to nothing but a fine gray ash. Especially with flakes, I think relights and stirring and having to mess with your bowl a bit is just part of the deal. I've also found the method others have described of covering the bowl with a couple of fingers, puffing, then lifting your fingers to be great for stoking an ember on verge of going out.

I am also smoking more after a hiatus, and I had some trouble picking up on flavors initially as well. I'd thought it might be related to Covid, but maybe it just takes a bit of time to retrain your olfactory senses to pick up on the flavors again.

It definitely takes retraining because I have noticed the same thing. Seems to me after about four days of smoking 1-2 bowls a day, I start picking up on flavors again.