The Biggest Revelation I’ve Ever Had That Changed Pipe Smoking For Me Forever

[zanxion]

I do this too, combined with some other trick; I do not close firmly my lips on the stem. I keep the stem a bit on the side intentionally, drawing a bit of fresh air along with the smoke with each sip. I avoid over-saturating my taste buds with the smoke, and hence I get every bit out of it.

 

[bersekero]

I do this too, combined with some other trick; I do not close firmly my lips on the stem. I keep the stem a bit on the side intentionally, drawing a bit of fresh air along with the smoke with each sip. I avoid over-saturating my taste buds with the smoke, and hence I get every bi out of it.

Could you please share all the tricks? Thank you in advance.

 

[Waning Embers]

Frankly it tastes just like the tin smells.

Oh no, it can't taste how it smells because of reasons!

Great job, you've figured it out!

 

[Chris T]

I do this too, combined with some other trick; I do not close firmly my lips on the stem. I keep the stem a bit on the side intentionally, drawing a bit of fresh air along with the smoke with each sip. I avoid over-saturating my taste buds with the smoke, and hence I get every bit out of it.

Ditto.

 

[zanxion]

Could you please share all the tricks? Thank you in advance.

Here is another one. When smoking some tobacco that leaves too much moisture in the bowl, add some rice before the tobacco when packing the bowl. It helps for a drier smoke, very useful when you aren't using a filter, or you use a balsa filter. Many complain that it alters the taste. The trick here is rinsing the rice with water before using it. Rinse the rice with lots of water till the water comes out clean. Dry the rice, and it is ready for use. If you don't do this, the dust on the rice will burn along ruining the taste of the smoke.

And another one. I collect the dottle after every smoke in a can. Every four to five smokes, I add water in the can. When the time comes to water the plants, I pour the stinky mix at the base of the plants. I don't know if smoking will eventually kill me, but it makes my plants more vigorous than ever.

 

[bersekero]

Thank you very much for your time. I do grow many plants like tomatoes etc for eating healthy. Oxymoron for a smoker I know.
I pour ash from the fireplace to my plants from time to time.

 

[Chris T]

I toss cigar stubs in my staghorn ferns. Should we move this to a Fall gardening hack thread?

 

[bersekero]

Well, today I rediscovered and tried the Frank German method and it works! For me, better than the three stages filling with this kid-wonan-man handshake.
PS. I was already in the right path thanks to chasing embers and cosmic but with the Frank method I totally minimized the relights unless I intentionally put the pipe down.

 

[Pypkė]

Makes sense, and thank-you for sharing. Taste is less sensitive at very hot or very cool temperatures. Try it with coffee by tasting it when it is piping hot and then again when it has cooled off some. Smoke needs to cool off some to taste it. I "taste" most flavors in the retrohale, which engages your olfactory sense rather than your tongue. I haven't reasoned this out before.

 

[bersekero]

Thank you for the great advice! Lately I am seriously practicing slow smoking after reading cosmic's amazing thread and I am trying not to smoke hot as I used to. It's working exactly like you said. Thanks again.
PS. At last I can smoke with some dignity and not look like a desperate jerk who is constantly flighting with the pipe and lighter!

 

[Sig]

I believe the "retrohale" is very important for tasting tobacco.
Oddly enough, most people do it, many dont even know they do.
Ive sat with many pipers who say they cannot do that because their sinuses will revolt. Or claim that retrohaling IS inhaling and they would never do that.
The entire time they are saying this, smoke is rolling out their nose.
Some even confuse retrohaling with French inhaling...which is the exact opposite.
Ive even seen pipers who cannot NOT retrohale. I believe im in that camp. I just do it without thought.

 

[Choatecav]

I believe the "retrohale" is very important for tasting tobacco.
Oddly enough, most people do it, many dont even know they do.
Ive sat with many pipers who say they cannot do that because their sinuses will revolt. Or claim that retrohaling IS inhaling and they would never do that.
The entire time they are saying this, smoke is rolling out their nose.
Some even confuse retrohaling with French inhaling...which is the exact opposite.
Ive even seen pipers who cannot NOT retrohale. I believe im in that camp. I just do it without thought.

This is key. Retrohaling is the biggest single factor to tasting, IMO.

 

[zanxion]

I feel that somewhere past mid-smoke, at least for me, the only way to get the taste of the smoke is retrohaling it.

 

[bersekero]

I've learned to retrohale some time ago and it really improved the tasting of tobacco. Now I do it unconsciously.
Quite a few times I combine it with french inhaling.

 

[bersekero]

Since we’re on the subject of methods, I find the breathing method gives me the best flavor and the smoothest smoke. The only downside is that I don’t like clenching, and all my pipes are straight and fairly heavy, so I end up having to hold them with my hand the whole time — which gets tiring. So I rarely use the method. It's only convenient at the armchair while watching tv.

 

[bobpnm]

I’ll go back to my early days of moving from cigars to pipe smoking. Not as sophisticated as retrohaling or some advanced breath smoking. My biggest revelation was embracing relights. It seems so basic because it is. It was the beginning of my pipe smoking education. The foundation of learning to pack a pipe. It was permission to learn by trial and error. After 17 years, I still don’t care about relights. I’m not a professional pipe smoker.

 

[khiddy]

There's no shame in relighting. That's it. That's the insight.

And if someone makes fun of you or tries to insinuate that you're not a good pipe smoker because you needed to relight, pick up your stuff and move away. You don't need that negativity in your life.

 

[Chris T]

Agree completely about the relights. Though I confess it does give me a smug sense of self-satisfaction when occasionally I don't have to.

 

[Pipeandapencil]

I didn't realize how tight I was until I saw this thread. So I consciously relaxed and naturally I did what I guess most call the breath smoking. It was something of an epiphany for me too that for the billow effect to really work you have to be loose, which is not the natural posture if you're a new pipe smoker. It generated a good bit more of air back through the stem than I was used to but it stayed lit and didn't get overly moist as I would have feared. But I guess I've read it 1000 times on here and haven't really taken it in... just let the pipe hang there, relax, and quit trying so hard.

 

[bersekero]

Looks like

The Biggest Revelation I’ve Ever Had That Changed Pipe Smoking For Me Forever​

Was exactly this thread! Thank you all for the great advice and responses.