To Cake or Not to Cake

[Chasing Embers]

Not that I'm aware of. They dry completely when left out. As for the Penzance, I smoke English blends in briars, and Penzance is just nasty.

 

[cigrmaster]

My pipes smoke cooler and with more flavor when I have about a dimes worth of cake in my pipes. When I am breaking in a new pipe it smokes warmer until the cake has built up.
I was told by an experienced pipe guy years ago to let cake build. I just wish I could remember who told me this. It could have been pipestud when we were hanging out at a yahoo chat site back around 2000.

 

[instymp]

What Harris said, I just don't let it get to a nickel.

 

[jndyer]

It is always interesting to see the variety of opinions that get expressed on this subject. Of course variety is what make the brotherhood of briar such a fun group.
I for one am in the let the cake build camp. I do find that my smokes are cooler and more flavorful when I allow a bit of cake to form. I also find it quite satisfying to spend a few moments once ever few months to trim back the cake.
As always, experiment and find what works best for you and your pipes.

 

[dottiewarden]

Cake happens!

:clap:
When I notice the chamber is getting cake build-up, I scrape it back as far as I can without getting down to bare wood. No science here, just opening up the chamber to bring it back to its intended dimensions.

 

[instymp]

Cake is your friend.

 

[mackeson]

I don't cake much, but I don't go nuts about it either. I gently scrape my pies after each smoke with a pipe tool to get the tobacco bits out and then use a bristled cleaner to do the dual duty of absorbing and scraping. I get cake eventually, and clean them with a reamer and alcohol when they get close to dime thickness. I'm probably missing out on good flavor/cool smoking of cake--- but this has always worked best for me.

I made the mistake of letting my first Grabow and cob cake beyond all sense, and I didn't know enough at the time to ream them, so I threw both away.

 

[warren]

I made the mistake of letting my first Grabow and cob cake beyond all sense, and I didn't know enough at the time to ream them, so I threw both away.

A lot of pipe smokers over these few centuries treated their pipes in the same manner, intentionally. Many smokers look at the pipe as simply a hunk of wood adapted for smoking. I'm not suggesting this is proper or improper, it's simply one way of using a pipe. Most of us have probably seen such smokers and their pipes here and there over the years.