I think we would really need the briar experts to share their thoughts on Cake Thickness.
The last professional I had a chat with was Jose Rubio, he said 1mm, a dime is supposedly 1.52 mm.
But, Jose, stated about only having a 1mm layer for protection, because briar can get hairline cracks in it, if smoked to hot, without this layer, he never mentioned this for better smoking quality.
Mimmo mentioned to me on breaking in a new pipe these words;
——————
For my opinion the best is NATURAL chamber . The smoker need to smoke the new pipe and make it, before smoke is nice object after smoke it will come a friend
in that way he will know the briar and his pipe in all the detail including the taste of the briar.
Sometime is necessary to make 1 mm coating because briar is very thin and there are a risk than burn, but depend of the tobacco and of the smoker.
——————
I don’t claim to be the all knowing on the subject, but when we consider how dense briar is, and that it is a wood, the idea of wanting something in between the tabac and wood to improve the smoking quality makes very little sense, especially if you’ve ever smoked out of an uncoated chamber.
The few pipes I’ve smoked and owned that had natural/uncoated chambers, were absolutely amazing, from the very first bowl, and the quality of smoking didn’t improve by smoking it more.
I consider that improperly prepared/cured briar of low quality, to be the type of wood, when smoked new, has a bad taste, but briar properly cured, of good quality, many talk of it’s nutty flavor.
So I’ve not smoked a bad tasting new uncoated pipe before, but I will say, I’ve smoked pipes that weren’t as pleasant that had coatings in them, of course I’m not saying all coatings are bad, but the idea, of when you place something there over the wood, how it could negatively effect it, and I believe the same goes for a thick layer of carbon in the chamber.
Consider what makes up this cake/carbon many want to build? Burnt tobacco, producing combustion, and all the burnt by products of smoke and tar, and this is what people want to have a layer built up inside their pipes to smoke through? LOL ?
This is really absurd when you consider the by product of waste this creates a layer of inside a pipe.
We might as well consider that we’re smoking through a layer of soot and trash in our pipes.
So I don’t believe we need a thick cake, but that the cleaner and thinner inside the chamber, the sweeter smoking the pipe will be, but of course in this conversation I only brought up 1mm vs 1.5mm, and is this really going to make a difference.
My pipes, to give you an idea, after smoking, in a fairly new pipe, if you wipe it out, you’ll notice a thin sticky layer of the carbon, at this paper thin layer, I only allow to build through out the chambers, as it becomes a more consistent even layer, but it’s probably less than a millimeter.
Try next time in a nice pipe, only allowing for a thin even layer like this, I don’t think in fine pipes you’ll notice any difference, except maybe a cleaner sweeter smoke.
On the subject of the thickness I was considering as cake, I’m talking about pipe smokers that have cake that’s like 2-4 mm thick.
The last professional I had a chat with was Jose Rubio, he said 1mm, a dime is supposedly 1.52 mm.
But, Jose, stated about only having a 1mm layer for protection, because briar can get hairline cracks in it, if smoked to hot, without this layer, he never mentioned this for better smoking quality.
Mimmo mentioned to me on breaking in a new pipe these words;
——————
For my opinion the best is NATURAL chamber . The smoker need to smoke the new pipe and make it, before smoke is nice object after smoke it will come a friend
in that way he will know the briar and his pipe in all the detail including the taste of the briar.Sometime is necessary to make 1 mm coating because briar is very thin and there are a risk than burn, but depend of the tobacco and of the smoker.
——————
I don’t claim to be the all knowing on the subject, but when we consider how dense briar is, and that it is a wood, the idea of wanting something in between the tabac and wood to improve the smoking quality makes very little sense, especially if you’ve ever smoked out of an uncoated chamber.
The few pipes I’ve smoked and owned that had natural/uncoated chambers, were absolutely amazing, from the very first bowl, and the quality of smoking didn’t improve by smoking it more.
I consider that improperly prepared/cured briar of low quality, to be the type of wood, when smoked new, has a bad taste, but briar properly cured, of good quality, many talk of it’s nutty flavor.
So I’ve not smoked a bad tasting new uncoated pipe before, but I will say, I’ve smoked pipes that weren’t as pleasant that had coatings in them, of course I’m not saying all coatings are bad, but the idea, of when you place something there over the wood, how it could negatively effect it, and I believe the same goes for a thick layer of carbon in the chamber.
Consider what makes up this cake/carbon many want to build? Burnt tobacco, producing combustion, and all the burnt by products of smoke and tar, and this is what people want to have a layer built up inside their pipes to smoke through? LOL ?
This is really absurd when you consider the by product of waste this creates a layer of inside a pipe.
We might as well consider that we’re smoking through a layer of soot and trash in our pipes.
So I don’t believe we need a thick cake, but that the cleaner and thinner inside the chamber, the sweeter smoking the pipe will be, but of course in this conversation I only brought up 1mm vs 1.5mm, and is this really going to make a difference.
My pipes, to give you an idea, after smoking, in a fairly new pipe, if you wipe it out, you’ll notice a thin sticky layer of the carbon, at this paper thin layer, I only allow to build through out the chambers, as it becomes a more consistent even layer, but it’s probably less than a millimeter.
Try next time in a nice pipe, only allowing for a thin even layer like this, I don’t think in fine pipes you’ll notice any difference, except maybe a cleaner sweeter smoke.
On the subject of the thickness I was considering as cake, I’m talking about pipe smokers that have cake that’s like 2-4 mm thick.
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