Too Hot To Handle

[rayje589]

So last night I was smoking some frog Morton in a churchwarden and at times the pipe heated up to the point where I couldn't even hold the pipe by the bowl. I'm pretty sure it's not the tobacco as it doesn't seem to pop up in any reviews I've read. So is it me smoking too fast or is it the pipe?
Don't know if it will help any but this is the exact pipe I use.

 

[martiniman]

My churchwardens have thin bowl, probably to keep the weight down and they all get hot.

 

[gray4lines]

Too hot to hold is likely too hot regardless of thin walls or not.
Try drying the tobacco a little more. My Frog Morton came very moist out of the tin...puffig to keep it lit will likely cause overheating.
If you "pinch" the tobacco and it sticks together, it is too moist. Dry enough and it should fall apart and not stick at all.

 

[peckinpahhombre]

When I first got into pipes I didn't know a good pipe from a bad pipe. I ended up buying a Luciano pipe as my second pipe. To this day, no matter what I do, holding that pipe is like cupping Lucifer's testicles. Some pipes just burn hot. No idea why.

 

[gray4lines]

To this day, no matter what I do, holding that pipe is like cupping Lucifer's testicles.

LOL!
I have 2 Luciano's that are doing great so far. I hope yours breaks in and smokes better!

 

[rotschefeller]

Other posters have made good points,
I would like to add that when I get a new pipe, it burns hot for the first 5-10 smokes before it is broken in, usually. How long have you had the pipe? Either way it is probably not so good that it gets so hot that you can't touch it, but it might improve some over time just by smoking.
Still, follow the advice of other posters as well.

 

[chakaraka]

+1 roth...although I am a newbie and do not own a Churchwarden, you echoed what the main onus of my response was going to be.
:clap:

 

[lestrout]

peckin - what shape is your hot Luciano? I have 3, which all are just fine, but they are variations of Rhodesians.
hp

les

 

[peckinpahhombre]

mine is a bell shape

 

[jah76]

My Peterson XL315 has a "bell-like" shape and it tends to get warm right in the middle if I'm being mindless. I just chalked it up to puffing to fast coupled with the design (since it tapers in the "middle").

 

[rayje589]

I had another bowl from that pipe with a different tobacco today... I tried not to think of how I was smoking and did notice I was smoking a bit fast (which heated the pipe quickly)... But then when I tried to smoke slower I would have to relight quite frequently. Guess I need to work on my technique a bit.

 

[rayje589]

I did give it 30 minutes to dry, on top of me thinking it was quite dry already.

 

[matchstickman]

Some aromatics, and more than a few OTC aromatics can take a long time to dry properly -- I've seen some take a day (that's 24 hours) or more, so 30 minutes is, IMO, certainly not enough for many aro's.

Something you can try doing if you think your tobacco is too moist is to measure out a bowl worth of tobacco, set it on a few sheets of paper, and aim a regular old desk lamp at it. I use a desk lamp with a regular 40W bulb, and the heat from the bulb will sort of "bake" some of the moisture out of the tobacco and it usually only takes about 5 to 10 minutes if youre really impatient. In any case, I never really started truly appreciating tobacco flavors until I learned to start drying it more than I thought it needed to be dried.

 

[rayje589]

So while smoking today I kind of had an eureka moment. I may have figured out why I kept having to relight. I dried my tobacco quite a bit, to the point where I thought I had dried it too much so I was perplexed as to why it kept going out. Well I noticed there was ash and while this has never been a problem before I tamped it out and I have had to relight far less.