Morning project - opened a new tin of Black Frigate last night, and filled up a jar. Did a late evening smoke and ran into some problems with the Ropp, so consulted the Cap and he filled me in. Apparently, my loose packs weren't. Too tight. And I didn't crumble the cake fine enough. Gravity feed. So I tried a gravity feed two pack in the Ropp this morning after last night's travails. Used about 2/3 the tobacco as in my usual loose packs. Figured this new gravity feed was overkill and I'd end up with a much shorter smoke. Not so. A longer and more flavourful smoke!
So just to open my unbelieving eyes, I took one of my McQ Barrel Riders (I have two, one dedicated to Mad Fiddler) and gave the miniature a gravity feed loose 2 pack of Black Frigate and got an astounding 17 minutes, a great smoke as well. Now look carefully at these two pipes. Believe it or not, the Ropp has over 3X the tobacco capacity of the Barrel. Reason? The bowl in the rider is very very shallow, and there is a lot of briar to take up the heat. You can't see this in the photo (which is new btw). So skipping the details, I now have 2 pipes dedicated to my favourite afternoon tobacco. The McQ loves the heck out of BF, just like the Ropp, which drew 40+ minutes with a miniscule amount of fodder.
And I now have short and long smoke tools for the job. And will be using a lot less of this great tobacco for longer and better smokes, conserving my stock as well. And will stop watching the clock and enjoy!
Man, am I glad there are guys in this forum who know what the hell they are talking about. The trick is to listen.
I'm actually pretty good at that, being a retired professional violinist, he said arrogantly. I'll go away now. Time for an encore.