What is a too Large of a Bowl

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madox07

Lifer
Dec 12, 2016
1,823
1,692
That
Serious answer:

A PipeWorld famous guy who has been collecting pipes for over 40 years, specializes in large-sized ones, and smokes nothing else---Rich Esserman---says the maximum chamber depth for good smoking is 3", and the maximum diameter .95"--1.0"

Larger and deeper chambers CAN be smoked, but more in "name only"... meaning the hassles involved with doing it aren't worth the extra bother.
That's a he'll of a pot !
 
Mar 1, 2014
3,656
4,946
Bowl size is relative to the cut of the tobacco.
If it's a slow burning flake then packing a 3"x1" bowl would be a big mistake, even if you have the time to smoke it all most likely you'd end up with an inch of dottle.
Oppositely that bowl would be perfect to gravity feed some cube cut Burley.
 
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mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,592
The largest acceptable size, as we see from this thread, depends entirely on the smoker. I do think that everyone should own a pipe with the biggest acceptable size bowl/chamber for them, for those long meditative sessions, or for those instances where you may smoke the pipe intermittently for a day or two without taking time to pack it again.

I don't have any giants, but I have a few that fill the bill. And I do smoke them in turn, in rotation.
 
Mar 1, 2014
3,656
4,946
Not at all especially if it's bone dry when packed.
My opinion is not many blends taste good without some moisture, maybe a Burley flake or something specifically formulated by the blender to be smoked that way, but I would never smoke an English or Virginia dry.
Principle is the same as cigars, everyone would cry bloody murder if you smoke a bone dry cigar.
 

orvet

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jan 1, 2023
238
752
Willamette Valley of Oregon
Back in the 1980s, Eric Nording did a sculpture of a pipe made from pipes. It was about 4 ft tall and was mounted on a pedestal of some sort and put on display in the Copenhagen Airport. He had constructed it with a bowl that would actually hold tobacco and tubing that came out to the mouthpiece so it could theoretically be smoked. As part of the publicity around the sculpture Eric actually filled the bowl with a pound of tobacco, someone used a torch to light the tobacco and Eric puffed on the mouthpiece to prove that it was a smokable pipe.

There were publicity pictures of the pipe and Eric standing next to it in the Copenhagen Airport. Eric brought several of the pictures to a RTDA show in the late 1980s.

I don't recall for sure, but it seems to me like it was in the Guinness Book of World Records for the world's largest smokable Briar pipe.

As cool as that was, IMHO, a pipe that holds a pound of tobacco and must be mounted on a pedestal is probably too big.
 
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yanoJL

Lifer
Oct 21, 2022
1,403
3,990
Pismo Beach, California
Back in the 1980s, Eric Nording did a sculpture of a pipe made from pipes. It was about 4 ft tall and was mounted on a pedestal of some sort and put on display in the Copenhagen Airport. He had constructed it with a bowl that would actually hold tobacco and tubing that came out to the mouthpiece so it could theoretically be smoked. As part of the publicity around the sculpture Eric actually filled the bowl with a pound of tobacco, someone used a torch to light the tobacco and Eric puffed on the mouthpiece to prove that it was a smokable pipe.

There were publicity pictures of the pipe and Eric standing next to it in the Copenhagen Airport. Eric brought several of the pictures to a RTDA show in the late 1980s.

I don't recall for sure, but it seems to me like it was in the Guinness Book of World Records for the world's largest smokable Briar pipe.

As cool as that was, IMHO, a pipe that holds a pound of tobacco and must be mounted on a pedestal is probably too big.
 
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Reactions: orvet