Taking a Pipe from Good to Great
Monday, April 8, 2013 at 8:59AM | Neill Archer Roan | Permalink tagged Breaking in, PIpe Hygiene | in Successful Smoking 
Bamboo Pot by Jess ChonowitschThere is no little irony that a pipe’s monetary value decreases by approximately half when it is smoked because a pipe begins to deliver value to its owner when it is smoked. Some pipes are great smokers from the first light. Others require a breaking-in period to come into greatness. Regardless, when a flame kisses the tamped tobacco inside the bowl chamber for the first time, the journey begins. Will the pipe become a beloved favorite, or will it rest, dust-laden, on a rack next to its owner’s better friends? To some extent, the answer depends on you.
As much as pipemakers concentrate their efforts on making beautiful pipes, they know that, over time, most pipe smokers become inured to a pipe’s beauty. Smoking quality, however, is a very different matter. A pipe that repeatedly delivers wonderful flavor–especially from the first light–endows its creator with favored-maker status. Pipemakers sweat that first smoke. They want it to be superb. The desire to deliver a great first smoke drives decisions ranging from where briar is sourced to how it is drilled to whether or not a bowl is coated.
Most pipemakers I know don’t want their customers to have to endure a break-in period. They want their pipes to immediately satisfy their owners. However, this doesn’t always happen, and sometimes one’s best smokers start out poorly. In my experience, even wonderful pipes improve when they are skillfully developed.
Bent Apple by Peter HedegaardAlmost every pipe – regardless of cost – requires stewardship and skill in being developed from good to great. While there is the occasional pipe that is a superb smoker from the beginning, most pipes can be improved no matter how humble their beginnings. While I’m not particularly a touchy-feely type who is inclined to make sense of the unknown with metaphysical rationales, I do believe that affection improves pipes. This is probably because beloved pipes are smoked more often, with greater care, and with more preferred tobaccos than are others. However, this is an incomplete explanation. Affection makes most things thrive, and pipes are no exception. And while love may make a good pipe better, it’s not a prescription to improve every pipe. It is nigh impossible to conjure love when it is absent.
Pipes are like art in that they may leave their maker’s hands finished, but they are incomplete until they are enjoyed. Art is completed by an audience; a pipe is completed by its smoker. This begs the question: How does a pipe smoker best complete a pipe? How does one take a pipe and make a good and beloved friend?
Spaghetti Bamboo by Adam DavidsonYou see a spaghetti bamboo freehand depicted here that was made by artisan Adam Davidson. Among a collection of many beloved pipes, this is a particular favorite of mine. Every time I smoke it I marvel at its quality, and I’ve often pondered why. What is it about this pipe that works so well for me? What is different about it that endows it with superb smoking qualities?
Experience suggests that pipes are rarely good or bad because quality isn’t binary, but rather exists in degrees along a continuum. While good pipes certainly share certain design and material similarities, great pipes are made great by those that smoke them. As my friend, George Amrom, says, “the more you smoke them, the better they get.”
Sometimes, pipes are slow to deliver a satisfying smoking experience. They require breaking in. Some of the older Charatans and Dunhills were legendarily stubborn when being broken-in. To hear their owners describe the process, you would think that those pipes were alive. It was if their owners had to coax a great smoke from them in a contest of wills. Having gone through that process myself, I wondered whether some of those pipes would ever become favorites, or would them wind up in a shoebox alongside other discarded things?
When I buy a pipe, it is because I am attracted to it, but I cannot know how that initial attraction will pan out. I can only hope. For me – when it comes to a new pipe – hope springs eternal. I’ve never bought a pipe with an I-sorta-like-it feeling. When I make a pipe mine I’m more than enthusiastic about it; I love it. I can’t wait to spend more time with it. Few moments are more fraught with anticipation or hope than setting flame to tobacco in a new pipe for the first time.
First impressions are powerful.
When the smoke gushes through the new draft hole to first curl upon the tongue, lingering there with nutty sweetness or the murky, dark tang of some leaf that has journeyed far to finally tickle the palate, that first impression wields significant power. If the tobacco blooms fully, the pipe’s place among its mates seems assured. If the experience is flat or off-color, we have trouble forgiving or forgetting. That pipe may never find its place among other favorites in the rotation.
I cannot help but feel disappointment when a beautiful pipe performs poorly. Like most people, I assume that beauty signals goodness. That form should follow function has been fully inculcated in me, but through some weird interpolation of this aphorism’s wisdom, I have attached myself with no little stubbornness to the notion that function should also follow form, too; a beautiful pipe should be a good smoker. I am exasperated when this isn’t true.
One alarming signal during a maiden smoke is when the tobacco being smoked bears little or no resemblance to how it tastes in other pipes. What makes this happen?
Some blame poor briar curing. Some speculate that it results from some disconnect between the briar’s properties and one’s body chemistry. Some assert that there are minerals that have shaped a particular briar’s flavor, even after it has been properly cured. I would argue that the reason doesn’t matter; if the smoking experience delivered by a pipe is unsatisfactory, what matters is what one does about it.
When it comes to taking a pipe from good to great - or even from poor to great - several things matter. First, the method by which one breaks in a pipe matters. Fortunately, breaking in a pipe is not rocket science, but there are a few key strategies to keep in mind.
Pipes, like people, have their destiny shaped in their beginnings. A pipe may be given a considerable boost along the quality continuum with a skilled break-in process. Second, persistence is necessary. Pipes vary in their smoking characteristics, including how quickly they mature. Patience is almost always rewarded.
Finally,I believe that some tobaccos are better for breaking in a pipe than others, although I don’t often read about or hear this subject discussed. A poor tobacco choice in the break-even period is not just a little counterproductive, it can almost ruin a pipe.
Like many novice pipe smokers, when I first started smoking a pipe I used the tobacco I liked to smoke to break in my new pipes. Unfortunately, in those days I often smoked aromatics. Because aromatics tobaccos typically are heavily cased, they leave a goopy residue at the bottom of the tobacco chamber. They are difficult to smoke to the bottom because they are laden with so much casing, and they often contain propylene glycol to prevent drying out.
Some pipe-smokers have cast-iron palates, and they have no trouble smoking a heavily cased aromatic to the bowl bottom. It is my experience that smoking goop is next to impossible, not to mention distasteful in the extreme. For this reason, I suggest avoiding smoking aromatic tobaccos during a pipe’s break-in period.
I do not believe that consistently smoking to the chamber bottom is important, or even desirable, but if you wish to create heel cake (cake in the bottom of the tobacco chamber), it is important to smoke to the bottom of the tobacco chamber during the break-in period. Exercise caution doing this; consistent relights, especially with a butane lighter, can damage the bottom of the chamber, particularly if the chamber is uncoated.
I suggest smoking straight, ribbon-cut red Virginias during the break-in period. They burn evenly, are not too heavy in nicotine, and don’t leave ghosts (residual flavors) in a pipe bowl. The sugars in natural red Virginias create sufficient heat to appropriately char the briar bowl surface which accelerates cake formation.
Avoid aromatics when you are breaking in a pipe that comes with no bowl coating. If you must smoke an aromatic blend, make sure it is appropriately dried and take care to avoid smoking too hot and creating too much condensate in the bowl bottom.
Like many pipe-smokers, I advocate incrementally loading the chamber during the break-in period. Begin by filling the chamber one-third full, then smoke to the bottom until a heel cake begins to form. Then fill to one half, repeating the smoke down. Then two-thirds, etc.
This method reduces the possibility of moist dottle forming during the early stages of the break-in. A smaller amount of tobacco - especially if it has been dried some - is less likely to leave a moist residue at the bottom of the bowl. This facilitates smoking to the bottom and building heel cake.
Pipe hygiene is always important, but it is critically important during the break-in period. I always swab out the tobacco chamber with a pipe cleaner immediately after smoking in addition to vigorously cleaning the draft hole. Condensate, sugar-casing residue, and saliva combine to create an ideal environment for fermentation and other undesirable chemical reactions. When pipes sour, they usually sour as a result of poor hygiene. Nobody wants this stew of sugar and spit soaking into new briar. I will never forget my first sour pipe experience. It resulted directly from my lack of thoroughness in cleaning my pipe. A good break-in period results from keeping a new pipe both clean and dry.
Finally, be patient. I once read about a fellow who nursed a poor smoker along for 18 years until it suddenly transformed from poor- to peak-performer. Frankly, if there is such a thing as too much patience, this is probably a good example. Still, there is a lot to be said for sticking with a pipe for awhile before giving up.
Personally, I give a pipe at least a year and at least 24 post-break-in bowls before I give up on it.
Be willing to experiment with different tobaccos. Some pipes perform much better with one blend type over another. I own pipes that perform excellently with English or Oriental blends while lending no satisfaction whatsoever to Virginias.
If one needs any proof that the Almighty is egalitarian, I offer the evidence that both inexpensive and expensive pipes may be equally improved by good stewardship and break-in skill. Conversely, spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a pipe won’t protect a pipe smoker from poor smoking habits, questionable tobacco choices, or poor pipe hygiene.
When it comes to taking a pipe from good to great, care and skill are likely to create that magical love-state that makes a pipe truly precious and a wonderful smoking companion.
Reader Comments (5)
Truly good advice. For quite some time, my break-in tobacco of choice has been McCranie's Red Ribbon or, vigorously and fully rubbed out, Red Flake. The only problem with this method is, I have found, it is such good stuff that some pipes inevitably are never switched off the leaf after they are properly broken in!
Sometimes money is a motivator to 'make it work', other times it's that I just really want to raise this pipe as a child, with love and understanding and nurturing to the point of being fussy. My first Castello has become such a great performer and friend that I affectionately call her 'Cassie". And it wasn't all that great at first light either.
I am convinced that I for one, get what I put in to the whole process.
Oil cured pipes smoke great from the first bowl and for non-oil cured the determining factor is the age of the briar. Three (3) years is the norm from quality makers but more is better. Castello Ardor, Bonfiglioli are all aged for 10 years or more and have well deserved reputations for being great smokers. If the bowl is coated then that is what you are smoking. Three of the best-known Danish carvers told me this during a long afternoon drinking session.
Most pipes made with good briar will after sufficient breaking in smoke well and sometimes great. But 24 bowls is too long & life is too short for that. I long ago decided if a pipe isn’t there in 10 bowls it's gone. This has never been an issue with oil cured Ashtons, or Ferndowns neither for well aged Castello, & Ardors, etc. I did have on Castello that took till the 10 bowls to turn but most do it in 2-3.
So simply put it is yea old briar above all else.
Maxim
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