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Hot bowls
tim12string
Apprentice
in General
So what is the average time that you can hold the bowl of your pipe before it gets too hot and you have to start holding it by the stem? Depending on the pipe, 10 minutes is usually my limit.
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I've pretty much gotten into the habit of enjoying a Tobacco Medley when I smoke. Meaning that I will lay out 5 or 6 pipes on my desk and start with one. When it gets hot, or too warm, I simply lay it down for a spell and light up the next in line with a different tobacco. I'll do this throughout the night, like I've done tonight.
Started out with Red Cake 5100 in a nice rusticate Bent Bulldog, then fired up a bowl of MM965 in a Straight Bulldog, then it was on to Carter Hall in my newly acquired Dagner Poker Cob, and finally some Sutliff Peach Cobbler in my designated Peach Pipe, a Yello Bole Apple.
I've circled back through the herd and am now back to the Peach for the second time.
I smoke pipes to enjoy the various blends in briars that are almost all one's that I've refurbed. I don't want to suffer through holding a hot pipe or smoking tobacco that's getting scorched or ashy.
Just my $ 0.02
Dino
Speaking of hot pipes I had a horrifying experience with my Burl King Thumbhole/Bridge pipe the other day. I was smoking outside and it was a windy day so the pipe was burning exceptionally hot that day. As long as I held it by the bottom and up near the stem everything was fine. But then I got the inclination to actually place my thumb inside the hole. I immediately regretted it. It was blazing hot and for a brief moment my thumb was stuck. The heat completely surround my thumb - and it was nearly hot enough to blister. Now the pipe is a pretty thick chunk of wood and the heat is pretty well evenly distributed. But sticking your thumb in the hole completely surround it in heat. It has to be the hottest spot on the pipe. And if it's designed for a smoker to hold it in that manner ... it's a bad idea. Especially on a windy day when the wind is helping to stoke the fire.
@judandhispipe I'm normally a very slow smoker and do sip, using the breath method. I think the problem was the windy conditions stoking the fires in the pipe. I could pull the pipe out of my mouth completely and plumes of smoke were pouring out of the stem without me puffin. The wind alone seemed to be smoking my pipe for me. That's why it got so hot.
@motie2 When I looked up the pipe I discovered it was a "Burl King Thumbhole Pipe". But someone here also refered to it as a bridge pipe. So I just put the slash between Thumbhole and Bridge to cover all the bases.
I'd say a Wind Cap would have helped reduce the excessive burning, but that's too pretty a pipe to risk scratching.
For what it's worth....
One of the tricks to smoking cool, is to allow heat to escape your bowl vertically. This can be achieved 2 ways. First, you can work your tobacco into a pyramid or upside down cone shape with your tamper. By tamping around the edges of the bowl, you will do two things that prevent heat buildup. One is keeping the cherry pushed to the center of the pipe, and keeping the heat as far from the walls of the pipe as possible. The other is to never tamp directly in the center of the ash, once you have the cherry burning center.
You will notice that if you tamp your tobacco flat, heat will be trapped under the ash. If you must tamp flat, you can use your pick on your tamper as an aerator, to help to allow the heat to escape vertically. Some blends produce a very fine ash, and those blends may seem to burn hot, but in reality they are simply not breathing vertically, which is essential to keeping a pipe from overheating. Once the pipe gets hot, flavor almost immediately diminishes, and tongue bite from steam dramatically increases.
Like Bonanza, I sometimes smoke more than one pipe with the same blend, and alternate back and forth between the two. I got in the habit of doing this, when I got the idea while breaking in a pipe. Since I had a hard time devoting the patience to sit the new pipe down during break in, I decided to load up another and alternate between the two.
Once you get in the habit of smoking your pipe as cool as possible, and start to see the advantages, you will derive a lot of satisfaction from a better smoking experience. Also, your pipes will be maintained in much better condition, and burn thru's, spider webbing, and external discoloration of wood staining will be a thing of the past.