Nasty Taste From a Filter
Ryanmclellansr
Apprentice
in General
So I tried a carbon filter for the first time (only been smoking a pipe since DEC ‘17) and it tasted nasty to me. The taste reminded me of kimchi. Is it possible I just bought old filters that were no good? Should I try to find another type of filter. My Rattray pipe takes a 9mm filter and prior to trying this I’ve always just gone without.
Comments
@Charles I noticed the taste even before I smoked a bowl. I took some draws after putting the filter in and noticed the weird taste right away. I thought it would go away but after two bowls of the kimchi taste I took the filter out.
@Oddjob27 Don't get me wrong I was stationed in Korea for two years and loved Korean food including kimchi. But it's just not a taste I want in my pipe lol.
When I get home I'll have to look at what brand it is. But I bought it at a B&M store that is primarily a cigar shop so who knows maybe it had been sitting around for a decade.
The change the filter and try another type just to compare. If that clears up the problem, discard those other filters. Better yet, try smoking your pipe without the filter and run a pipecleaner though without disassembling the pipe if you have gurgling or moisture build up while smoking.
@Ryanmclellansr Just in case you don't know what Keystones are I thought I'd post a picture for you to make it easier to find should you want to try them out in your pipe.
On occasion I use Carbon Filters and Balsa Filters, I don't notice a change in the flavor, just toned down. I do think the paper filters suck the life out of the tobacco. All the filter types I have tried work well to dry out a wet smoking tobacco. I also like the original Yello-Bole scoop style "stingers". They seem to condense the water out of the smoke without gurgle or affecting the draw. Most other "stingers" are crap. The Comoy's "Grand Slam" seems to work ok too, kind of like a Kirsten body or small calabash. Those types of pipes definitely need to be cleaned after every smoke, in my opinion. I have seen many cracked shanks in Comoy's "Grand Slam" equipped pipes, and caps and stems fused in Kirsten's which I am sure happened because the were filthy gross. The "Grand Slams" probably got stuck in the shank and were forcibly removed which cracked the shanks. I have had two estate pipes that I could not get the shank clean...until I found there was a piece of a nasty old tarred up filter gunked/dried and stuck in the shanks. One was a Bent Savinelli Spigot with a Carbojn Filter, and the other was a ZEST with a Medico/Dr. Grabow type paper filter....nasty. The ZEST was passing a pipe cleaner completely through the paper tube filter and just kept coming out loaded with tars. The Savinelli had a broken end piece of a carbon filter jammed in the bottom of the shank well. Ultimately I had to use a metal pick on both of them to get the pieces out. They are spiffy clean now