Enjoying my new Kirsten Pipe!

Brothers of Briar

Help Support Brothers of Briar:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I have one. It's a straight pipe. Mike Brissett made some bowls for me many years ago that really turned it into a very nice pipe. I haven't smoked it in a long time, but that's about to change in about 5 minutes. :D
 
Kirsten's are easy to care for. Shove a paper towel through the body and a pipe cleaner through the mouthpiece, and if you need to you can change the bowl for a different blend and then smoke all day. There is a trap to collect the moisture. Removal of this moisture improves the taste of the smoke. I like to take a pipe cleaner and make a spiral wrap around the mouthpiece stem, so as to create a filter; it's good for about 3 bowls.
 
forsooth":tbuchz7k said:
How much cooler are Kirstens than briar?

I'm thinking of getting one because I'm an outside smoker and the summer heat REALLY makes a difference!
Click to expand...
I find they cool (and dry) the smoke notably for, I believe, three reasons. Forcing the smoke through a small hole into a larger chamber = dropping the pressure = letting the molecules spread out = less heat (think compressor in your air conditioner). Then the rather large surface area of the radiator stem will transmit/dissipate the heat from the smoke into the ambient air with a greater level or efficiency than brier and stem. Finally, because the drip in pressure and cooling also promote condensation within the stem, it pulls notably more moisture out of the smoke than any other type of pipe I know of and a dryer smoke, even if at the same temperature of a wetter smoke, will "feel" dryer in the mouth with less steam.

I must add, however, that place a black stemmed Kirsten in the sun and it will get quite hot. The overall cooling is less in the summer than during cooler months. Perhaps rest it on a block of ice between puffs? :lol:

Natch
 
Natch: Thanks for the great picture.....is your custom made bowl alot larger than the normal bowls?
 
Hi there, glad to meet you all! :D

My name is Cliff and a Kirsten pipe lover. I've been smoking them for over 30 years now. Yes, they are really great smokers too! I've tried Comoy, Peterson, Sassini, GBD, and also many Danish pipes. (it was great to be a sailor to buy pipes on the CHEAP in foreign ports!). But Kirstens are a hard pipe to beat.

They are really a breeze to clean. :D

I personally own eight of them, and three were inherited from my dad and BOTH grandads. :D

The tobacco I use is Sail Regular in the yellow can, smooth stuff with a nice taste.
 
My name is Shawn. I'm a newcomer to this site. I have been smoking Kirsten pipes exclusively since 1983 when I visited their shop at Fishermen's Terminal in Seattle. I've bought at least 20 of them over the years. In recent years I've just bought the parts as they wear out. Bowls and mouth pieces, the rest never wears out.

Old man Kirsten was an engineer for Boeing aircraft when he invented the pipe. The originals were made from old aluminum aircraft wings. The shop and factory are still owned by the family.

Why Fishermen's terminal? Because the biggest fans of the pipe were fishermen out of Seattle and up in Alaska. They were durable (once dropped one 20 stories into a swimming pool and was smoking it 30 minutes later), easy to clean (all you need is a paper towel and a pipe cleaner), cool to smoke, had interchangeable parts and you could stop the draft and put out the pipe if you wished in the middle of a smoke.

Each pipe has four pieces, the bowl (mostly briar but corn cob and other stuff too), the stem (an aluminum hollow tube, the valve (makes it esy to clen the stem and turs to cut off the draft) and the mouth piece. The mouth piece has a built in pipe cleaning rod.
 
At some point-don't ask me when-I'm going to hit eBay and buy a good but cheap "pre-owned" Kirsten.
 
I had one Kirsten (don't remember the name but it was one of the large 1/4 bent models) and smoked it a lot. It was especially good with heavy Latakia blends. Cleaning it was a little more involved than a briar but boy, you could REALLY get that sucker clean! So why don't I own it any more? Because it was just too heavy for clenching as I got older and my teeth and jaws got weaker. If I ever get another one, it will be a full bent model to reduce the leverage on my jaw.

Smokey
 
One other thing I might mention about Kirsten pipes: because of their metal construction and design, non-educated onlookers might think it is an instrument for smoking "wacky tobaccy". I read a story in one of the pipe chats several years ago about a gentleman who was driving and smoking a Kirsten who got pulled over for that very reason. Once the truth was known, he and the officer had a good laugh.

Smokey
 
MY 1/4 bent short stamped H is 45 g

My standard straight short is stamped S is also 45 g
 
:D 

Great pipes!!  Had them for years!!  

"You love em' or you hate em'"

"Personally, I think they are the best pipe for me!!"
 
Top