How do you do it?

[djf1]

in my recent PAD i have acquired some significant higher end pieces. True to form these pieces have elevated my smoking pleasure, educated me in the complexity of the blends I like, but at the same time made it really difficult to smoke anything else!!!
Now I have in my modest collection about 30 odd pipes. 7 of them are higher end Castello, Ser Jac, Upshall etc. My old favourites are just not cutting it anymore and although they smoke really well, the flavour I get from the high end pieces just cant compare.

I guess the solution would be to sell off the rest and build a similar grade collection, however that is not in the cards as having spend over $1500 in my latest PAD has exhausted my budget for the year if not more!

I may decide to sell off a few pieces just because I know I wont smoke them, but I have to keep the majority of the collection to keep a good rotation and sufficient rest.

So how do you do it? I know many of you have the same type of collection with lots of good smokers and a few stand outs. Do you avoid smoking a blend lets say on the higher end pipes to avoid comparison?

Your advise/ experience is welcomed

 

[Frost]

The solutions, as usual, is to smoke more.

If you smoke constantly you will find yourself smoking while doing things like mowing the lawn, fishing, driving, hiking, etc.

Now for these sorts of activities you don't want to take your fancy Castellos, Ser jacs, etc due to risk of damage and/or loss. This is where you use your old beaters, cobs, etc so that you can still enjoy a good smoke without risking the loss of your most prized pipes.

 

[Muddler]

What you're experiencing is the way it goes with many pipe smokers - we add higher quality pipes & our old ones become beaters. I agree with Frost. What I have done is sell off or give away a bunch & keep the rest as fishing pipes.

 

[Anonymous]

Send them to LL for airway tuning. That's 90% of the difference you're noticing. probably.

:face:

 

[shootist51]

First, I don't see how the pipe would influence the flavor, unless the older pipes need a good cleaning. I agree with Yak (Lord help me) in the statement that reworking the engineering might make your low end pipes smoke better, thereby increasing your pleasure in smoking them, but I don't think that will change the flavor of the tobaccos smoked.

 

[djf1]

First, I don't see how the pipe would influence the flavor, unless the older pipes need a good cleaning. I agree with Yak (Lord help me) in the statement that reworking the engineering might make your low end pipes smoke better, thereby increasing your pleasure in smoking them, but I don't think that will change the flavor of the tobaccos smoked.

Well, I'm not sure about that. I guess my initial thought process was along the same lines as yours. My pipes are super clean, I'm a bit anal on cleaning as of late, once I was not, but now thay have all gone through the car wash so to speak so that is not an issue for sure.
In regards to the draw, I think most, if not all draw really well, nice and open. Most smoke very cool as well. The big difference I notice though was in flavour. I taste the difference and at this point I think that the briar used has everything to do with it. Its not the shape either as all my higher ends are different shapes and sizes, but they all share that "difference". Not 2 are identical in the taste but with all I have flavours like in the J grade Bjarne, a nutty flavour when I smoke the 888 VA blend which is quite pleasant to my palette. By comparison the other Bjarne in the herd tastes pretty flat. Its good but not the same. Finally all share the same "cool, no bite tongue" smoke character, but I must say that I have not had too much trouble with that anyway. Its like these pipes are able to bring flavours out that are hidden in the other pipes. Not an expert here, maybe I should send one pipe to rework the engineering of it and see if there is any improvement.

 

[Anonymous]

If it smokes dry and isn't constricted, there's no point to the expense and the wait.

Some pipes just really like some tobaccos, and vice versa.

Other times, a great pipe with a great tobacco can be traumatic.

GLP's written bunch of reflections on stuff like that on his blog.

Having moved on from a number of "good" pipes and being well pleased with a number of lunchbox to no-names pipes with optomised airways (some even without), I'm disinclined to suspect that it's a pure price-to-taste relation.

Then again, whatever works for you,

:face:

 

[Anonymous]

UNLESS all the pipes you're describing are pretty much recently made new ones. In that case, briar ageing could well be a factor.

But with older used ones, that problem's taken care of. :cheers:

:face:

 

[sand18f]

I don't believe price has anything to do with how well a pipe smokes. I have three high end pipes that were given to me for gifts, as most Grandfathers will recieve. One of these actually whistle while being drawn, like a childs toy. One is incapable of passing a pipe cleaner even with the stem removed you have to search for the airway. The other of this lot hates all manner of tobacco. They all are above average price wise. The best , to me, taste wise, are my mid priced Peterson's that would be classified as beaters. Even with their aggravating restricted air flow they produce good solid taste and are very comfortable. Some times I smoke the same pipe for weeks without giving it a rest, maybe one pipe cleaner a day is all the attention that it will get and if I'm awake my pipe is lit. Now my Rand Wiley's are absolutly perfect, big bowls, wide open draw and cleaner pass. The Wiley's smoke a little cooler because of their size, the flavor is not "better" and maybe not even as good as the Petereson's. I do not like the appearance of straights. I much prefer bents and Rhodisians and Bulldogs are my favorite shapes however, ninety precent of the time I'll be smoking a Peterson rusticated straight Billiard with a P stem because of the flavor that I get from that pipe. I recenty bought a Savinelli Lumberman that's going to be a winner. If after a few bowls they don't produce the flavor that I'm after, then they go to the junk box or be resigned as test pipes for new tobacco, which may be unfair to the tobacco.

I do a lot of barbquing / grilling at home...a lot. I only use natural type charcoal or wood, no lighter fluids to get the fire going. If you use the same type of meat from the same source, it's damn hard to reproduce the same results everytime. I find it to be the same with a pipe and tobacco. JMHO

Buy the best you can and give away those that don't fit, others may love'em.

 

[Anonymous]

The best , to me, taste wise, are my mid priced Peterson's that would be classified as beaters. Even with their aggravating restricted air flow they produce good solid taste

Looks iike great minds once again run in the same channels :cheers:

Around half of all the keepers here are old Petersons, as were a number of special presents to friends that would be welcomed back with open arms.

What's curious is that one of the desert island Petes, a blue collar straight Kildare bulldog, tasted even better with its original, constricted p-lip stem that I stupidly snapped the tenon off, forcing it back into it before it had cooled enough. The replacement stem has a "better" airway, but the (FVF) flavor isn't as intense / concentrated as it was.

Love is where you find it.

:face:

 

[djf1]

Thanks to everyone for their perspectives and for sharing their experiences! Very interesting takes indeed. It seems that sometimes its the luck of the draw in some cases so to speak and each pipe has an owner. What might be great for me, might not be great for someone else. It also seems to me that it is worth going after a well engineered pipe as more likely than not you will get a good smoking pipe and maybe that is what I'm experiencing at the end of the day as most "higher end" are most likely to be well engineered with well cured briars. That would include mid priced examples from well established brands.

Interesting hobby we have indeed! BTW the most expensive pipe in my lot is one that was made for me by Yuriy and its on the way after the chicago show. All the other "higher end" I bought for between $50 and $180 which for some maybe considered mid priced so just to clarify, my original post does not imply Bang or Ivarson type of pipes... I have never tried them, nor I think that I will ever do unless I can score one for up to $150 bucks like I scored my Castello for $92

 

[Sasquatch]

There's a law of diminishing returns on how good a pipe can smoke vs price. It might be that the "spike" on price/performance graph occurs at corn cobs. I don't actually think so, but I know people who do. For me, the best overall values in my collection have been "good" mid grade pipes which were built well and engineered well. I find that the stems are much more comfortable and stay shiny much longer than on cheap pipes, and they smoke with no gurgle and very much trouble free. These include Il Ceppo, Ser Jacopo, Peterson, Stanwell, Savinelli, Wiley, Mastro do Paja etc. I don't think that ALL the pipes from any of the big brands are so good - Peterson STILL can't cut a decently thin stem, for example, and lots of their pipes are drilled fairly wildly. But the good ones are terrific.

One of the reasons I got into pipe making was to see if I could learn why some pipes are better than others. I think I have learned a lot of what makes good smokers "tick". I think there's lots of ways to build a good pipe, and some makers do most of them right on most pipes, and some makers are pretty hit and miss. But if a guy pays 150 to 200 for a pipe... there should be no excuses. It ought to be really a very good pipe in every way.

And I USE these things - I don't keep them in a box under nitrogen. I have a beatiful 1bs Mastro de Paja that's my truck pipe, and it would be the pride of some peoples' collection. To me it's just a comfortable pipe that I enjoy so much I want to use it a lot. I enjoy the craftsmanship and the shape and balance... it's a great pipe. I'd be sad if I broke or lost it, but I refuse to not use such a pipe.

So the bulk of my collection, currently favored pipes, is that sort of "good but not ridiculously expensive" sort of pipe. I have a couple of more expensive pipes and I like them, but I do tend to baby them a little more - they are more collectables than outright smokers to me.

Not surprisingly, that's my philosophy in pipe making too - I try to avoid weirdly balanced pipes or strangely sized pieces.... my focus is on good mechanics and comfortable stem work. If that makes me a "mid grader" then I'm fine with that.

 

[Zeno Marx]

I don't believe price has anything to do with how well a pipe smokes.

For the most part, not I, either. It's a psychological thing, which can't be underestimated, but yeah, price isn't about smoking quality. At times, I preferred smoking my $1000 pipes, but that preference wasn't about flavor 101.

 

[Sasquatch]

There's a balance between a number of variables for most of us:

Price (I don't/can't drop 700 bucks on a pipe, for example)

Comfort (Stem material, how well balanced pipe is etc)

Performance (does it smoke? does it taste good? does it gurgle?)

Looks (let's face it - a factor in how much we like the pipes we like is how they look/feel)

and probably some other things are involved too. For some of us, a 30 dollar pipe they can munch on all day without destroying is gonna be the best value. For others, if a pipe isn't a one-of-a-kind artwork they can't enjoy it.

The things I demand may not matter to the next guy down the road, and that's why there's no "right answer" to this type of question, just a series of opinions derived from experience, and all a guy can do is understand a little bit about his own preferences.

 

[djf1]

and probably some other things are involved too. For some of us, a 30 dollar pipe they can munch on all day without destroying is gonna be the best value. For others, if a pipe isn't a one-of-a-kind artwork they can't enjoy it.

The things I demand may not matter to the next guy down the road, and that's why there's no "right answer" to this type of question, just a series of opinions derived from experience, and all a guy can do is understand a little bit about his own preferences.

Sas thanks for the insights and since you are a pipemaker I have one last set of questions. In reading the various forums and websites, its is clear that certain pipemakers favor briar roots from certain countries citing quality etc. Besides the "beauty of the grain" which to me its just aesthetics, pleasing yes, but not the most important factor, isn't there a relation to the taste? From my professional life in hospitality, I know for example in wines, the soil is an extremely important factor in taste as the plant gets all its nutrients from it. If everything that I read here is true then its not a factor and any briar from any country/region would produce an equal smoke provided the shape and mechanics are identical? If that is so why there is such a "big deal" made about the origins of the briar? Further to that the curing process isnt that important in taste?

 

[Sasquatch]

An Treatife on ye olde Briar Rootef

I think there IS a relation to taste, but I also think it diminishes over time. I've worked briar that claimed to be (I didn't pick it so I can't prove it) from Algeria, from Italy, and from Spain. I think the region has something to do with how the plant grows and probably how it tastes, and I think the curing process the blocks are subjected to makes a difference as well. For example, the briar I got from Romeo Briar in Italy was all completely uniform - uniform in color, texture, and smell. Were the ten pieces all from the same plant? Surely not and surely not even from the same region. Romeo gets trucks in from all over the place from what I understand. So his curing process lends the briar certain characteristics.

The Algerian stuff I've had was harder to work than Mimmo's stuff - it looked very similar but it smells different and right off the bat it tastes slightly different. Same with the Spanish.

All these blocks are cut, boiled so the resins come out (and it stabilizes the wood too), and dried. Some pipe makers subject it to a further treatment with certain oils, possibly extracting even more bad tasting stuff but imho merely adding a specific flavor by choosing certain oils. Wiley's pipes taste a certain way because of his own curing method for example.

So right out of the box, I'd say a guy is going to find that pipes taste different, even if it's slight (and I think it is pretty subtle). 50 or 100 bowls down the road, I don't really think anyone could smoke a pipe and say "Oh yeah this is briar from that little valley just north of Anzio"

Buying good clean briar is a good start, but what you do to build the pipe - the drilling arrangement, the internal shaping of the stem etc, these factors are far more important in terms of how a pipe will smoke. I've shipped 2 pipes to the same person at the same time, made from different briar, and I've never had someone come back and say "Gosh, these pipes are nothing like each other." but they inevitably do say things like "Pipe A seemed to really bring out the sweetness in my Navy Flake" or whatever - subtle slight differences in how the pipe tastes, due to briar, possibly engineering, and possibly even the stem material (I'm convinced rubber stems add a bit of flavor that we are all "used to").

So the answer is "Yes, no, kind of, I'm not sure, depends on the pipe, blue, 17, lockout, double pep and mush."

Another way to say all this is that briar doesn't probably taste or perform identically from supplier to supplier and maybe even plant to plant, but no one makes pipes thinking "Okay this is a virginia flake pipe so I'll use that piece of Spanish cross-cut to maximize the sweetness and reduce tongue-bite." It doesn't work like that.

 

[djf1]

Sas, thanks a million for the insightful post which makes a whole lot sense and helped me understand my original question.

 

[Zeno Marx]

If everything that I read here is true then its not a factor and any briar from any country/region would produce an equal smoke provided the shape and mechanics are identical? If that is so why there is such a "big deal" made about the origins of the briar? Further to that the curing process isnt that important in taste?

I don't think anyone has said anything of this sort. Curing and briar source are very important factors.

 

[Anonymous]

Whether it's reality or folklore is probably indeterminable. But there is a firm belief by many that the loss of Algerian briar at one point (the Algerian government decreed no more export of blocks (they wanted "social value added" from somebody making pipes in-house) (which didn't work out) roughly coincided with the last of the legendarily good-tasting Dunhill black shells (examples dated in the 1950s and before).

By the same token (and it's interesting that somebody else is onto this), I've long figured that the distinctively Virginia-friendly taste of Petersons (standard shapes, at least -- all I'm familiar with) from before their switch-over to new shapes, grades, &c. was due to the briar they used having been harvested (and, at least for years, turned into stummels) in Spain. It has a dark, even slightly muddy taste that fills out the missing bottom end of Virginia flakes wonderfully (assuming you like it. I know of one world-class pipe/tobacco legend who detests it).

Objectively determinable ? No. So the arguments continue.

Several people I know find consistent differences in taste between various Italian makers' pipes, and it seems to be an article of faith that, no matter where in Italy it's harvested, long curing in the Cantu air is the magical "something" that is the difference between the taste of a Castello and that of any other Italian pipe, howsoever good.

All grist for the speculative mill.

:face:

 

[djf1]

If everything that I read here is true then its not a factor and any briar from any country/region would produce an equal smoke provided the shape and mechanics are identical? If that is so why there is such a "big deal" made about the origins of the briar? Further to that the curing process isnt that important in taste?

I don't think anyone has said anything of this sort. Curing and briar source are very important factors.

This post certainly did:

First, I don't see how the pipe would influence the flavor, unless the older pipes need a good cleaning. I agree with Yak (Lord help me) in the statement that reworking the engineering might make your low end pipes smoke better, thereby increasing your pleasure in smoking them, but I don't think that will change the flavor of the tobaccos smoked.

Maybe its this magical air in Cantu that makes the difference LOL
funny thing is that as I type this, I'm smoking my old Bringham. It took me a week to clean it, twice the salt treatment, oxy bath for the stem, rim the bowl well, polish, wax and repeat. I lit it up now, it still tastes nothing ( kind of tastes horrible if you want my honest opinion) like my morning bowl with a fabulous pipe that shall remain un named