Inconsequential Ghosting

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alfredo_buscatti

alfredo_buscatti

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Hi y'all!

I'd like to say a big thank you to all who welcomed me back to the Board. Again, thank you very much!

I was taught that dedicating pipes was important as the 20%? tobacco comprising cake burns and adds flavor to every new bowl. It makes sense to me that though cake is a present ghost, it is more or less an invisible ghost. I dedicated pipes early on the last time around, but given the number of guys who don't dedicate and who feel that not doing so makes no difference, I'm leaning toward not dedicating this time.

Not dedicating means you don't have to have as many pipes; and even when I had 70, if I'd not smoked a tobacco in awhile I'd not be sure which I'd dedicated to the tobacco lol. Then there was also the endless reconfiguration of "ok 3 pipes for X and 2 for Y; but what a minute, I'm smoking more Y just now so maybe that should be 3 pipes for Y."

In all ways not dedicating may be better, or so I think.
 
alfredo_buscatti":1ta5cuwz said:
Hi y'all!

I'd like to say a big thank you to all who welcomed me back to the Board. Again, thank you very much!

I was taught that dedicating pipes was important as the 20%? tobacco comprising cake burns and adds flavor to every new bowl. It makes sense to me that though cake is a present ghost, it is more or less an invisible ghost. I dedicated pipes early on the last time around, but given the number of guys who don't dedicate and who feel that not doing so makes no difference, I'm leaning toward not dedicating this time.

Not dedicating means you don't have to have as many pipes; and even when I had 70, if I'd not smoked a tobacco in awhile I'd not be sure which I'd dedicated to the tobacco lol. Then there was also the endless reconfiguration of "ok 3 pipes for X and 2 for Y; but what a minute, I'm smoking more Y just now so maybe that should be 3 pipes for Y."

In all ways not dedicating may be better, or so I think.
Click to expand...
I've not "dedicated" a pipe to smoking just one type or blend in the 40 years of smoking and really had no sense that anything was being effected flavor wise in what I smoked. I've not really smoked American style of "aro's" , instead mostly English/Balkans and st. Va's so this may attribute to my not really experiencing the "ghosting" thing. Or it may be that after smoking so long I don't have as discerning a palate as many younger, newer smokers! :p :p
 
Good question.

I've dedicated about half of my pipes and sometimes I'm dogmatic about the dedicating, sometimes I'm not. The other half of the pipes I relegate to anything. I started out thinking the dedication was the only wise way but I too have been around plenty of smokers who ignore that as newbie-intermediate piper-ism; they keep clean bowls, even cake, and use lots of pipe cleaners instead.

I guess the dedicating is really an expression of a wish to make a pipe "sing" with its blend, and become a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts through keeping it stuck with one or one type of tobacco. Thus, in theory, the pipe would provide more frequent perfect smokes with it--those smokes where the taste is better than remembered and every puff is great.

Pipe smoking is inherently impressionistic, and my impression is that there simply are pipes that make certain tobaccos "sing." I can't say it any other way but that some pipes make some tobaccos out of this world, and I've found there's no way to have any control of that, one has to find the pipe and find it's tobacco and one has to be content that one may not. Dedicating is an attempt to have control over making the pipe sing its certain song. If you dedicate a pipe, maybe you can force it to produce smoke that's better than the sum of its parts, goes the theory.

I don't know for sure that it works or always works, but when I've matched pipes with their ideal tobacco the song is remarkable and I don't smoke other tobaccos in those pipes so they become dedicated after the fact so to speak.

Undedicated pipes give me good smokes too, of course. I think dedicating pipes is an attempt to be scientific and have our own role in making our pipes something we want. I'm not sure that the science works always.
 
I've got exactly two dedicated pipes - one because a particular blend really comes alive when it's left entirely to its own devices, and the other because it tends to leave a substantial ghost in the bowl. The latter wouldn't be a huge issue, except that I don't smoke very many aromatics, and this one particular blend is a fairly heavily cased/topped aro that wouldn't play nicely with my other preferred blends.

Otherwise, I keep my pipes organized by groups - one group for Va/VaPers, one group for blends that incorporate Latakia, and one group for the lighter aros I occasionally enjoy. I find that this makes it easy enough to keep track of what goes where, and any real "ghosting" tends to be from a similar enough blend that it isn't unpleasant or overbearing.
 
I used to dedicate my pipes, but over time I have starting smoking pretty much nothing but lat-bombs, so I personally have found dedicating certain blends to specific pipes unnecessary. I actually think some blends taste better when smoked in a pipe that has seen other blends. I felt like my Penzance tasted extra nice in my pipe that was broken in with Lancer's Slices.
 
Hi Mike. Long time no see. Welcome back!

I keep six pipes that are dedicated to blends and two that I smoke nothing but Condor in.
I love Condor and with each smoke in these two pipes it just gets better however I don't always want to taste Condor. Same thing with the other six blends.

Some pipes I only smoke virginias in and in a couple pipes I smoke latakia but usually....... I smoke all of it in all of them. A right royal mixup that seems to balance out in the long run with some surprises along the way. It's amazing how good latakia and tonquin is if you get lucky and how rank it can be if you don't.
 
A few bowls after making my post above, I've come to think I need to ammend my blabber there.

I think my dedication of a pipe to oriental blends without latakia has paid off and made the pipe "sing" in the sense that I suggested pipes singing earlier. I guess I've ghosted it with orientals so much that now I taste beautiful sour and sweet and oily tobaccos very nicely in it and am very glad I stuck with making it a dedicated pipe.

I guess in this example I'm encouraging anyone's effort to dedicate pipes, but certainly not knocking any gentlemen who do not. I know I've still got half my collection of pipes as undedicated ones. Maybe I'll start dedicating more of them now though.
 
I have a few pipes dedicated to aros. I have maybe 10 pipes dedicated to English and another 10 to Vas. For the other 25+, it's anything goes. I'm not absolutely sure it makes a difference, but I'm not absoilutely sure it doesn't, either. I sometimes have a 5-min quick smoke on a dedicated pipe that is empty. I can tell which is which even though I'm just "smoking" the "ghost."
 
I just dedicate pipes to types of tobacco. A virginia group, english group, aromatic group but I mix up the brands all the time. I do have one pipe that has only ever had cherry flavored aromatics in it but it's had a couple different brands in it.
 
Thanks for the welcome back, Dave! Pipe smoking is fabulous! Escudo and Aged Burley Flake are the tops!

To return to the earth of pipe smoking and the ever immortal topic of ghosting, I wanna tell you, guys, that my two cobs are holding up very well with different blends one after the other; but, I smoked the same blend in the same pipe three days in a row, without intervening blends, and to speak in the terms of the thread, that pipe sings the truth of Bow-Legged Bear more and more.

Nothing determined at this point, but it was at least that song's coincidence.

 
Near the end of a bowl of Aged Burley Flake in the aforementioned Bow-Legged Bear pipe, and without doubt when I tasted the pipe before the fire in the bowl it was distinctly Bear; and in the ABF smoke, the remnants of the Bear had a constant presence. I've heard some say that smoking a ghosted pipe adds complexity and that is a good thing. But if I'm smoking a blend I want to taste only that blend's complexity without the overlay.

My proposed dozen cob acquisition has grown;).
 
I don't dedicate certain pipes to specific tobaccos but just to types of tobaccos in general. Mainly those for Va's and those for English blends as well as those solely for aromatics. Two experiences recently have influenced me on the topic of ghosting, those being first attempting to smoke a Va out of a pipe I've dedicated to smoking English blends out of. I didn't find the taste agreeable. So I'm pretty apt to stay with declarations such as "this pipe shall be a Virginia pipe! And this one shall be an English pipe!"

The second experience was when my brother, an aromatic smoker, wanted to try one of my pipes (his experiences limited to a corncob and a basket pipe with a seriously constricted draw). He smoked his cherry aromatic in a pipe I had reserved for old codger tobaccos. When I later smoked the pipe I could taste a cherry ghost through the Old Joe Krantz I had loaded it with. Disagreeable? Not hardly, but I still felt it tainted the natural taste of the tobacco. Moving past that, though, the ghost was short lived.

My take? It's probably worth a shot to find out what ghosts you can live with and which are the ones you can live without. If you find out you don't like it, it's not like the ghost is going to be there forever. If you find out you're okay with it, well...seems like a wonderful freedom of pipe and tobacco choice, eh?
 
I was about ready to smoke a bowl of Escudo that had lived there for three bowls. Even without loading it I could vividly see the Escudo ghost just by the taste of the pipe in my mouth.

Today I decided to use the ABF pipe, also three bowls in and loaded the Bear. No ghost, the intense flavor of that blend overpowered the remnants of ABF.

At this point I am persuaded that only a somewhat visible ghost is my preference. Thanks to all who've contributed valuable pipe insights to the thread.
 
I have always dedicated my pipes in groups i.e va flakes, vaper flakes, aromatics, lakeland flakes and ropes. I experimented for a couple of weeks with certain pipe for certain blend and honestly did not notice a real difference. It was also a huge pain in the butt. When I wanted to smoke a certain pipe, I would have to smoke the corresponding blend, whether I was in the mood for it or not. It was too much work for any perceived benefit, so I am back to my group dedicating.
 
I'm also in the "type of tobacco" group. I've dedicated pipes to VA's and Vapers and others to latakia blends.

It took me a while to determine which pipes prefer which tobaccos but once this was done, I became a happy chappie.

On the other hand I have a couple of cobs which enjoy anything they are fed.

I prefer Vapers now a days and I sincerely hope my BoB POY will be a Vaper lover!!
 
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