Mouth tasted like ashtray for 36 hours - What did I do wrong?

[SteelyJ]

So I haven't smoked much the past year or two, and lately I started dusting off the old pipes to enjoy this fall weather. I had a small bowl of HU Director's Cut a couple weeks ago, and all was good. Earlier this week however, I took one of my Boswell pipes and packed some Escudo I had cellared away in a jar. I used a pipe cleaner to clean out the bowl first, to make sure it wasn't dusty or anything. Rubbed out the Escudo, let it sit for a little and packed it up. While smoking it seemed mostly fine - but afterwards was very unpleasant. I had this ashtray taste in my mouth and in the back of my throat, and my mouth was also very dry. I didn't drink much water (if any now that I think a bout it) while smoking - but right afterwards I had a big glass of water. This crappy taste and feel stuck around that evening even after brushing my teeth, tongue and roof of mouth, and after the morning brushing - it lingered most of that day. During my lunch break I grabbed some Listerine and that seemed to help.

What did I do wrong? Am I just so used to not smoking, or could it have been that I puffed too hard and fast? I didn't have tongue bite. Should I have been drinking more during my smoke?

Anyway, it was very unpleasant and I don't think I've ever had that happen to me before.

 

[Jevverrett]

Considering your sense of taste includes your whole mouth and nasal cavity, you may well have shellacked inside your whole head with smoke. Not being as used to the smoke as you are familiar with smoking, it may have been a bit much. Kind of a sensory overload. Non smokers don’t necessarily enjoy the smell of pipe smoke more than any other variety of tobacco.

I’m not sure how you smoke. For myself, the retrohale is a big part of getting the full flavor of tobacco. Kind of like nosing whisky.

 

[SteelyJ]

I did retrohale a few times - as I do enjoy that.
Also - I smoked a pipe of Penzance this weekend and I felt absolutely fine, none of the effects I described in the original post. I'll have another VaPer soon and I just hope it was something with my technique or smoking it too hard and not a weird reaction to any of the tobacco, since I always loved VaPers.

 

[Niblick]

Makes me wonder if you smoked that bowl all the way down to the nasty part of the dottle. I rarely take the time to dry my tobacco the way I should and just kind of load and go with where the moisture content is at and stop smoking before I get to the dottle. I load the bottom of the bowl with a cheap bulk straight Virginia just barely above the draft hole and fill the rest of the bowl with the tobacco I want to smoke.

I have to be honest and did not think of this myself but read an article by Steve Fallen aka Pipestud. This is his way to approach the dottle issue and blends that put him off near the end of the bowl.

 

[SteelyJ]

Makes me wonder if you smoked that bowl all the way down to the nasty part of the dottle. I rarely take the time to dry my tobacco the way I should and just kind of load and go with where the moisture content is at and stop smoking before I get to the dottle. I load the bottom of the bowl with a cheap bulk straight Virginia just barely above the draft hole and fill the rest of the bowl with the tobacco I want to smoke.

I have to be honest and did not think of this myself but read an article by Steve Fallen aka Pipestud. This is his way to approach the dottle issue and blends that put him off near the end of the bowl.

Yeah - I might have smoked it too far down.

 

[Zeno Marx]

I've ran into this in the past because the tobacco was too dry. Something as simple as that can ruin a day.

 

[Jevverrett]

That could be a thing.

 

[SteelyJ]

I think I may have figured it out - I think the culprit is a pipe. It's a pretty Boswell that my dad had JM custom make for a Christmas gift a few years back. I had smoked it that day - and I remember thinking it had a weird, bittery taste that I thought was the pre-carb bowl and that would go away after a few smokes. That Christmas I had a realllllllly bad stomach flu and was pretty sick - and afterwards I only smoked a few more times before taking a break from piping. I think I had smoked this pipe once or twice more to the same effect. Anyway - this was the pipe I smoked during this described incident. I had been drinking too, so I remember the taste being off but I wasn't TOO bothered by it at the time. But then last night I decided to smoke some Doblone D'Oro - it was the last bit in a tin that I couldn't fit into the jar and it had gotten pretty dry - but I figure it wasn't too try to smoke. But wouldn't you know - as I'm smoking it I feel like there's a bitter harshness and about a third of the way through the bowl I just dumped it.


Looking that up online it seems sometimes stain is left in the bowl or stem of a pipe causing this - or it's something with the pre-carb of the bowl. It seems I might need to clean out the stem good and maybe do a salt/alcohol treatment? Maybe sand the carb off the bowl?

Any thoughts or ideas? It's a really pretty pipe and has sentimental value so just tossing it is definitely not an option, and it's been a few years so I don't want to reach out to JM Boswell about it either - that's on me for not smoking it enough and figuring it out back then.

 

[Niblick]

I would sand the inside down to the briar and instead of the salt treatment first use a wet coffee ground treatment. If coffee grounds do not give the desired smoke, then proceed with the salt treatment. Everclear the inside shank with q-tips and airway to the bowl also.

 

[SteelyJ]

I would sand the inside down to the briar and instead of the salt treatment first use a wet coffee ground treatment. If coffee grounds do not give the desired smoke, then proceed with the salt treatment. Everclear the inside shank with q-tips and airway to the bowl also.

I'll try this. Just wet some coffee grounds and fill the bowl? How long do I let that sit? Once I dump it do I just use everclear on q-tips to give it a clean scrub down?

 

[Niblick]

I use my wet coffee grounds from my coffee pot after my morning coffee. Plug the airway with a q-tip wrapped in saran wrap to keep the wet grounds inside the bowl. Same way to plug the airway for a salt treatment with Kosher salt. I use an old egg carton to hold the bowl in a slight downhill position to keep the moisture from the grounds or everclear from seeping into shank. I let it sit for a couple of days, but I also live in a high humidity area. Once you do a few you'll get the hang of it. After removing the coffee or the salt always run hot tap water through the bowl for a minimum of 3 minutes or longer the better. Get the water running hot, turn faucet off and put bowl under where it should come out and slowly turn the water on and be careful not to overflow the bowl. Dry the inside of bowl with a paper cloth rolled up. If you salt treatment and do not get it all removed, you will know when you smoke it the first time and taste it. If this happens just run more water through the bowl some more.