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Thomas Tkach

Thomas Tkach

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Since I first started grabbing estates I noticed that they were cheaper by the dozen, so I've always had a large if not glamorous collection. I decided to dedicate pipes to different styles because I heard it was good to do, and it's worked out well for me.

I'm probably over-thinking this, but I've been getting into straight VAs recently. Even within that group, there are several different sub-styles--Red VAs, stoved VAs, bright VAs, etc. Different blenders also seem to have different process or casing notes that tend to give their blends a distinct character (McClelland=ketchup, SG has a distinct smell, too, but I'm not sure how to describe it).

So my question is, if I want several pipes dedicated to VA blends, should I dedicate by type, by Blender, or just smoke everything in several different pipes? Should McC 2035 Dark Navy Flake and SG FVF share a pipe becuse they're both stoved, or should they each stick with their kin; 5100 and BBF, respectively?

What are your thoughts, gueses, opinions, or objective, scientifically verified results :D ?
 
First off, there is NO SCIENTIFICALY proven FACTS about Pipe Smoking other than one puts a plant product into a plant based vessel and applies fire to it to have it burn!! ALL the rest is opinions that the folks doing the burning have acquired while doing it !! :twisted: :twisted:
 Now that THAT is cleared up remember, other than most American Aro's , Just about ALL the rest of Tobacco blends/mixtures are Virginia BASED !! ALL good English/Balkan mixtures are really Va blends with Orientals( Latakia is an Oriental tobacco ) added in various amounts. ! :twisted:
Having smoked various English/Balkan as well as what some would call Straight Va blends/mixtures for many. many decades now I can say I've NOT ever just dedicated a single pipe out of my 100 I have to just ONE blend. I have found for me. using a Red Va blend/mixture builds the type of cake I like to start my pipes off with so I have done that with each one when starting, but after it's first month of cake building, I smoke ANY blend/mixture I want in a pipe.
I do however feel that certain SHAPES lend themselves to smoking certain TYPES of blends/mixtures! Case in point would be I usually ONLY smoke Flakes in my Pots, preferring how the shortish, wide bowl allows the fully rubbed out Va Flake to smoke ( I prefer to smoke Flakes rubbed out) ! :twisted:  
I enjoy most of my ribbon/shag cut blends/mixtures in my Billiards, Canadians. and Bulldogs and smoke BOTH varieties in my Apples and Banker/Authors .
 THAT'S as much specificity as I apply in my smoking as I'm a big believer in K.I.S.S. :twisted: :twisted: Once again JMHO :twisted: :twisted:
 
I'm not looking to dedicate it to just one blend, but I'm looking to stick with a particular group, and I'm just wondering how to sort those groups out. Maybe it doesn't really matter as long as I don't go for subtle VAs in the same pipe as I smoke Lat-bombs or lakeland blends.
 
Thomas Tkach":fr5kg5uo said:
I'm not looking to dedicate it to just one blend, but I'm looking to stick with a particular group, and I'm just wondering how to sort those groups out. Maybe it doesn't really matter as long as I don't go for subtle VAs in the same pipe as I smoke Lat-bombs or lakeland blends.
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Unless you're gonna smoke any "old ladies soap" blends/mixtures IMHO IT DOES NOT MATTER !! Many of the pipes I still smoke I got back when I almost exclusively smoked BS 759 one of the heaviest Lat forward blends EVER made and smoked it in 'em for YEARS. I now smoke a variety of St. Va's in 'em and have NEVER had ANY residual flavor from the 759 in them! But I'm an 'Old Codger" smoker and probably don't have as discerning a palate as a MUCH YOUNGER smoker probably has !! :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
 
My experience is that some pipes just smoke some blends better than others. I also find that a pipe does not really hit its "stride" with a blend until I have had about 5 or 6 consecutive blowls of the same blend in a specific pipe. I don't pay a whole lot of attention or have a lot of rules about what goes in what pipe _unless_ I have a combo that is so outrageously good I remember. So I have a Peterson 302 that gets OGS if I have a tin open. I have a Pietro faux-system that gets Granger or Classic Burley Kake. A Yello-Bole Airograte gives remarkably good smokes every time with Oriental Dusk and Boker Or. A GBD Prehistoric prince I have smokes ODF and Vintage Syrian like they were made for each other. Basically I find what works and mostly "dedicate" it.

In the meantime, I am smoking whatever is open and I feel like smoking in everything else until I find another combo.

Basically they tell me what works. I try to pay attention.

**In the interests of full disclosure, I don't think many people share my "5 to 6 bowls of a blend" experience, so maybe it is my imagination.
 
Fr_Tom":a7kyww1p said:
**In the interests of full disclosure, I don't think many people share my "5 to 6 bowls of a blend" experience, so maybe it is my imagination.
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This part actually makes sense to me. Some slight ghosting would muddy the flavor, whereas that ghosting effect is diminished the more you smoke the new blend in the pipe, thus you get a cleaner flavor of that tobacco. This effect is probably minimal, though.

Regarding latakia--I'm sure the ghost can be exercised with enough smoking, but if you put a st. VA in a pipe that just had pirate kake in it the day before, I imagine you're going to get some smoke coming through. I can smell a bowl that's been unsmoked for months, but the pipes I only smoke English in smell different. The reason I dedicate is to stop that contamination for the first few bowls before it hits its stride.
 
I'm a bit of an odd duck. Beyond segregating Latakia, VA, and Aro, I don't consciously dedicate my pipes to any blend. That being said, I seem to have ended up with pipes that I exclusively smoke one particular blend out of.

Though, I won't hesitate to cross genres if a need arises. I bring two pipes to my pipe club nights, typically one Latakia and one VA, but if there are two VA blends that I want to try, I'll smoke the second in the Lat pipe, rather than reloading the VA pipe. I have even been known to smoke a little Aro in a "non-aro" pipe if there was nothing else lying around. But since I mostly smoke at home, and at home I have plenty of pipes to choose from, those pipes that don't leave the house, tend to find themselves dedicated to one particular blend. I realize that doesn't make much sense. I guess that's along way of saying, I don't really care too much.

I wholeheartedly agree with the good Father. You really don't know how well a pipe will get along with a particular blend until you have been through several bowls.
 
I have some of the same questions. I primarily smoke Virginia's and VaPer's and often will smoke both styles in the same pipes. I do, however, when try dedicate certain pipes to my Lat blends. Although I will say that sometimes I'll smoke a Virginia blend in a lat pipe, but never a lat blend in a dedicated Virginia pipe.

And some blends do taste better in certain pipes, but I'm not so anal that I only smoke one blend in one pipe.
 
Mr. glpease' site has at least one very good article on this topic. My experience is as follows: It takes too much energy to dedicate every pipe you own to a single blend ... There's no benefit worth the effort to dedicating ALL your pipes ... There may be significant benefit to dedicating SOME pipes to the major food groups -- Va, VA+P, lats, aros. ... But the way to do this is to let the pipe do the choosing while you passively sip, observe and take notes ... Do NOT buy a pipe and decide, ready or no, this briar is getting 965 and 965 only. You may be ruining the perfect host of a Virginia ... Most of my pipes did not show a marked preference for one genre over another, so they get smoked a lot with a lot of different tobaks ... At some point we all have to decide if smoking a pipe is done for relaxation and enjoyment, or if we prefer the neurotic  distraction of developing rigid tho arbitrary systems and compulsively following them, which is by no means unusual. Neurotic, yes. But unusual, no.
 
I think you make some good points. I am a creature of habit, so I like dedicating because when I want a blend, I know what pipe I'm going to smoke it in. For the most part, I don't dedicate pipes to 1 blend only. I have to this point had a pipe or two for heavy English/balkan, one or two for milder English, one for VA, one or two for VAPer, etc. My question is more to do with further sub-dividing the genres: VAs into Stoved, Brighter, and Red, for instance, or do you divide by blender: all SG in the same pipe(s), all ketchup-laced McClelland in other pipe(s)? I know I need to experiment to find the right pipes for each category, but what should those categories be?
 
Back in the day a feller smoked his blend in his pipe/s.
That was dedication.   I'm not real sure what brought about the era of smoking 500 different blends, the Internet maybe?

  But anyone that can't smell or taste heavy orientals in a pipe that has had a quantity of those leaves burned in them is either deluding themselves or have no sense of taste/smell.  The oils from those tobaccos do soak into the wood with repeated burnings just like anything else would.  Are you going to permanently taint a pipe after a bowl? A tin? Probably not, but long term smoking of those blends will.  

Also saying that The Balken was the most forward Latakia blend is misleading.  There are blends, then and now, that are far more Latakia/oriental forward.
 
puros_bran":956vg0xn said:
Back in the day a feller smoked his blend in his pipe/s.
That was dedication.   I'm not real sure what brought about the era of smoking 500 different blends, the Internet maybe?
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My father smoked Half and Half unless they were out at the store. Then he would buy a tub/pouch of SWR. He never mentioned ghosting.

I think the era of 500 blends is a cultural thing. We are Americans after all (well - most of us anyway) and nothing exceeds like excess. I think we have more disposable income too. My father had one Edwards pipe that I am pretty sure was a gift from my mother before I was born. The pipe has disappeared, but after my mother's death, we were going through her things, and there was an Edwards pipe box carefully saved. He had a series of coupon/drugstore pipes and never more than 2 or 3 total at a time.
 
Greg Pease has talked about this stuff a lot, and he got into tobaccos way before the internet. I'm not sure when he made the discovery that ghosting was significant, though.
 
puros_bran":rv4rocwm said:
Back in the day a feller smoked his blend in his pipe/s.
That was dedication.   I'm not real sure what brought about the era of smoking 500 different blends, the Internet maybe?

  But anyone that can't smell or taste heavy orientals in a pipe that has had a quantity of those leaves burned in them is either deluding themselves or have no sense of taste/smell.  The oils from those tobaccos do soak into the wood with repeated burnings just like anything else would.  Are you going to permanently taint a pipe after a bowl? A tin? Probably not, but long term smoking of those blends will.  

Also saying that The Balken was the most forward Latakia blend is misleading.  There are blends, then and now, that are far more Latakia/oriental forward.
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My first 10 years of smoking a pipe...

:lol:
 
Whatever works for you is what you should do. Personally, I don't have remotely enough patience to dedicate pipes beyond very broad categories. I have several from which I smoke scented Lakelands and a couple each dedicated to Latakia and American aromatics. Beyond that, I smoke any blend in any pipe.
 
Apart from Condor Long Cut, which I try to restrict to a small selection of pipes, I smoke what I fancy at the time in whatever I fancy at the time.
Pipe smoking is a habit and a hobby for me. The habbit doesn't care what I smoke in what as long as I smoke. The hobby doesn't care as long as it makes me happy.
If it makes you happy, do it, if it doesn't, don't worry about it :)
 
I only have 2 dedicated pipes, and those are cobs for aros. I only smoke what I like (kinda obvious) and when I try something new I don't like it has never ghosted noticably. I'm afraid of Lakelands, so that might be a different beast.
As others have said, some pipes like some blends, but they are not monogomous relationship.
Does it really matter if todays VaPer has a bit of Lat carried over from last week? I've been an on and off pipesmoker for going on 30 years (a kid compared to some of you I know) and only in the past year have owned more that 10 pipes. Like SM, I started with a grabow and the captian and was happy for a few years. Honestly, the only ghost I ever had a problem with was an estate pipe that was clearly owned by a 1Q lover, and 3 bowls of Carter Hall fixed that. So yes, I think you are over thinking it. But then again, you should do what brings you the most enjoyment.
Mike.
 
My missus is out there grumbling that "there's something wrong with you" because I cannot distinguish the fine gradations between five samples of light yellos pwaint she intends to apply in the bedroom. If you can tell the difference between ghosts of the listed tobak sub-groups, I say go for it and happy smoking to you:)

The comments on gramps, his one pipe, coupons and one tobacco brought back memories. My pipe smoking gramp had a Dr. Grabow and a brand of tobacco (Union Leader?) that came in a small paper pillow shaped envelope. He collected coupons and, as I recall, redeemed them for new pipes. He had only one at a time, but was a clencher and had his pipe nearby 24/7. When the P U factor kicked in, Gram would encourage Gramp to get out a coupon, I guess. I have about forty pipes on my racks and maybe thirty more in baskets. I have a small mountain of aging tobacco in the basement. Gramp would think I had too much time on my hands, probably. But it seems that you do need a certain critical mass of briar and weed before dedication becomes a thought taptaptapping at your chamber door.
 
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