Tobacco categories ?

[DustyRoundup]

Howdy All,
Well, I think I'm close to figuring this out, but I know you all will have the answers I need.

I have read, that its a good idea to use a certain pipe for a certain tobacco type.
ie; Va , Va per's , Aromatics, Latakia's , and Cavendish.
I am trying to fine tune this a bit , for my knowledge.

1; Would you smoke a Burl,Kent, Va blend , in your Va pipe ?

2; Would you smoke straight Cavendish in an aromatic pipe, or have a pipe for cav?

3' Using "Epiphany" as an example, it is a "Burl,Va,Lat,Per." blend, so should a feller smoke it in a Perique, or a Latakia Pipe?

4; If you had a "Latakia specific" pipe, would Orientals and Turkish be in that category ?

5; Irish oak is a "Burl,Cav,Va,Per." blend,,would you smoke that in a Cav Pipe, or a Perique pipe?

These thoughts came about last night, while trying to categorize my samples in my "Log Book/Journal", and it had me stumped.
And I just re read the tobacco info at pipedia, but I know you all will have the straight , easy to understand answers .

Thanks,
Dusty

 

[cakeanddottle]

There is no answer to this. Some dedicate pipes to specific single tobaccos (say FVF or anything else you can think of), some break it down by genre, some make no distinction and smoke everything in anything.

I break mine down into three groups of pipes, Lat blends, Va's and Burleys. The reason I do this is because I favor a specific bore depth for each of those three; small pipes for Va's, large pipes for Lat blends, and humongous pipes for Burleys.

 

[smokey422]

There is no answer to this. Some dedicate pipes to specific single tobaccos (say FVF or anything else you can think of), some break it down by genre, some make no distinction and smoke everything in anything.

I break mine down into three groups of pipes, Lat blends, Va's and Burleys. The reason I do this is because I favor a specific bore depth for each of those three; small pipes for Va's, large pipes for Lat blends, and humongous pipes for Burleys.

I break my pipes down the same way: Latakia blend pipes, Burley pipes, VA-VA/Per pipes, and I also have one pipe dedicated to aromatics.

Smokey

 

[Frost]

You may be overthinking a bit, but i think you are on the right track. The lines do get a bit blurred and there arent any hard and fst rules, but to answer your questions heres what i got based on my limited (significantly so) knowledge and experience:

A blend with kentucky in it i would typically have a kentucky pipe for and would not smoke in the same pipe i would use for straight brighter/sweeter virginias. Reason being thast kentucky has a darker/deeper and more savory flavor, whereas with a straight Va blend you are usually lookin' for a light sweetness, citrus or hay like flavor. Not to say that the two flavor profiles wont work awesome together, just that they can interfere with eachother a bit if you are looking for the particular aspects of the individual types of tobacco blends.

Conversely, a blend like orlik golden sliced in my experience can be smoked in a pipe used primarily for sraight Lemon or red or bright type virginias, since that is realy the main feature of OGS even tho it has burly in it for just a little more depth.

Straight cavendish i have no idea, cause i dont have much experience with it and 'cause it could realy be any number of different types of leaf. That said, if it smells like desert instead of tobacco, it's probably an aro of one sort or another.

Epiphany has a very mild lat & perique presence, so i wouldnt' smoke it in a heavy lat or perique pipe those ghosts might enhance those flavors more than would be found from the blend itself. It does have some tho, so i wouldnt smoke it in a pipe that i used for blends without these features either.

For Lat blends with orientals/turkish type stuff, i'll smoke em in a latakia pipe. For blends that have oriental/ turkish but no latakia, they need their own pipe with no latakia ghosts.

What it comes down to is that there are a ton of different flavors and combinations of weed to be found and to realy get a good sense of the little nuances in a large variety of them without too much interference from ghosts and the like, you need a bunch of pipes and a way to try a tobacco to get a sense of where it fits before deciding what pipe to put it in.

This is where the venereble corn cob pipe comes in. Get several if you can.

Edit: so much for "straight and easy to understand answers"...lol.

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

About 20% of my pipes are dedicated to specific tobaccos, which is good when you're smoking that tobacco but not very good when your attention has drifted away, when you have become preoccupied with other tobaccos. For example I have 4 pipes dedicated to GH Dark Flake. It used to be that I smoked it 5 days out of 7, but now I only smoke it once every 2 or 3 weeks. I like Irish Flake and 1792 now better. Time to reallocate those pipes.

As regards which pipes to smoke what in, I think you're thinking along the right lines. Segregating latakia and perique is said to be a good thing, but as regards latakia, I've had little problem getting rid of whatever ghosting it causes-1 or 2 bowls and I'm good to go. I'd also watch topping/casing. The more of it that a blend has the more apt it is to ghost.

Some people say that certain blends will forever ghost a pipe. I've not had that happen. Wood is porous, and it absorbs properties of the smoke; but I find it hard to believe that elbow grease and grain alcohol would be unable to restore a pipe when needed.

I've had good luck with the salt and cotton-ball methods. The salt method involves putting kosher salt in the bowl to the halfway mark, filling with grain alcohol, then a layer of salt to the top, filling again with the alcohol. It is said that you can crack a bowl doing this, but this never happened to me when I tried it two times. Did it rid the bowl of unwanted flavors? Don't laugh, but I don't remember.

The cottonball treatment is basically the same, two layers of cotton filled with alcohol. This has worked and doesn't have the ability to harm the pipe.

A good way to prop the pipe up during treatment is with the bottom half of an egg carton.

 

[DustyRoundup]

hmm?
Great answers, Thanks.

I am trying to keep things seperate right now, as I am sampling quite a few different types , blends etc.
And I am trying to taste and enjoy each, so I can figure out what each type/blend is all about.

I picked up 2 more MM cobs today. So that gives me 3 briars, and 3 cobs, and the Yello-Bole.
I will use the advice you all gave, in choosing the program for each pipe.

Thanks

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Edit: so much for "straight and easy to understand answers"...lol.

:lol: Yeah, but they are GOOD answers! 8)

I'm trying very narrow scopes of tobacco right now, so it's helping with the fact I have so relatively few pipes to the rest of you. I'm kind of starting simple and being "taken for a ride" by the pipes and tobacco themselves. As I get more pipes, my adventurous side is leading me toward Lat and Per blends, so off I go! 8) At least I will have the pipes to dedicate to them, and leave some others for just aromatics or lighter VAs or Burleys.

 

[Frost]

I'm trying very narrow scopes of tobacco right now, so it's helping with the fact I have so relatively few pipes to the rest of you. I'm kind of starting simple and being "taken for a ride" by the pipes and tobacco themselves. As I get more pipes, my adventurous side is leading me toward Lat and Per blends, so off I go! 8) At least I will have the pipes to dedicate to them, and leave some others for just aromatics or lighter VAs or Burleys.

I think the way to go about it with fewer pipes would be to narrow your "categories" to one or two blends at a time and use a cleaning regimen of some sort like the aforementioned salt or cotton ball methods prior to smoking a different blend in a given pipe. Take the time to really get familiar with a particular blend prior to switching things up.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

I think the way to go about it with fewer pipes would be to narrow your "categories" to one or two blends at a time and use a cleaning regimen of some sort like the aforementioned salt or cotton ball methods prior to smoking a different blend in a given pipe. Take the time to really get familiar with a particular blend prior to switching things up.

I think that's what I'm doing... :lol: I have about eight blends and about ten pipes in rotation right now, of those blends I have light aromatics or gentle oriental/lat stuff.

I like the salt/cotton ball method--I'll have to try that. Yeah if I switch it up, I try to minimize the effect of "ghosting" by doing a good bowl-twist with some newspaper. That seems to work ace. I also have a couple of pipes that just don't pick up excess flavor leftovers--both are no-name hand carved, older Danish briar pipes.

Truthfully, my mood and palette (also moody) probably lend me to more switching up than anything...but really, a sort of "organized chaos" is kind of fun right now, and ultimately, I'm enjoying the journey a lot! 8) I'm learning.

 

[Blackhorse]

I'm totally rigid abiut what I smoke in my pipes (about 50 at this point). I have them set iut in their racks just so...in ofder not to get them crossed up as I'm easily confused. So...my rule is rigid but fairly simple...in all my pipes regardless of shape or size or country of irigin...I only smoke tobacco.

 

[DustyRoundup]

Whew!
There sure are alot of variables to pipe smoking .
Well, I figure, I'll go along till I find what I really like.

Like today, I took a pipeful on the 4 wheeler with me to feed horses and plow out some snow.
It was a large bowl, and I loaded it with "Old Gowrie" a Kent/Va/Per.
It had a wide mouthpiece too, so was easy to keep in my mouth.
It was a good match, for what I was doing , and "how" I was smoking.
That was my first bowl of "Old Gowrie" and it was pretty darn good too.
So, its good to hear you can clean out a bowl and start over, as I may decide later on down the road , that i would prefer a different tobacco while doing the same chores.
But , the pipe sure fit the job !

Like Kyle says, This is fun and I am enjoying learning as I go.

 

[Lesath]

BH, Now I know where I went wrong. I suppose if I properly racked them instead letting them settle in hither and yon, the world would coalesce into one of no confusion. Well, they do all have their place, though I don't always know where that is. They know where they are. I think...

Dusty, don't worry, you'll find your own system and it will be correct for you. I do dedicate briars to Latakia blends that have a unique and strong signature, like Bishop's Move or Old Limey Bastard. For me it's just easier to let a few pipes go to the darkside and live there. Va and Vapers I have no real concerns, though I do seem to gravitate towards a certain no name Italian briar when it's time for Escudo. Likely some bizarre ritual I've developed. Just whatever works for you; if nothing else, open another cob.

 

[momus]

I'm lazy. I keep it simple. Aromatics and non aromatics. The trick is with the non aromatics is don't be too schizo with it...going from a lat to a virgina to a burley...stick with one type in the pipe for a while and then later you can switch it up...the ghost will die down and doesn't bug me in the least. If you change it too much though that ghost will never really leave and you will end up with not tasting anything decent. I mostly stick with one type of blend in a non aro pipe for a few weeks...by the third bowl or so I really never taste the former blend.

 

[JT]

Interesting questions, Dusty. I generally break tobaccos down into 4 classes:

1- The best VA available: Full Virginia Flake
2- Very good VA's: Stonehaven, Hal o' the Wynd, etc.
3- Tobaccos that suck but smell good
4- Tobaccos that suck and smell bad

I have somewhere around 100 pipes - approximately 40 of which are dedicated to category 1, another dozen or so dedicated to category 2, and the remainder for experimenting with categories 3 and 4 or future sale on eBay.

I do this because when I smoke FVF or Stonehaven, I like to smoke FVF or Stonehaven I don't want be distracted by the ghosts of previous smokes containing chocolate, rose and geranium, moth balls or road tar. You'll likely find this to be of limited value, but someone, somewhere, will be grateful to you for keeping me busy for a few minutes.

 

[Natch]

Dusty,

You might look into getting a pipe/screen if you're moving around while smoking. Hate to see an ember hit a hay bale and start a fire. They have these little spring loaded clip on things, cost a few bucks, and work well for outdoor and windy conditions.

Let us know what you think of the new tobaccos you bought. Always good to hear others perspective on a blend we may also smoke.

Natch

 

[mark]

You'll likely find this to be of limited value, but someone, somewhere, will be grateful to you for keeping me busy for a few minutes.

An honest man speaketh,,, :lol!: :lol!: :lol!:

 

[JT]

An honest man speaketh,,,

LOL, Mark. I'm not sure if I should be grateful to you for confirming the veracity of my comment..... or concerned that you did it so quickly. :sunny:

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

I segregate pipes by VAs, VA/Perique and Latakia, but when I'm smoking a certain blend repeatedly, I then pick 2-4 pipes and rotate through them for as long as needed.

 

[DustyRoundup]

Well, with all this excellent advice, I think I have a beginninng System.

I'm using my Pete 304 for Va's as it has a small bowl, and I dont even come close to a tongue burn with the p-lip, and the Union square and 109 are great in it.
I have a sample of FVF that I havent tried yet, but I'm saving that for Thanksgiving Day.

I have an Italian Briar, and a "no name " briar that I am using for Va-Per's, as I have quite a few samples of that , and therefore more to smoke.
(I think Im finally catching on to the "perique" taste) sort of.

I havent gotten into my Latakia samples yet ,but have a Cob waiting for that day.

I have a cob that im using for my Cavendish, and have smoked B20 Black cav through it a few times. I like the black Cav for about 30 minutes, then I kind of dont????

I just got a Pete 307, in the mail, that I am cleaning, and reboring ,through the THICK cake layer.
I dont have plans for it yet, but it has a HUGE bowl. So we'll see.

And I went with the Yello-Bole for Aromatics, simply because it is plastic and I can clean the heck out of it , after each use.

I think , after your replies, that I will keep the Va's and Va-Per's seperate for awhile, as I am trying to figure out the Perique taste.

Oh yeah , Natch, I did get one of those little caps for the wind with the 307 that came today, But, I dont even go near the hay barn.

:affraid: :affraid: :affraid: Three years ago, I hired a few kids to pick up bales , and I drove,,,,I looked in the mirror, and one was smoking a cigarette
ON the back of the trailer, , while stacking hay.
You reminded me of that just now.