what makes a pipe smoke well

[Boxerbuddy]

Ok I have a question that may be fairly obvious to some, but being a relative noob it isn't to me.

What really makes a pipe smoke well. By well I guess I mean cool and dry.

What I assume is that it's a combination of engineering and wood quality.....but it seems to me that since the engineering is not overly complicated, that all good makers probably engineer their pipes well....and that leaves us with wood quality.
The consensus seems to be that the more you age your wood the drier it becomes and the better it smokes.....of course there are variables like how your wood was aged.
Although I did speak to one famous maker who said he uses newer wood that isn't dried out completely and he finds that this is the best wood for smoking.

Bear in mind that these are assumptions on my part as to what makes a pipe smoke well...please tell me if I'm wrong or if there are ather variables.

With all that said...how do we know which manufacturers/makers use the best quality wood for their pipes....or is there a way to know at all?

 

[Sasquatch]

The answer to this question will depend on who you ask.

For example, if you ask Castello, they'll tell you that their briar, aged to that age, stored where it's stored, is the very best.

Peterson will tell you the same thing.

I've gotten briar right from the cutter, I mean still pretty wet inside, cut a pipe, dried it for a couple weeks, put a stem to it and finished shaping, and was told that it was the best smoker the guy had ever had.

It's a pretty simple equation. 50% briar. 50% engineering. 35% magic. 5% bullshit. 5% luck.

Really, most big makers have no idea where any particular piece of briar came from. Artisans will usually buy from one mill, for consistency in product, price, shipment, etc. But the idea that you can get a pipe made from a piece of briar that is a certain age, grew at a certain height, etc... is probably wrong. Good clean briar well cured by the cutter .... will make a good pipe.

Naturally I use only 250 year old dead root briar, hand picked by virgins at midnight, on the 7th day of the 7th month. But these other suckers just use regular briar, and it's almost as good. Almost. :twisted:

 

[dshpipes]

Well I had a long, well thought out comment to make here, then Sas jumped in. As a result, I'll just say:

The answer to this question will depend on who you ask.

For example, if you ask Castello, they'll tell you that their briar, aged to that age, stored where it's stored, is the very best.

Peterson will tell you the same thing.

I've gotten briar right from the cutter, I mean still pretty wet inside, cut a pipe, dried it for a couple weeks, put a stem to it and finished shaping, and was told that it was the best smoker the guy had ever had.

It's a pretty simple equation. 50% briar. 50% engineering. 35% magic. 5% bullshit. 5% luck.

Really, most big makers have no idea where any particular piece of briar came from. Artisans will usually buy from one mill, for consistency in product, price, shipment, etc. But the idea that you can get a pipe made from a piece of briar that is a certain age, grew at a certain height, etc... is probably wrong. Good clean briar well cured by the cutter .... will make a good pipe.

Naturally I use only 250 year old dead root briar, hand picked by virgins at midnight, on the 7th day of the 7th month. But these other suckers just use regular briar, and it's almost as good. Almost. :twisted:

+1

 

[monbla256]

The answer to this question will depend on who you ask.

".... hand picked by virgins at midnight, on the 7th day of the 7th month. But these other suckers just use regular briar, and it's almost as good. Almost. :twisted:

The hand picking of virgins is the important part and since there are not as many these days, it's anybodies guess what you are getting

But really, most of the few older firms still in business for more than the past 25 years or so produce as good a product as can be expected . I've only recently purchased a new pipe, fromSavanelli and it was of a quality equal to any I purchased 30 years ago and smokes as well. Which is probably why the concept of "estate" pipes has become so big these days. As was years ago, it can still be a crap shoot considering all thevariables.

 

[Sasquatch]

There is variation in briar, in density, porosity, hardness... how tight it's grained... Briar from Algeria smells a little different and works a little different than briar from Spain or Italy.... and when I've sent 2 or 3 pipes at the same time to a customer which are from different sources of briar, usually I get feedback indicating very small variances (but interestingly consistent variances, customer to customer). (I consider "how a pipe smokes" to include such factors as how it tastes, how easy to keep lit, how it deals with moisture, etc)

But if the briar is cured right - boiled well and dried sufficiently, you can make a damn good pipe out of it. If you add a mystical ingredient (even an utterly made-up one like "dead root") it adds a certain charm to pipes.

 

[MisterE]

Naturally I use only 250 year old dead root briar, hand picked by virgins at midnight, on the 7th day of the 7th month. But these other suckers just use regular briar, and it's almost as good. Almost. :twisted:

Well, you see, that's where you screwed up. Rad could've told you it's the stuff collected by eunuch dwarves on the summer solstice that's the real "dead root". That virgin briar stuff is just a gimmick.

:lol!: :albino:

 

[Smoker99]

It is always about the briar to start with. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, so to speak. All the expert drilling in the world won't help a bad piece of briar.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

It is always about the briar to start with. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, so to speak. All the expert drilling in the world won't help a bad piece of briar.

In addition to Sas' words, +1 to this.

What makes a pipe smoke good might just be what matches your tobacco, smoking style and personal preference. Such a stupid, obvious answer, but when I compare a $4 cob to say, my Kirk Bosi, both perform wonderfully and admirably, they couldn't be more different pipes.

I guess, over time, how one takes care of a pipe can probably lend itself to how it smokes, especially after some of the cake-choked old estate briar pictures I've seen posted recently. :lol:

8)

 

[Sasquatch]

I think "smoke good" depends very much on what any individual prefers, as well.

If it is the case that certain briar adds or takes out certain flavors, for example, a smoker of Va/Pers might like it and a smoker of aromatics might not.

A hotter or cooler smoker might have different experiences with briar of different densities....

So there probably isn't one "right answer" about briar - one "best" briar.

I think a guy needs to explore brands and find what kind of stem material and stem cut he likes, find out if he likes large-bore bowls or small.... large bore airways or small.... there's SO many variables in a pipe.

I make my pipes pretty consistently and no one has really come back and said "Hey this is a piece of crap." but it is interesting how some guys come back and say "This is the best pipe I've ever had by a mile." and some guys never come back at all.... so they can't have been QUITE as impressed, which is merely to say that the pipe was, well, just a pipe after all, hmm?

 

[Harlock999]

The answer to this question will depend on who you ask.

".... hand picked by virgins at midnight, on the 7th day of the 7th month. But these other suckers just use regular briar, and it's almost as good. Almost. :twisted:

The hand picking of virgins is the important part and since there are not as many these days, it's anybodies guess what you are getting

Good stuff gentlemen! :cheers:

 

[shootist51]

I'm not getting into the "new" wood, "old" wood conflab again!


It has been my experience that if a pipe only smokes so-so, if you open the smoke hole going into the heel of the pipe with a hand held 4mm drill bit, it suddenly smokes much cooler and with greater flavor. This, as a rule, is a very small increase of the existing hole, but seems to make a great improvement. Many of the more expensive pipes have already had this done by the carver.