Ah cake, so many opinions out there. Good luck on this adventure, it will be interesting to see if you prefer a slightly thicker cake. Hope you don't turn into one of those 'can't fit a pencil in there' types!
After playing with a good many estate pipes over the years the array of cake compositions is also intriguing. There exists a full gamut from millimeter thick + rock-hard + fragile all the way to very thick and spongy. I have always suspected that the difference lies in how hot a pipe is smoked. Usually, thicker pipes have spongier cake and thinner pipes (which smoke hotter by nature) have thinner and harder cake. The opposites can be true in so much as the final product draws from a marriage between the nature of the briar and the that of the smoker. Look at your own pipes after a while, I suspect that the Comoy's will have a thinner harder cake and that your 63M will have a chunkier and spongier cake.
You guys know that you can to a degree control the cake formation in your bowls by giving them a post smoke ...let's call it a gentle scrape for lack of a better word ... with the spoon end of an aluminum pipe nail or bend a cleaner in half and just swab the inside of the bowl. Either way you eventually get a smooth, dense hard cake in the bowl.
Ah cake, so many opinions out there. Good luck on this adventure, it will be interesting to see if you prefer a slightly thicker cake. Hope you don't turn into one of those 'can't fit a pencil in there' types!
ReplyDeleteAfter playing with a good many estate pipes over the years the array of cake compositions is also intriguing. There exists a full gamut from millimeter thick + rock-hard + fragile all the way to very thick and spongy. I have always suspected that the difference lies in how hot a pipe is smoked. Usually, thicker pipes have spongier cake and thinner pipes (which smoke hotter by nature) have thinner and harder cake. The opposites can be true in so much as the final product draws from a marriage between the nature of the briar and the that of the smoker. Look at your own pipes after a while, I suspect that the Comoy's will have a thinner harder cake and that your 63M will have a chunkier and spongier cake.
ReplyDeleteHmmm... Thick and spongey...
ReplyDeleteYou guys know that you can to a degree control the cake formation in your bowls by giving them a post smoke ...let's call it a gentle scrape for lack of a better word ... with the spoon end of an aluminum pipe nail or bend a cleaner in half and just swab the inside of the bowl. Either way you eventually get a smooth, dense hard cake in the bowl.
ReplyDeleteGood tips Chuck thanks HD
ReplyDelete