It's getting to be fall, so I took out the favorite pipes.
Last year I made a mistake of trying a lot of different tobaccos including a bunch of rope tobacco. The stuff reminded me of the smell in the horse barn when the pee gets good and awful smelling. But, listening to some guys on a pipe forum, I tried some in my good pipe. Now,after sitting for 6 months, after having cleaned it, packed it in baking powder, and airing it out, the thing still stinks.
Any suggestions or have i just completely wrecked my good pipe? Believe me, i will never do that again. Help, please.

Hey Puff,
I've been thinking about trying a Pipe,
what would you suggest for someone starting out?

"But, listening to some guys on a pipe forum, I tried some in my good pipe. Now,after sitting for 6 months, after having cleaned it, packed it in baking powder, and airing it out, the thing still stinks.
Any suggestions or have i just completely wrecked my good pipe? Believe me, i will never do that again. Help, please."


Dear Puffing,
Please reference the "Do you massage your beef?" Thread on the Food, Drink, and Travel section of this forum, it may answer some of your questions.

Badfish;
If you are serious-
The biggest thing I learned is that you should let the tobacco dry out. It comes, a lot of times, really moist. The wetter it is, the more tongue burn you get from it.
Some guys let it dry all the way out, others let it dry to the point of being just slightly moist.
If you are serious about your question (I don't know, after reading DrAlexandro) if I am getting jerked around, but I would be glad to tell you what I learned.

sorry puffing was just foolin'

okay-
Here's a few things I learned;
1. I really enjoy a fine looking pipe and think they smoke better than the really cheap ones - at least they look better and feel better.
2. most guys would have at least 2 pipes so that they can smoke the "non aromatic" tobacco in one and the aromatic in another.
3. Some of the really nice smelling aromatic tobaccos taste awful. The more stuff they put on the tobacco, the more it tends to be sharp tasting and goo's up the bowl of the pipe.
4. There are some nice aromatic tobaccos but the ones with a lighter smell to them, to my taste, are a nice compramise, smell nice, smoke okay, others will like the smell.
5. There are purists who only think you should smoke un altered tobaccos, like virginias, latakia, etc. Try them all and see what you like.
6. A lot of pipe shops will give you little baggies of samples of a few of their house mixes. I always offer to pay and buy something in the store anyway. But that gives you a chance to see what you like without spending a ton of money.
7. There are some really nice pipe magazines out that are fun to read. Reviews of pipe tobacco are like cigars, highly subjective.
8. pipe smoking really affects your sense of taste. Even if you smoke slowly and smoke mild tobacco, your tongue gets a beating and things don't taste quite the same, food wise.
9. Packing the bowl with tobacco - don't overstuff tobacco into the bowl. Believe it or not, there are vast opinions about how to pack a bowl of tobacco.
10. There are some tobaccos that come in chunky form and are meant for you to break up the chunks in your hand, not to stuff in the pipe in huge, hard pieces.
I suppose that is really a lot of stuff, so I'll quit, but there is something really relaxing about smoking a pipe and you can smoke for 5 minutes, if you want, something you can't do with a cigar. Bob

Puff'

There are various remedies for removing the lingering taste of bad tobaccos in your pipe.

Th efirst and most improtant is to get a cheapie corncob and use that when trying new blends. This way if it tastes like crap, you haven't ruined your good pipes.

Next is to use a commercially available pipe freshener. Follow their instructions and you may need to smoke a few bowls afterwards to get the flavor of the pipe "seasoned" the way you like it. Some people swear by this method, but it left one pipe sort of minty and it took forever for it to smoke right again.

Another method that I have used and you must be very careful or you will remove the finish, is to pack the bowl with table salt tightly, then using an eyedropper, add Everclear or other neutral high proof grain alcohol dropwise to the salt. Avoid getting this stuff on the finish! When the salt is saturated, stop and leave the pipe sitting until the salt is dry, say a day or so. Then repeat with the alcohol 2 more times, leaving the salt alone between alcohol additions. After about three days and the salt is totally dry tap the bowl on a cork knocker and dislodge the salt. You should see a yellow/brown tinge to the salt where it has drawn resiude from the walls of the pipe. If you have a lot of carbon in the pipe, it's a good idea to ream this out before using this method, you want to not only remove anything that might be holding the bad flavors, but also let the salt/alcohol do their stuff on the pore of the wood.

Hope that helps and get yourself a corn cob for trying new blends!

Thanks very much BinDer.
I know about the corn cob pipes but made a bad decision and paid for it dearly.
Have you ever tried the rope tobaccos? I bought a sampler and ended up sending the whole thing, minus about 1/10th of an ounce, to someone who liked it. That stuff is so nasty, I can't imagine why someone would like it.
I shudder just remembering it.

quote:

Originally posted by puffingaway:
Thanks very much BinDer.
I know about the corn cob pipes but made a bad decision and paid for it dearly.
Have you ever tried the rope tobaccos? I bought a sampler and ended up sending the whole thing, minus about 1/10th of an ounce, to someone who liked it. That stuff is so nasty, I can't imagine why someone would like it.
I shudder just remembering it.

"Rope" is just another form that pipe tobacco is prepared and sold. It's like saying "club sandwich." It can include many different things, it just defines the shape you will get it in.

Some ropes are natural tobacco, some are cased or flavored with additives. I have seen ropes of plain Burleys that were fairly mild and I have seen ropes (in England especially) that were black tarry and stank that couldn't possibly smoke good. Try and find out what was in they blend and avoid it, but if you see rope tobacco in a shop that is natural leaf and not cased or flavored, you might like it.

Some tinned tobacco starts out as rope and is sliced into discs. The discs are sometimes left like that in the tin or they are rubbed out to produce flakes prior to packaging.

This must have been the english variety. Dark, thick, about 1/2 inch in diameter. Some plain, some flavored. Its been a while since i bought it over the internet from a pipe shop but it was about 8 different 6-8 inch pieces as a sampler.
YUK!!!

I have recently dusted some of my pipes and went into a tobacco store (same place I buy cigars) and the owner suggested I try som CAO "Old Ironsides". It is an English blend with Latikia in it and I found it to be a wonderful smoke. Go to a site called tobaccoreviews.com and they will have good descriptions of a vast variety of pipe tobacco. I have found it to be helpful. For a aromatic with a wonderful taste try "Middle Earth blend", very fragrant and great tasting.