Does Size Matter? (long pipes for virginias)

[IHT]

we all know that heat hurts, unless you just don't have nerve endings in your tongue. we all know that smoking bitey virginias (or va/per, or va/burley) in a short pipe will cause your tongue to feel tingly for days.

do you all tend to make your longer pipes the ones you smoke for virginias and the like?

i'm going to change my Ser Jacapo canadian/poker into a VA based pipe and see if that helps with some of the heat issues of some blends.

[Big T]

Come on Gandalf, just buy yourself a nice long Churchwarden for your VA's and be done with it.

All kidding aside it probably makes more sense to allocate your pipes that way, but since my favorite blends are in the VA family, I tend to dedicate my best smokers to VA's, regardless of length. My cheaper pipes get dedicated to the stuff that I don't smoke as often....

[dogsplayinpoker]

Maybe since none of my pipes are much longer than 6 in.(no Freudian comments please), I haven't really had this issue come up. I have noticed that my straight pipes smoke va's better than any bent pipes that I own.

[IHT]

Originally Posted by Big T

Come on Gandalf, just buy yourself a nice long Churchwarden for your VA's and be done with it.

All kidding aside it probably makes more sense to allocate your pipes that way, but since my favorite blends are in the VA family, I tend to dedicate my best smokers to VA's, regardless of length. My cheaper pipes get dedicated to the stuff that I don't smoke as often....

that's exactly what i do, but when i got this canadian poker, i was smoking more latakia blends at the time.

[Cheeto]

I don't have a pipe dedicated to VAs yet, mainly because I haven't tried but one or two, but when I get a pipe, I plan to get a long one.

[mr.c]

maybe try a QUALITY filter pipe ? get rid of the moisture you get rid of the heat.

Can't say it does matter. For me it's what the pipe tells me in reguards to bowl shape, bowl depth, and thickness of the walls. Length never really plays any factor.
I smoke OJK in my nosewarmer, which may be 3.5" on a good day, and never had any ill effects from it. I think its more about pace and personal pH than anything.

[solafid3]

Well my dedicated Virginia pipe is a Tsuge Kaga... and it's pretty short. But I have been considering the same thing, that churchwardens would cool down the smoke and help out the bite, or at least I think it would.

[burninator]

Absolutely love my churchwarden for blends that tend to bite.

[tedski]

For hotter burning VA blends, I've taken different roads. After some experimentation, I found that the following pipes work best for me ...

- Small Kaywoodie pipes. These are about a group 2 in size. The smaller amount of tobacco burning along with the metal condensor seems to work well in keeping the smoke temp down.

- My larger VA pipes (several different brands) all share a common trait - thick walls on the bowl. In addition, most have a sandblast / rusticated finish. This seems to help keep the heat transfer down.

But of course the best ways I've found to avoid bite are:

1. Age your tobacco before smoking. Virginia blends lose most of that acidy taste over time ... and other than heat, the pH of the smoke is another cause of tongue bite.

2. Smoke slower and learn to sip your pipe when smoking Virginia blends.

[EvanS]

For straight VA my preference has turned to bowls that are taller than they are wide. I like the bit of self-stoving effect that I get as the bowl burns down. And for some reason the tobac having less room to "move around" seems to afford me a cooler smoke with a concentrated flavor...similar to what is claimed for a torpedo shaped cigar. Contrary to this I find that my Burleys are much more flavorful with a squat, fat bowl with plenty of room to breathe.

Matter of fact I have also just reassigned a couple of my pipes to conform to this.

But I have not found that stem length makes any difference, at least to me. Additionally I am really not at all convinced that tongue bite, at least in my case, has nearly as much to do with heat as it does with body chemistry. Heat may contribute but there is a certain difference between a heat burn and a chemical burn. Think about the last time you burned your tongue with hot coffee or tea...there is a marked difference between the feel this burn and the feel of a burn from a habanero. I would submit that McC Xmas Cheers are my baseline for this observation as I smoke those SO slowly that I doubt the smoke would show up on IR and still I get "tingled" at least.

[Puffy69]

I dont have any long pipes but ive been smoking my Va's in bent pipes...Better than a short straight..

[Alyks]

Just got a couple of new pipes. One of them is fairly long, I'll try it out with that one.

[dls]

Originally Posted by IHT

i'm going to change my Ser Jacapo canadian/poker into a VA based pipe and see if that helps with some of the heat issues of some blends.

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but how does one go about "rededicating" a pipe to a different tobacco type? I was under the impression that once a cake was built with a certain type of tobacco, it was very difficult to get that type's ghost out of the pipe. This is almost assuredly just my newbishness showing through, so go ahead and laugh if you must

[IHT]

just like cleaning any other pipe, it should remove the ghost flavor as well, while leaving the cake (unless you scrape it all out).

there's the salt n grain alcohol method, and the boiling/retort method.

what i'm going to do is clean it (when i buy some more salt - my wife forgot it just now at the store), then smoke nothing but VAs in it for a while, build up a good cake.
i've read where some ppl just smoke the other tobacco in there and it eventually changes over and no more ghost - but i'll try to clean it first.