Bowl Coating

[Rob_In_MO]

One year, when it was time to make whatever kielbassa-like sausage it was to celebrate Easter, he decided to use only prime cuts in place of the usual scraps & trimmings.

Everybody hated it.

I can definitely see that happening - scraps and trimmings provide 90% of the flavor.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

I can definitely see that happening - scraps and trimmings provide 90% of the flavor.

Kind of like how grocery store marketing insists "everyone" wants yellow bananas leaning slightly green--even though the starch doesn't convert to sugars and "banana taste" until the fruit (actually, a berry) has been heavily dappled by brown spots, which can take a week to develop. One almost never sees truly ripe bananas in a store, because they cull "ugly," brown ready-to-eat bananas from the racks to be thrown out.

Perception and group-think, especially when it's cultivated, is a weird phenomenon to me.

Not to mention the pretty-factor that wastes so much food... *sigh*

8)

 

[joemelon]

Wayne that's a good point. I do have to say, though, if someone's gonna insist on smoking a pipe hard, whether it be via cigar-flame lighters, puffing like the midnight train to Georgia, or a bad habit I even sometimes am guilty of, "Going Beyond The Dottle..."...nothing short of an asbestos coating will really do much but stave off the inevitable.

I assume the asbestos coating is a safeguard not in prolonging the life of the pipe but in shortening the life of the owner so that the pipe is maybe, MAYBE spared its still eventual fate? :lol:

This is a great thread, I swear with the arguments it feels like some of you folks really hate each other and then everything is peachy keen. I have a preference for uncoated bowls, but if it's coated and I love the look of the pipe then I'm still going to get the pipe. This has been a really great thread as far as information on bowl coatings, I like how everyone offers their opinions plus pulls in information they've gathered through various links.

As far as a bowl coating providing a more finished looking product, I can respect that. I might like the look of an uncoated bowl more, but looking into a solid black, smooth bowl when checking out a new pipe certainly is a more streamlined experience. I've always assumed and from further reading that bowl coats are specifically there as a preventative measure from premature burnout as well as providing a nice base for cake to start forming upon.

I think in the long run bowl coating or not wont do too much as far as flavor, especially after dozens and dozens of smokes which I think brings forth another question as far as how a pipe flavors the tobacco (briar, cob, olive or other material). I've read a bit about how flavor is imparted via pipe material, or by bowl coating (such as this discussion) but I wonder how much it really matters after you have a solid cake built up.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Wayne that's a good point. I do have to say, though, if someone's gonna insist on smoking a pipe hard, whether it be via cigar-flame lighters, puffing like the midnight train to Georgia, or a bad habit I even sometimes am guilty of, "Going Beyond The Dottle..."...nothing short of an asbestos coating will really do much but stave off the inevitable.

I assume the asbestos coating is a safeguard not in prolonging the life of the pipe but in shortening the life of the owner so that the pipe is maybe, MAYBE spared its still eventual fate? :lol:

Another good reason not to inhale pipe smoke. :mrgreen:

8)

 

[Anonymous]

Here you have a prime example of why a pipe chamber not only doesn't need a black-washing, but shouldn't have one. Yes, Castello does a fine job with their mostly traditional shapes and they are eye-catching, no doubt about it. But, what keeps them as one of the very best selling brands in the premium market (they very well might be No. 1 in that category) is their reputation as great tasting pipes. People swear by that characteristic. And they don't coat their bowls. 'Nuf said.

:bom: :face: :bom:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Ah, fire stoked. :warmshands: :lol:

I sometimes wish I could buy new pipes every day, because there's nothing like the first few smokes in an unbroken-in pipe sans the coating when you discover you bought some truly sweet briar. A little harsh in the pipe/smoker's world of taste to some, but it's akin the scent of crème brûlée vapor just when the torch is taken away. It's fleeting, momentary, and magical.

 

[glpease]

Ah, fire stoked. :warmshands: :lol:

I sometimes wish I could buy new pipes every day, because there's nothing like the first few smokes in an unbroken-in pipe sans the coating when you discover you bought some truly sweet briar. A little harsh in the pipe/smoker's world of taste to some, but it's akin the scent of crème brûlée vapor just when the torch is taken away. It's fleeting, momentary, and magical.

I'm with you, there. I was recently given an unsmoked Castello Sea Rock 55 that I'm in the process of breaking in. I know a lot of guys hate this part, but I love it. The first bowl is far from the best - that comes much, much later - but like you wrote, when the wood is right, it's magical. And, Castellos, as Marty points out, are so often right.

I've encountered quite a few collectors of more "serious" high-grades, but smoke their Castellos. Yeah. More anecdotes. (Remarkable thing innit, inference?)

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Well, wood, being a cellulose fiber coming from plants (briar included), there's an amount of sugar that is present. Each species of plant has its own thing going on, and for that matter, even two identical plants aren't really identical, being forged by season, water, conditions, soil nutrients...

...I wonder if the better-tasting briar simply had a better time with life (kind of anthropomorphic, I know :no: ) and lends that to our tongues. Or it's masochistic in nature and the sweet stuff was thriving on drought, bugs, toads falling from the sky and insults hurled in its general direction.

My first experience with this was a cheaper Tsuge Kaga a brother wasn't into and gave to me, and the other was a Peterson my extended family bought for me. Both times, bowl coating went bye-bye, and it was epic pipa brûlée .

8)

 

[glpease]

Well, wood, being a cellulose fiber coming from plants (briar included), there's an amount of sugar that is present. Each species of plant has its own thing going on, and for that matter, even two identical plants aren't really identical, being forged by season, water, conditions, soil nutrients...

...I wonder if the better-tasting briar simply had a better time with life (kind of anthropomorphic, I know :no: ) and lends that to our tongues. Or it's masochistic in nature and the sweet stuff was thriving on drought, bugs, toads falling from the sky and insults hurled in its general direction.

My first experience with this was a cheaper Tsuge Kaga a brother wasn't into and gave to me, and the other was a Peterson my extended family bought for me. Both times, bowl coating went bye-bye, and it was epic pipa brûlée .

PIpes do have their own personalities, and it's really hard to ignore that. I've got a rack full of Castello 55s. They're all good, some are great, a couple are exceptional. Some taste better with VAs, some with fuller Latakia mixtures, and a scant few just don't demonstrate any sort of preference. It still amazes me how a selection of pipes with the same overall shape and geometry can be SO different from one another, and those differences are not always subtle. Will they converge over time after each has been smoked a hundred times? I'll have to wait and see on that one.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Will they converge over time after each has been smoked a hundred times? I'll have to wait and see on that one.

Such a daunting challenge. Someone's gotta do it.

 

[somedumbjerk]

Here you have a prime example of why a pipe chamber not only doesn't need a black-washing, but shouldn't have one. Yes, Castello does a fine job with their mostly traditional shapes and they are eye-catching, no doubt about it. But, what keeps them as one of the very best selling brands in the premium market (they very well might be No. 1 in that category) is their reputation as great tasting pipes. People swear by that characteristic. And they don't coat their bowls. 'Nuf said.

:bom: :face: :bom:

funny you should mention this. i talked to marty about it at length last week. he basically said the same thing, but agreed with me that a bowl coating isn't enough to deter you from a great pipe. there is a difference in my coated low end fero and my coated radices. you can taste the coating in the fero, for sure. i didn't notice it before, but i broke it out again and had two bowls of telegraph hill, and two bowls of orlik golden sliced. these two tobaccos i've noticed are very different in flavors, but easily tell me something about the pipe i'm using. i hated the orlik first two times i smoked it, then on i whim i loaded it into my radice billiard/apple/whatever and got an amazing smoke. the previous smokes where in my cob and my sav standing (coated bowl). telegraph hill i sjust such a pure blissful tobacco that i can taste any ghost, it tastes different in every pipe, etc. so i followed up those fero bowls in my junebug, and the other radice i have. junebug is not coated, other radice is. in the radices, it still tasted great. the fero, had a chemical taste to it? i'm searching for the right way to put it, but it tasted kind of plastic, kind of metal, unnatural.

i guess the point on my ramblings is pretty much the same point that has been made here: a good coating is fine. naked briar is fine. a bad coating is bad. if a pipe sings to you, buy it! especially from marty

 

[Anonymous]

I wonder if the better-tasting briar simply had a better time with life

Here we go around Robin Hood's barn again.

"Briar" probably encompasses at least as much diversity as "Dog" does.

Read enough stuff written by people with enough background experience to know what they're talking about, and you keep encountering the observations that :

*Male and female shrubs are (big surprise here) different.

*The location where the boles are harvested (partly soil-weather ? Partly "evolution" ?) makes for big differences. E.g., old Britwood (typically, Grecian) does especially well with Virginias ; some Italian briar is positively allergic to them but shines with English/Balkans.

Even how lousy the soil was -- the tougher the conditions it had to live in, the higher the quality (visually, at least).

*The thoroughness with which the sap's been boiled out of it, and the preliminary ageing (time and -- some say, place) will be a major factor.

*Whether it's undergone a second processing (and if so, which) step before (or after) manufacture. Feather-light, ultra-absorbant briar didn't get that way on its own. But by the same token, lots of people like it left "natural," finding that it colors the taste in a nice way. (At least when it's good to begin with).

*Whether it came from the outside of the bole or closer to the interior of it.

:face:

 

[Anonymous]

Not that this will be a popular conclusion, but even if you could identify all the variables involved, there are too many of them.

The more practical approach to zero-ing (heh :lol: ) in on it would be collating the experience of makers who have managed, by noticing what works especially well and what doesn't, to produce consistently superior results.

One such that comes to mind is that (Barbi ?) when the briar smells like bread as it's being worked, the outcome will be optimum.

Simple stuff like that. Then find common denominators . . .

People got to the point where they were making good steel long before there was any such thing as "metallurgy" in the picture. Think about that -- from knowing that iron ore contained iron, the ore/limestone/charcoal-coke procedure, all the way to adjusting the carbon content & tempering it. All by the seat of their pants.

When the so-called "Enlightenment" came along and convinced everybody that THEY and THEY ALONE had all the answers (or at least the procedure to arrive at them) they did a real number on people. We're still digging out from under it.

Automatically assuming that it's either their "scientific method" (nifty as this is when it's suited to the task) or nothing is not, IMHO, a warranted assumption.

:face:
ICONOCLAST

 

[Kyle Weiss]

If we were better at hitting the broad side of Robin Hood's barn, I suppose it wouldn't make for lengthy discussions worthy of pipe smokers. :lol:

I still think most decent pipes are reasonable, loyal gals with mild daddy issues, slightly into spanking. It's the ones that nag, cajole, bite and get swampy that we try to avoid (or control). :mrgreen:

Upbringing and genes do matter.

8)

 

[Anonymous]

reasonable, loyal gals with mild daddy issues, slightly into spanking. It's the ones that nag, cajole, bite and get swampy that we try to avoid (or control).

That's what the spankings are for.

Emotional re-booting.

:face:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

reasonable, loyal gals with mild daddy issues, slightly into spanking. It's the ones that nag, cajole, bite and get swampy that we try to avoid (or control).

That's what the spankings are for.

Emotional re-booting.

:face:

:lol:

So much so, the right gals ask for it by name. :heart: :cheers:

8)

 

[MisterE]

reasonable, loyal gals with mild daddy issues, slightly into spanking. It's the ones that nag, cajole, bite and get swampy that we try to avoid (or control).

That's what the spankings are for.

Emotional re-booting.

:face:

:lol:

So much so, the right gals ask for it by name. :heart: :cheers:

8)

:lol!: :lol!:

 

[KevinM]

Peterson bowl coatings are more robust than the black paint they use on the outside of some of their pipes. ale:

I gave up on trying to remove Pete coatings. Even getting most of it out with sandpaper, I could still taste it. It haughtily resisted alcohol as a solvent, too. Only smoking the pipe "removed" the coating.

Jeez, ain't that the truth. Last two new pipes I bought -- one was a Pete, the other a Rocheleau (sp?). The Rocheleau, a dome top Dub, was hand made from bowl to stem, natural finish, naked bowl. The inside of that bowl was so pretty I was reluctant to fire 'er up. The straight grain on the outside showed up unpolished on the inside leading to the birdseye up top. The perfect work done on the air passage and the bottom of the bowl was clearly visible. It broke in quickly, evenly and without complaint.

The new Pete is doing fine, but there was no admiring the insides or gaining another view of the workmanship or grain.

As a purely practical consideration, maybe it won't amount to beans six months from now. Both pipes now have a thin layer of carbon over whatever lies underneath. But it would have been a shame to deprive the owner of a view of the unadorned wood in the bowl of the Rocheleau. God knows what I might have chosen, if asked.

 

[Anonymous]

So much so, the right gals ask for it by name. :heart: :cheers:

http://www.takeninhand.com/

(A chick site, by the way).

:face:

(Q : Why is it that when women grok this it's hip but when men do they're mysoganists ?)

 

[Kyle Weiss]

That's a good question. Maybe they think it's quaint in a woman-powered Utopia, and the pendulum swings back again somehow. *shrug* I'm the last person to have a qualified answer to the female persona, though. I do, however, find it interesting that you've brought up this site twice, now. :heart: Not judging, just...interesting. :lol:

Can we digress bowl coating threads any more than this? I'm not sure. :lol!: