Can a new pipe be sour?

[Jevverrett]

I bought a savinelli for Xmas, and intended for it to be a Virginia dedicated pipe. First savinelli to boot. So I was going to break it in with dunhill flake, a solid Virginia from what I can tell based on tobaccoreviews.com. I had never smoked it before. The pipe smoked very well, good draw, stayed pretty cool first run and was dry.

The first smoke was outrageously sour. Like citric acid sour candy kind of sour. It stayed with me long into the next day. Maybe some kind of phantom taste syndrome. Second smoke was New Years. I enjoyed it, not as sour. But I was drinking glenlivet too, so maybe it balanced it out. Next smoke, very sour. After that I decided to swap out for some Prince albert to see if it was the tobacco or what. Now all I taste is the sourness with the prince in it. I'm using the adapter instead of the balsa filters also. So, is it the tobacco, the pipe, the adapter? Any thoughts would be appreciated

 

[RDPipes]

   I bought a savinelli for Xmas, and intended for it to be a Virginia dedicated pipe. First savinelli to boot. So I was going to break it in with dunhill flake, a solid Virginia from what I can tell based on tobaccoreviews.com. I had never smoked it before. The pipe smoked very well, good draw, stayed pretty cool first run and was dry.

   The first smoke was outrageously sour. Like citric acid sour candy kind of sour. It stayed with me long into the next day. Maybe some kind of phantom taste syndrome. Second smoke was New Years. I enjoyed it, not as sour. But I was drinking glenlivet too, so maybe it balanced it out. Next smoke, very sour. After that I decided to swap out for some Prince albert to see if it was the tobacco or what. Now all I taste is the sourness with the prince in it. I'm using the adapter instead of the balsa filters also. So, is it the tobacco, the pipe, the adapter? Any thoughts would be appreciated

Was the bowl coated? If not there is a bit of a sour note to DF but, none that I remember
being that sour, of course what's good for the gander isn't always good for the goose.
I'd try a bowl of DF in another pipe and see if you detect any sourness.

 

[taharris]

Was there stain inside the bowl? This can sometimes cause the first bowl or two to taste bad.

One other thing I can think of is that you may have been tasting buffing compound from the stem.

Take the stem off and wash it in warm water with a little soap and use a bristle pipe cleaner on the inside.

Alternatively, you could use vodka.

Todd

 

[Jevverrett]

The bowl was dark on the inside when I got it. Not sure if it is a precarb coating, or a dip staining issues. I will try a different pipe with the DF while I clean this one and rest it till its dry. Is there any manner of soap that would be better or worse for this.

 

[RDPipes]

The bowl was dark on the inside when I got it. Not sure if it is a precarb coating, or a dip staining issues. I will try a different pipe with the DF while I clean this one and rest it till its dry. Is there any manner of soap that would be better or worse for this.

Never use a soap of any sorts inside a bowl, alcohol is okay as long as you don't saturate it.
Anything you put in a bowl that doesn't evaporate quickly will leave a taste you might not like. I would sand it out with 220 or 320 followed by 400 being careful NOT to touch the outer rim of the bowl and make sure your careful NOT to sand too much on one side keeping it cylindrical. Sometimes it's just better if your not comfortable with sanding to just smoke it till you get a good cake in it that covers the coating. Stain you may never be able to sand completely out.

The ONLY time I use a soap so to say is the outside of the stummel and I use Murphy's Oil Soap and wipe it down with a soft terry towel afterwards. This gets all the dirt from years of hands and smoke residue off the outside nicely and buffs up with a towel rather well. Again, I don't saturate it either.

Oh! And NO Dremel's, you'll really screw it up with one of those. :no:

 

[Richard Burley]

I've never had a pipe that was sour from the outset, but I have had them that were bitter, and nothing whatever helped them. These are usually cheap basket pipes. (I have also had great basket pipes, so I'm not knocking the species.) I'm kind of thinking you're responding to the "citrus" note of DF, perhaps with more sensitivity than average. It just happens to be one of my favorite Va flakes, far better than FVF, imo.

And for what it's worth, ditch the coatings, stains and whatever other crap they stick in a pipe to muck it up. On the bright side, you can always dump it on eBay, the Isle of Abandoned Wood.

 

[MisterE]

Once you get then bowl down to bare wood you'll get a feeling for what you have. It might be a little weird until you get a cake going but have patience. Sometimes just smoking a pipe a lot will get it to come around.

I had virtually the same experience with one of the newer Petersons. After sanding out the bowl and starting from zero, it took almost a month to come around. Today it's among my finest smokers. There is hope.

I've only had one pipe that could qualify as being made from bad wood. No matter what I smoked in it it had that hot, searing, sour quality you describe. It never went away so I scrapped it. True bad wood is actually a rarer occurrence than finding a superb smoking pipe in my experience, so hang in there.

I almost forgot to mention. Let the pipe choose what it wants to smoke. You might find this pipe sings with Lat and Oriental blends, or even Burley. Deciding beforehand what a pipe likes seldom works, unless you only smoke one tobacco all the time. Then it's just a yes/no proposition.

 

[Jevverrett]

Thanks for the info gents. I'll have to figure out what to do with this pipe. I'd like to think it'll work out. The pipe is sound in of itself, it smoked great. I will post later on as to how this worked out.

 

[monbla256]

It might be a combination of a couple of things such as the "pre-carbonizing" coating put in the bowl and/or the Dunhill Flake with it . Is this the FIRST time you have smoked the Dunhill Flake as from your description of a citrusy sour note it might be your palate is not used to this blend/mixture. Being a confirmed Va smoker , but prefering the far sweeter Red va's, I have to say that Dunhill Flake can have some sourish citric notes when smoked. I have to say though that in owning 20 Savinelli's, some had coated bowls, some didn't, I NEVER had one that started out sour in the way an oversmoked pipe can get. :twisted:

 

[Kyle Weiss]

L'il late to this, I know...

...bowl coatings, as much as I dislike them, have only once given me (what I would consider) a sour experience.   It wasn't like a pipe that had been smoked so much and rested so little kind of thing, but it honestly tasted acidic.   It was courtesy of some semi-unknown Italian maker.  This is when I started messing around with removing bowl coatings, and lo, I came to find that unfinished briar chambers not only lent a wonderful taste (or I could at least tell if they were detracting or enhancing of the smoke), but for my smoking pursuits, the pipe performed better in a shorter amount of time.

Meanwhile, what has happened to me with new pipes is taste I can only attribute and suspect is from oil-curing processes of some kind.   Maybe the wood held on to a little of the curing product, perhaps it didn't dissipate or migrate to that place where it is supposed to not interfere with smoking.   It tastes like burnt oil, sometimes sour, sometimes giving off the scent like a candle wick that's just been snuffed out.   Eventually it disappears, but it can be a punch to the senses when sweet-smoking Virginias turn into the scent and taste of combusting (or nearly so) hydrocarbons of unknown origin.  

Sometimes, though, I think certain briar burls simply have a natural attitude problem.   Adjust it gently with leaf and fire, smoke the hell out of it, or give it to a patient masochist.   :lol:  

8)

 

[Jevverrett]

I tried the tobacco again in a cob I normally reserve for va/pers. still sour, though not as bad. But I still have this weird sour taste in my mouth that won't go away. I'm kind of sensitive to sour things anyway. Sometime my kid will have sour candy, and smelling in the air around me will put this taste in my mouth. So, I'm going to start a full clean out on the pipe with pure grain, and the soap and water thing on the stem maybe. And I'll see about some sand paper at the hardware store tomorrow.

It's a shame really, this is the first dunhill product I haven't enjoyed right off the bat. Even their cigs I thought were good in high school. I may come back to this one further down the line. Ah well, on to the SG best brown flake to continue my VA exploration.

 

[RDPipes]

I tried the tobacco again in a cob I normally reserve for va/pers. still sour, though not as bad. But I still have this weird sour taste in my mouth that won't go away. I'm kind of sensitive to sour things anyway. Sometime my kid will have sour candy, and smelling in the air around me will put this taste in my mouth. So, I'm going to start a full clean out on the pipe with pure grain, and the soap and water thing on the stem maybe. And I'll see about some sand paper at the hardware store tomorrow.

It's a shame really, this is the first dunhill product I haven't enjoyed right off the bat. Even their cigs I thought were good in high school. I may come back to this one further down the line. Ah well, on to the SG best brown flake to continue my VA exploration.

I really use to like DF but after getting some 5 year old tins of it I hated it, bit me something bad and I never went back. There's way too many good tobaccos out there to worry about just one. McClelland's makes some fine sweet VA's, try them and don't worry about DF or cleaning that pipe. I bet if ya smoke something else in it a few times the sour will disappear.

 

[monbla256]

I tried the tobacco again in a cob I normally reserve for va/pers. still sour, though not as bad. But I still have this weird sour taste in my mouth that won't go away. I'm kind of sensitive to sour things anyway. Sometime my kid will have sour candy, and smelling in the air around me will put this taste in my mouth. So, I'm going to start a full clean out on the pipe with pure grain, and the soap and water thing on the stem maybe. And I'll see about some sand paper at the hardware store tomorrow.

It's a shame really, this is the first dunhill product I haven't enjoyed right off the bat. Even their cigs I thought were good in high school. I may come back to this one further down the line. Ah well, on to the SG best brown flake to continue my VA exploration.

Dunhill ( or more correctly Orlik/STG) uses a lot of Virginia Brightleaf or more yellow va's in the Flake and these can tend to to have a more astringent flavor which I could see described as sour. I enjoy it occassionaly but prefer the sweeter flavors of Red and orange va's and you may as well. You DON"T have to like EVERY blend/mixture a blender makes !! As Cart said , put it away and try some others!! :twisted: :twisted: BTW, contrary to what many folks claim, McC DOES NOT use nor do their Va's have ANY ketchup in 'em !! Give some a try as they are one of if not THE BEST VA blender around today !! :twisted: :twisted:

 

[Dutch]

I have found that some prescription medication causes some tobaccos to not agree with me.

I had one I took very briefly, that gave me a metal taste in my mouth any time I smoked a pipe of cigar. That one went into the trash very quickly.

The one I take now for high blood pressure, allows me to eat extremely spicy food without blinking an eye. When I am in Laredo, TX., the Mexicans down there watch me eat like I am a god.

I mentioned this, because if you ever find a tobacco you loved in the past not agreeing with your palate, might want to check the medicine cabinet for the culprit.

 

[RDPipes]

I have found that some prescription medication causes some tobaccos to not agree with me.

I had one I took very briefly, that gave me a metal taste in my mouth any time I smoked a pipe of cigar. That one went into the trash very quickly.

The one I take now for high blood pressure, allows me to eat extremely spicy food without blinking an eye. When I am in Laredo, TX., the Mexicans down there watch me eat like I am a god.

I mentioned this, because if you ever find a tobacco you loved in the past not agreeing with your palate, might want to check the medicine cabinet for the culprit.

I was told that the topping on DF being it had age 5 years had dissipated with age and
that was the culprit of my tongue bit with it and not fresh DF but, not wanting to waste anymore money I just stopped purchasing it. And no drugs prescribed or not were not being taken at the time.

 

[mark]

I've had a couple pipes without coating/stain,,,bare wood showing that tasted weird/sour the first few bowls through them. May have been the briar not cured to perfection but it all went away.

 

[Jevverrett]

Ok, so. A bit of a gentle scrape with a pipe knife till I saw some bare wood in a kind of patchy pattern. Pipe sweetener next and I cleaned the stem with unscented soap and water just in case. Let it air out a few days after this. The first two smokes were not as sour, and one just now that was different. Not quite as sour anyway. We may have fixed the problem. And I've been smoking some SG BBF as well the past week. So my palate may be adjusting somewhat to the VA tobacco also.

Any specific blend suggestions on some of these sweeter varieties of VA?

 

[monbla256]

Ok, so. A bit of a gentle scrape with a pipe knife till I saw some bare wood in a kind of patchy pattern. Pipe sweetener next and I cleaned the stem with unscented soap and water just in case. Let it air out a few days after this. The first two smokes were not as sour, and one just now that was different. Not quite as sour anyway. We may have fixed the problem. And I've been smoking some SG BBF as well the past week. So my palate may be adjusting somewhat to the VA tobacco also.

Any specific blend suggestions on some of these sweeter varieties of VA?

Two that I get in bulk and smoke on a daily basis are McC's Fragrant Mature 2000, some of the FINEST broken flake Red Va available and McC's 5100 Red Cake a nice shag/ribbon cut all Red Va blend/mixture. For a tinned variety I strongly recomend McC's Blakcwoods Flake and Virginia Woods. What the boys in KC have forgotten about Va's the rest are just learning about IMHO :twisted: :twisted:

 

[Jevverrett]

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to check those out