Help with my GL Pease Flake

[MartinH]

A while back, I acquired two GL Pease blends. Haddo's Delight and Barbary Coast.

I have a heck of a hard time smoking the Barbary. I love the aroma in the tin, and as long as I can smoke it cool enough, I can even get a hint of that wonderful aroma in the bowl.

But I think I'm packing this flake badly. It smoked so hot last night, that it gave me heart burn. Of course, I was smoking it in a beater, and I wonder if that might be part of the problem?? But the beater is a Dr. Grabow with a good draw, relatively thick walls (I think) and this beater smoked Squadron Leader just fine.

So, here's my question. How can I get the best experience with a flake. I've gotten pretty good at packing and smoking ribbon cut tobaccos, but the flake baffles me.

One last thought, is it a question of aging the tobacco a bit more? I noticed that some of my other blends have done very nicely after 6 months to a year of sitting in the tin. Is there a special way I need to age something like this?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[RealtorFrank]

There are very few flakes, that I can smoke without problems. Did you ever think about rubbing the flake out and smoke it like a ribbon cut then? I have had a lot of luck smoking some of my harder to smoke flakes this way.

 

[MartinH]

Hey RealtorFrank,

What does "rubbing out" mean? Do you literally rub the flake in your hands? What does that do? Does it cling together?

Sorry, I'm still so new to some of this, although I've been smoking pipe seriously for almost a year now.

 

[shootist51]

Hey RealtorFrank,

What does "rubbing out" mean? Do you literally rub the flake in your hands? What does that do? Does it cling together?

Sorry, I'm still so new to some of this, although I've been smoking pipe seriously for almost a year now.

Rubbing out means exactly that, take the tobacco in hand and rub your palms together. The more you rub the more ribbon like it becomes.

Have you tried drying the tobacco before smoking? Often tobacco out of the tin has too much moisture, which produces a hotter smoke.

Try chopping a flake or two into small squres, approximately 1/8", and gravity feeding it into the bowl. When the bowl is full, lightly tap the side to settle and level the tobacco. I use this process with many of the flakes I smoke and have been very please with the results.

 

[glpease]

Since neither of these tobaccos are flakes, I'm a bit confused about your question. Both blends have a fairly high percentage of cube-cut burley, so I wonder if that's where your difficulty lies.

With Barbary Coast, and with any cube-cut tobacco, the best approach is to use only the force of gravity when filling the pipe—no tamping. Give the side of the pipe a little tap to settle the tobacco , and add more if needed. As you smoke, and need to tamp the ash, the weight of the tamper is sufficient, with no pressure. This, in fact, is a general guideline that should almost always be applied when tamping. It's tempting to tamp too hard, which makes tobacco increasingly difficult to keep lit, resulting in many problems with harshness and difficult lighting.

Smoking flakes, like Union Square, Fillmore, Embarcadero, is a different matter entirely.

Cheers,
Greg

 

[Puff Daddy]

Keep trying to rub out that Barbary Coast and you'll develop a serious case of thumb callus :lol:

 

[MartinH]

Thanks everyone! I apparently have no idea what I'm talking about, but Mr. Pease corrected me. I guess it is a square cut, which I thought was a flake. Ooops!

I'll give it a try again, but this time in one of my better pipes. Will report back once I smoke it again. It sounds like I was filling it too hard and since I have a tendency to smoke fast anyway, therein may lie the problem.



Sincereley,

Martin

 

[glpease]

Thanks everyone! I apparently have no idea what I'm talking about, but Mr. Pease corrected me. I guess it is a square cut, which I thought was a flake. Ooops!

I'll give it a try again, but this time in one of my better pipes. Will report back once I smoke it again. It sounds like I was filling it too hard and since I have a tendency to smoke fast anyway, therein may lie the problem.

Ah, well! Square cut actually is a sort of flake. If you imagine the flakes cut into little postage stamps of tobacco, typically about 10mm square, but still quite thin, that would be a square cut. It used to be a more popular form than it is today. The reason a couple of manufacturers stopped making it was because of occupational health and safety regulations. The machines that made it were deemed "unsafe" by the UK government, so they had to stop using them in the late 1980s, at least until they could be retrofitted with the necessary safety apparatus. I know some square-cuts are being produced again, which is nice. I've always thought it was a neat format.

Cube cut starts by pressing the tobacco into a block, then cutting the block into thick slices. These are then cut twice more, at right angles, so the result is approximately a small cube, usually about 2mm on a side, though I've seen much larger cubes, as well.

I hope the looser packing helps.

Cheers,
Greg

 

[RealtorFrank]

Everyone summed it up pretty well on the "rubbing out" I'll second drying it out as well.

 

[Thomas Tkach]

Flakes look like this:

 

[MartinH]

Hey - thanks. I didn't realize it looked like a huge block.

Also, is there an issue with the system giving you updates on posts? I'm not getting any. Hmmm............

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

I pull apart 1/4X3/8" pieces and gravity load into the bowl.

Or, when I fold and stuff I have better luck in keeping it lighted when I pull apart the strands horizontally as well as vertically, to fit the particular depth of the bowl. Thus I end up with thin sticks of tobacco anywhere from 3/4-1 & 1/4" tall X 1/4" wide. When I've made a large enough pile, I pick them up at once and feed them into the bowl.