Show me your dottle

[Briarbabe]

:lol!: :lol!: :lol!: 
Ok, give me a minute to rein in the 13 year old boy that lives in my head.

Alright...I need some pictures of what a good smoked bowl looks like. I hear people talking about smoking a bowl to ash, but it never happens for me. I never know when my bowl is finished. Sometimes when I relight it just tastes done, the the tobacco isn't tasty anymore, just spicy and burned and that's what I go on, but I always have dottle and many times when I clean my pipe I will find untouched tobacco at the bottom of the bowl. So show me some pics of what it should look like when a bowl is done.

 

[Fatman]

Here ya go!



Couldn't resist :lol: 

 

[Briarbabe]

Good one! I see the weisenheimer is strong with you, Grasshopper.

 

[Richard Burley]

I've never understood the desire to smoke the bowl down completely; you don't do it with a cigar. Seems like you're smoking a filter, in effect. That being said, sometimes you do get a perfect burn, and there's nothing left but ash. I am utterly incapable of doing that with any regularity, though, so I don't worry about it. I just relight until things get really nasty. Generally, what's left is a half-inch plug with the center burned out. Dump it and forget it, unless you wanna be like Sherlock and save them on the mantelpiece for future use. (They do reek though, which makes me wonder, again, about the desirability of smoking all the way down.)

 

[Briarbabe]

I've never understood the desire to smoke the bowl down completely; you don't do it with a cigar. Seems like you're smoking a filter, in effect. That being said, sometimes you do get a perfect burn, and there's nothing left but ash. I am utterly incapable of doing that with any regularity, though, so I don't worry about it. I just relight until things get really nasty. Generally, what's left is a half-inch plug with the center burned out. Dump it and forget it, unless you wanna be like Sherlock and save them on the mantelpiece for future use. (They do reek though, which makes me wonder, again, about the desirability of smoking all the way down.)  

Ok, then basically I'm "doing it right". (I knew it, why do I doubt myself?)

 

[PozzSka]

Excuse me, madam, but you'll have to take that request up with my wife...

 

[Puff Daddy]

I was waiting for the classic "Show me yours and I'll show you mine" response.

 

[Fr_Tom]

FWIW, here is the ash tray next to my chair right now. I read your post and took out the phone to document it. I know it needs to be emptied, but you did ask.

I don't usually end up with much tobacco at the bottom of a bowl. I guess you can see some semi-charred tobacco shreds there.

 

[Fatman]

Good one! I see the weisenheimer is strong with you, Grasshopper.

I am way beyond the grasshopper stage, I am a full fledged master of the smartarse

 

[Richard Burley]

Re Fr_Tom, above: I salute you, sir; your technique must be better than mine. Awesome. I retain my reservations though.

 

[Hawker]

Myself i have only seen the pure white ash that was left with pretty much an empty bowl with one kind of tobacco (Sunday Afternoon Pipe) and when it was all gone i tried to buy more and it was no longer available from my local B&M. When they did come out with a replacement it was alright but not the same. But i don't have near as much experience as most of the brothers here with different types of tobacco's. Myself i don't really care what's left or what it looks like, when it starts to taste like **** it's time to quit. Some get to the bottom some don't ehh.

 

[Anonymous]

Not sure why I'm doing this.  It won't win any prize for photos or smoking.  I actually smoked it a bit more than I normally would.  Never tamped or did normal dumping of ash.  About a third of the pipe contained the residue



This is one rubbed out slice of PS Luxury Navy Flake.

 

[Fr_Tom]

I have never really noticed it tasting bad at the end of a bowl. If I did, I would probably stop and dump what was there. The whiter ash in there is OGS, and that seems by nature to burn more completely for me than most. I do relights, so this is not one match or anything. Folded flakes almost always have "sticks" of carbon on the side of the bowl to be scraped off before the next reload.

 

[RDPipes]

It think it really depends what you smoke, Virgina's, Vapers tend to burn quicker and hotter so you'll have more ash less dottle were as Burley and such burn cooler you might have more dottle less ash specially if it's been gurgling it'll be good and wet at the bottom with either type of tobacco. Of course this depends on the smoker too. I like to make sure all is ash before giving up on a bowl. It's the poor-man/cheap-stake in me.
I've never been able to smoke a burley to the bottom though because of my chemistry, in other words Burley burns the skin off my tongue so we don't even go there anymore.

 

[Fr_Tom]

It's the poor-man/cheap-stake in me.  

I am "cheap" by nature. My children think Mr. Krabs from Spongebob was modeled after their Dad - "Me money!!"

This quality probably explains a lot.

 

[RDPipes]

It's the poor-man/cheap-stake in me.  

This quality probably explains a lot.

Oh! In deed it does sir, in deed it does.:lol!:

 

[Anonymous]

PuffDaddy just posted about an aro that isn't the norm.

I don't smoke aros, almost never anyow. Why? Because they usually taste of hot air or they bite or they're wet and goopy.

Ring any bells.  

 

[RDPipes]

Eww! You touched an Aro?:affraid: 

 

[Kyle Weiss]

I'm not going to take pictures, but I'm decent with words:

Most of my bowls, unless I'm simply done with smoking and have to stop (nicotine, time, oh-sh!t-I-forgot-about-the-cobbler-in-the-oven), it's not "fine white ash" (that stupid mythos) but it's usually mottled, even, ashen grey and black, maybe one or two small, and I mean small, pieces of tobacco that managed to stick to the side and fell out with the final scraping.  

I like smoking all of my tobacco.  Call it cheap-skatedness, or that I love that final "punch" at the end of smoking the dregs.   It's lovely.   A pipe, properly broken-in, with tobacco, the right moisture, that's been properly smoked, can and will get you through a bowl entirely.  Is it required?  No.  As was mentioned, cigars...they aren't often smoked until one can smell burning lip-flesh.   Unless you're me.  I stab a stogie on a toothpick like a rube and keep going.  

<img class="emojione" alt="?" title=":shrug:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/emojione/assets/png/1f937.png?v=2.2.7"/>

There's guys, probably more well-off than I am, that kill a cigar halfway, period.  There's guys that chain-smoke their pipes, bowl after bowl, and dump halfway through every time.

So long as you're enjoying yourself, c'est la vie.

8)

 

[Puff Daddy]

PuffDaddy just posted about an aro that isn't the norm.

I don't smoke aros, almost never anyow. Why? Because they usually taste of hot air or they bite or they're wet and goopy.

I stand behind that statement!  

The whole dottle/clean white ash thing is nonsense anyhow. It matters not. Smoke until you're finished smoking. If you're done before it's gone, so what, dump it. If it's gone and you weren't done, smoke some more until you've had enough. Some tobaccos will actually burn cleanly to the bottom and leave next to nothing but ash, but I don't think that means a darned thing about how good a pipe smoker you are, how good your pipe or tobacco is, or anything else of importance.