I am mainly a cigar smoker, but once in a while I slip over to the dark side and puff on one of my pipes. It seems that I can never finish off a bowl without getting that gurgling at the bottom of my stem. What the heck is that and how do I stop it? Am I drawing too hard and too often? If I get too carried away and drag it up to my mouth..... Holy yuck, that garbage is terrible. Any help would be appreciated.
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Gurgles
- Thread starter Griz
- Start date
Its moisture from the smoke and saliva from your mouth. Just grab a pipe cleaner run it down the stem then keep puffing.
javajunkie
BoM July '12
smoking slower will help IMMENSELY. also, letting your tobacco air out before hand, like dry boxing a cigar. how you pack it can affect that as well. part of it is experience with smoking a pipe, with your pipes in particular, and with your tobacco selection. and, all else fails, send a pipe cleaner through down to the bowl through the stem at the midway point of the smoke.
Now that you mention it i do get more gurgles with moist tobacco especially my aromatics, i never made that connection.Duh me
Matt when my smoke gets to acidic or hot i slow down, i also feel my bowl and if its to hot i slow down and set the bowl down for a couple of min YRMV.
Absolutely. Some aromatics are heavily dowsed with PG (propylene glycol) to preserve their moisture - same stuff as is in some passive humidification devices in humidors. It's present in many types of tobacco, but seems to show up in bigger amounts in aromatics and "drugstore" tobaccos. This can gather in the heel of the bowl as you smoke and create the gurgle.
The physics involved in the airflow down a bowl and through the shank/stem/bit are also a little more complex than you'd think. Offset drilling creates more turbulence, and large, open areas within the pipe (i.e. the space where a filter would go that doesn't have a filter in it, or a tenon cut too short) will create a plenum in there where the smokestream will expand/contract and condense moisture out. This can then also gather in the bowl. This moisture can subsequently heat up and add steam to your smoke, which will help with the chemical goings-on that create what we know as tongue-bite. Not fun. If you're a little handy and have a rat-tail file you can mess around with the openings and try to line them up/size them up to be as smooth a flow as possible - kind of like porting an engine in micro-scale. If the drilling is at least close to correct, the pipecleaner down the stem can also help keep it dry.
The other thing that can influence this is a draught hole that enters the bowl too high - any tobacco below the hole won't burn, and small pieces can slide into the airway and wheeze or gurgle if it gets too wet.
Herfin' Harg
BoM March 2012
Dry ur baccy, and slow down puffing, but not only between drags, but i had to slow down on my draw. Puff slower (that just dont sound right). Like when i first started i coulda sucked a golf ball thru my pipe. Shoosh it smartasses.
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i pretty much agree with what everyone already said... try slowing down, drying out the tobacco a bit, run a pipe cleaner through it, etc. but if poor drilling is the culprit as kip mentioned, (which it often can be) doing some surgery to fix the airflow or a different pipe is your best answer. not all pipes are created equal, and unfortunately some just smoke wet.
Man, I aint touchin that, but it did make me smile
Thanks for all the info guys, I figured that was the problem. I never gave the pipe cleaner a thought and will try that with my next bowl I smoke. This sure is a great site.... thanks again.
We moved here (my wife and I are both originally from East TN) looking to be nearer to sunshine, better bass fishing, and the sea. Then, we started having kids and almost never see any of those things....