It is important to make a distinction when we talk about tobacco pipe cleaning. After every smoke, the tobacco pipe requires cleaning.
This procedure, which falls under the phase called "routine maintenance," will allow us to always have a tobacco pipe ready to taste our favorite tobaccos, without having despicable alterations in taste.
How to use the brush to clean the tobacco pipe?
Once the smoking is finished, it is necessary to let the tobacco pipe cool down.
Next, we disassemble the mouthpiece and use the tobacco pipe cleaning brush, called tobacco pipe cleaner, inside the mouthpiece and the shank.
This practice will allow us to remove tobacco and tarry residues.
The same tobacco pipe cleaner will serve us to clean the inner door of the stove, allowing us to remove combustion ash without touching the protective jacket.
If during smoking we have noticed that the tobacco pipe has produced waterlogging, it may be useful, after cleaning, to insert a tobacco pipe cleaner inside, which allows to absorb the moisture produced and will help us to dry our tobacco pipe quickly.
Cleaning the tobacco pipe with Alcohol
Sometimes, using the brush to clean the tobacco pipe is not enough and therefore an extraordinary cleaning is necessary. In this case, we will clean the inside of the mouthpiece and the shank by soaking the tobacco pipe cleaner with denatured alcohol or possibly similar products to achieve a more thorough cleaning.
I believe that this practice should not be carried out continuously, but only when you begin to feel alterations in the taste of the tobacco, usually bitter or unpleasant hints.
Cleaning the tobacco pipe with Whiskey
When I started doing this job, over 30 years ago, a fairly common practice was to soak the tobacco pipe, even a new one, in a distillate (usually whiskey or cognac) since, according to pipe smokers, it would make the smoke unique.
This procedure, in fact, is to be avoided in the most absolute way since dipping a handcrafted tobacco pipe in a liquid containing alcohol will lead to splitting all the pores that allow the stove, a component that, by condition, transfers heat from the inside to the outside, to cool. The consequence will be a tobacco pipe that will heat up a lot, negatively altering the taste of tobacco.
Extraordinary cleaning of the tobacco pipe
After many smokes, a charcoal jacket forms inside the stove that protects the tobacco pipe but, over time, its diameter tends to increase and therefore must be reduced. Having reached a thickness of 0.06 inch.07 inch, it is advisable to reduce it using cutters.
There are fixed-diameter cutters on the market, for experienced tobacco pipe smokers, and adjustable-diameter cutters, which are easier to use, always considering not to align them completely. It is good to know that the extraordinary cleaning of the tobacco pipe carried out with the cutter requires a lot of precision to homogeneously reduce the excess coal jacket.
What to do when the tobacco pipe loses its luster
By smoking them repeatedly over time, tobacco pipes, particularly smooth tobacco pipes, tend to lose their briar luster.
A practical solution may be to use commercially available products that have the function of restoring the shine that are also useful for removing the yellow that leaks from ebonite mouthpieces over time.
I conclude by saying that over time smoking makes tobacco pipes less bright and shiny but, at the same time, enhances unique and inimitable nuances, especially with regard to many flamed tobacco pipes, in which the contrast of the flame becomes more and more pronounced changing the very coloration of the tobacco pipe and giving it an original style.
Remember, each tobacco pipe is unique as well as the smoke it will give you.
