Episode: 1359
Title: HPR1359: Pipes
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1359/hpr1359.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 00:10:34

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Hello, Hacker Public Radio. This is Matthew, the stay-at-home deep dad from Northern California.
My introduction and how I got into Linux episode dropped in the last week or so as I'm
recording this. And my next foray into HPR was going to be wasn't my bag. But after hearing
about campfires and baking bread and some very low-tech hacker stuff, I decided that I would
do a short little episode here on smoking a pipe, tobacco, smoking a tobacco pipe. I thought I
would do a short little episode here on smoking a tobacco pipe. This is not particularly politically correct
in the days and the age of e-cigarettes and anti-smoking campaigns. But this is something that I enjoy
as a relaxing thing to do particularly in the evening. It is evening now. I'm sitting on my front
step. The kids are in bed. I've got the baby monitor. I've got my pipe. I've got my cool little
Czechoslovakian pipe tool. I've got my tobacco and my lighter. I'm going to give you a little walk
through on the proper procedures for smoking a pipe. Again, the only real... well...
I buy tobacco usually cheap and in large quantities anywhere from your local cigarette or cigar shop
to wall greens in some areas in some states. There's lots of places where you can find pipe
tobacco. I don't recommend using top or one of the tobaccos that's designed for handling cigarettes.
I don't think the flavor is as good. When you're smoking a pipe, it's more about the flavor and
the experience. More like when you're smoking a cigar as opposed to just trying to mainline the nicotine
like you do with cigarettes. So I buy big bags. My blend that I'm using right now is a cherry
cabin dish. It's really nice. I keep it in a court-size mason jar and this is what I recommend
for most people who aren't smoking every day. Keep your tobacco in a mason jar. It stays
moist and it doesn't dry out. If you like, get yourself a tea tin or you can get these little
plastic pouches that are specifically designed for the purpose of carrying tobacco. You can put your
days worth or three or four days worth or weeks worth of pipe tobacco. Maybe just a couple of bowls
worth a day into a tea tin or into one of these pouches and then you can keep your stash,
you keep your supply in a mason jar and that keeps it fresh for a really long time. And fresh is
important because similar to smoking a cigar, you want the smoke to be cool so that it doesn't burn
your tongue, burn your mouth. You want the smoke to be long burning. You want the tobacco to stay
burning for a long time so you have an enjoyable smoke. Again, I can't stress enough how different
this is from just sparking up a cigarette and sucking it down because you need the nicotine.
Now you're going to get nicotine from this. We don't typically inhale pipe smoke similar to
cigar smoke. You hold it in your mouth and you are going to get some nicotine that way
but it's not going to go in your lungs unless you're doing it wrong. So that in mind, I've got my
inexpensive little Briarwood pipe and a bit lighter. And the only thing that's really a specialty
tool here is this Trekkles of Ockin pipe tool and it's actually three tools in one. It has a
tamper and it has a pipe reamer and then it has this little spike that you can use to loosen up
the tobacco if it's too tight in the bowl but we'll get to that. So what we're going to do,
the first thing we're going to do is fill our pipe and what you do, the easiest thing,
some people will tell you to pinch the tobacco and sprinkle it into the pipe and I just think that
takes too long. So whatever you're keeping your tobacco in, make sure it's got a wide enough
mouth that you can stick your pipe bowl down in it. So I'm going to stick my pipe bowl down here
in this jar and what you want to do is scoop up enough tobacco in the pipe to fill the bowl.
Right up to the top and then what you're going to do is you're going to take your tamper if you have
one or you're going to take your index finger or whatever fits inside your pipe bowl and you're
just going to push it down because again you want this compacted so that it burns
low and slow as it were. So you're just going to compact it and this is a finesse thing and
this is a practice thing. This is something that you have to figure out as you go along but once
you tamp it down and you're going to stick your pipe bowl back in and fill it up again and then
you're going to tamp that down and usually for a typical size pipe and again they change depending
on what kind you have and how big it is. But for a standard size pipe and for a 10 minute
smoke I usually say two really good bowls full of tobacco that's then tamped down is usually
enough. So the theory here is that you're going to hold your you're going to hold your
big lighter or your whatever kind of lighter you're using. I would not recommend a butane because
they're too hot like just a typical I just got a plastic bit here from the from the from the
convenience store and what you're going to do is you're going to hold the flame you're going to light
the lighter hold the flame over the bowl and suck air through the pipe and into your mouth and
that's going to draw the flame down into the bowl it's going to ignite the tobacco and it's going
to pull a little bit of smoke into your mouth and the idea here is that as you're drawing in the
air you're going to move your lighter around a little bit so that you try and get a good
light on the top of the tobacco in your bowl. This shouldn't happen with the first
lighting of your lighter this is going to take a couple of times and it's going to take again
some experimentation to make sure you get it right. So I'm going to go ahead and do that now
okay and I drew some in that was good
it's a little bit windy today the signal
and basically you're going to get some embers in the top of your pipe bowl
as the tobacco begins to catch fire and it's going to glow similar to the like the tip of a
of a cigarette when you're drawing it and the idea here is that you want to get
your fire drawn down through the tobacco and you get everything to start burning.
okay so I'm doing pretty good I got a pretty good burn going here now for any of you
I actually put this gently 420 fans out there this is not the same
as smoke and marijuana on a pipe this is not the same as smoking marijuana on a pipe
and essentially when you smoke marijuana the idea is you want to get most of the smoke in your lungs
so that any smoke that you lose is money and THC lost so you don't want to you don't want
to let that happen so the difference here is that we just want the tobacco to burn and give off
smoke and when we are in conversation or as we're walking or sitting and enjoying a cup of coffee
or tea we put the pipe in our lips and between our teeth and we draw some smoke in and we hold it
in our mouth and then we blow it out and it's a very laid back very not rushed kind of thing
and it's cool I like it I like it a lot I try to do it and I'm not a I'm not a smoker I'm not
I'm not a nicotine addict but I do enjoy a pipe a couple times a week after the kids go to bed
my wife still dig to tobacco smoke so it's usually when she's not home
something else you're gonna have to know is that when you light tobacco and a pipe like this
the tobacco is going to become uncompacted it's going to sort of expand in the bowl and
one of the things that you're going to want to do is compact it a little bit after it's lit
now you have to do this carefully because obviously you can't use your finger for this because
it's burning but you also you don't want to push too hard because you don't want to put
put the fire out so another thing you can do to get it going is you can hold your finger lightly
over the bowl and draw in and that will create a chamber that will allow the heat to
grow and penetrate more of the tobacco leaves and get you a better burn going so
what else can I tell you I've got a nice pipe going here
like I said it's windy this evening so I'm having to draw on my pipe more than I typically would
to keep it to keep it lit but it's not going to stay lit you're going to have to
re-light it it's just what happens because you get involved in conversation and you start
gesticulating with your pipe and you're pointing with it to make a point and you know it's going to go
out like mine just did and part of it is I don't think I'm tamped very well it's still pretty loose
in there so I'm going to tap off some of the ash see if I can't get down to some fresher tobacco and
light it up again so that's um that's lighting filling and lighting a pipe as far as cleaning
yes you actually use pipe cleaners to clean a pipe you usually get them at the tobacco
tobacco nest or the pipe shop or the cigar store and they're usually just white they're not
fancy colors like the ones you use to make crafts when you're in kindergarten and you basically can
just stick the pipe cleaner up the length of the of the shaft of the pipe and it absorbs moisture
which comes from your breath it also will remove loose tobacco from the inside of the pipe stem
um so that's important and um yeah it's it's good to have more than one pipe because you should
really let them cool thoroughly between smokings um I have a cheap little Briarwood pipe
that I use and I also have a corn cob pipe and yes they exist and no they're not just for frosty
the snowman um in fact they burn so well that most of the plantations and farms and ranches
and places where they grow tobacco uh that the uh quality control people will will test the
tobacco in a corn cob pipe because they impart very little flavor in the tobacco and you can get a
good feel for what the tobacco is actually going to be like in its purest form by using a corn cob so
um what else can I tell you i don't know um so this is just a little
so while the kids are still sleeping and nobody's woken up yet i'm going to go ahead and finish
enjoying this pipe uh thank you for listening to hacker public radio and please don't hesitate
to bring us some content we enjoy it we love it we want to hear from you and uh look forward
to hearing from you and talking to you next time thanks
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