by Elvis » Fri Dec 30, 2016 11:22 pm
Oh, and, you've probably read or been told this, but when packing the pipe, try to stuff a single big wad of tobacco into the bowl; layers are problematic, the tobacco tends to stop burning at the bottom of a layer.
Try to make the tobacco less dense at the bottom of the bowl, while packing it tight at the top.
When you light it, it tends to fluff & plump; this is where the tamping tool comes in: after getting a burn going, tamp it down. At some point the coal becomes something of a solid mass, and a stir is in order; I mostly just jab at the partly-burned bowl contents with a matchstick (or even an actual tamping tool stirring end!) to allow airflow, tamp down a bit, and re-light. I don't have a proper tamping tool—I use a medium-sized carpenter's nail.
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