Breaking in a New Pipe

[JohnnyBeach]

I have begun to smoke half pipefuls now in order to break in the Brian's lower bowl section. So far it is working but I find the pipe gets hot to hold.
I do notice tongue bite and blame this on both the newness of the pipe and maybe smoking too fast in order to keep the pipe lit.
Any suggestions?

 

[walkingpipeguy]

This thread has been helpful to figure out what is going on with my no name estate pipe I just scored on Ebay.
So far none of my pipes have had a noticeable "break in" period, until I got this one yesterday. I fired it up and it was absolutely wretched, hot as hell and tasted like burning wood despite smoking slowly. Tried it again today, and it was marginally better, but still nasty. I thought I got a garbage pipe, but it probably just needs those resins cooked out of it. Looked like it was only smoked once or twice by the previous owner. I'll keep smoking it until it improves... I guess.

 

[JohnnyBeach]

I use JB Long pipe cleaners, there are a ton of decent brands out there. The bristle cleaners are for removing/keeping tobacco from clogging up the airway of your pipe. I generally only use bristle cleaners while deep cleaning a pipe. Soft bristle cleaners I use each end down the bit to the bowl then fold in half and swipe out the bowl. I do that after each smoke and call that good between deep cleans which I do six months to yearly...but I'm rotating 100 plus pipes, of which I smoke 20+ on the regular.

Do you have time left over for anything else? No offense intended.

 

[ThermionicScott]

I have begun to smoke half pipefuls now in order to break in the Brian's lower bowl section. So far it is working but I find the pipe gets hot to hold.
I do notice tongue bite and blame this on both the newness of the pipe and maybe smoking too fast in order to keep the pipe lit.
Any suggestions?

Don't work so hard to keep it lit. Let it go out and cool off before relighting.

 

[PiperCalvinist]

Smoke big bowl of Irish Flake. Then you won’t care what happens next.

 

[Swiss Army Knife]

Only pipes that have ever needed "breaking in" to me have been Meers and Cobs. Meers for that kind of chalky meer taste that only lasts one or two bowls and cobs with the corn taste and then that god awful wood bit at the bottom that takes a while to singe down.

A few Petersons that came with bowl coatings required breaking in because the bowl coatings turned into sludge, that wasn't fun. Since then I've just removed the coating with a few wet paper towels. Bare briar or less intense coatings haven't needed any kind of break in period.