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Friends- I write for Pipes and Tobacco Magazine. I have been given the assignment of asking pipe carvers about briar and how they cure it. There seem to be two things that go into a great smoking pipe: (1) the engineering, and (2) the briar, and feel free to disagree. Someone else can address (1) as it seems more like a book topic to me. Regarding (2), the briar has been a subject of discussion for as long as I can remember. Part has to do with sourcing, and coveted pipes were made from the long-gone Algerian briar of my youth. Today, pipe carvers have their favorite sources as well. Then there are the processes, varying from just age to oil curing with esoteric formulae to baking and microwaving. I would like your opinions, processes, tricks and alchemy that are not secret, proprietary or illegal to write about in the next issue of P&T. Thanks for the help.

Number 1 is much more important than number 2 and I don't think I am alone in thinking that.

I'll give my opinion which is based only off of my personal experience.

I think that engineering is much more important than briar. By that I mean that a well engineered pipe made out of "bad" briar is likely to smoke better than a poorly engineered pipe made out of "good" briar.

Now as far as my observations of briar in general, the best briar I've used has been from Mimmo. It tends to be whiter in color, weigh less, carve easily, and smell good while I'm working with it. Some of it even has a slightly vanilla taste to it. I'm not sure whether the quality of briar is dependent on region, or Mimmo's curing process, or both, but I know that I have smoked a lot of good tasting pipes right off the bat made from Mimmo briar.

Briar from other regions or cutters can also be darker in color and softer or harder. I know briar darkens and hardens as it ages, making very old briar difficult to work with because it can be brittle. That may have to do with any number of variables that I'm not privy to.

The worst briar I have used was old Cypriot briar. It was dark in color, heavy, and frankly, just smelled musty when worked with. It was also prone to have many flaws. That said, I've made pipes from it that smoke just fine.

To a large degree I believe the initial curing to be the determining factor on what briar smokes better than others. This is usually done at the cutter. Claims of various oil curing techniques or what have you from carvers has yet to convince me that it helps the smoke, especially after the pipe has been broken in. I've had several oil cured pipes that just weren't any better than the alternative.

I'm sure one of the most knowledgeable people here would be Steve Norse. He handles 1000s of blocks each year. You should definitely get his input and if possible reach out to the various briar cutters as well. I look forward to reading the article!

Yeah, sorry to disappoint, but I've bought blocks from just about everyone now, and they all got made into pipes. And they all smoke just fine according to my tests and my customers' comments.

Not all briar is physically identical for sure, some softer, some harder, some has wider growth rings, some is more dense... but looking at a piece of briar and saying "Ah, this one, this one here will make a better smoker." is pretty much impossible.

I have a few customers who really like oil cured pipes. Having tried a few myself (of my own and other brands) I can say that I do not prefer them.

This is the age of pipe engineering, we are building very carefully, and the pipes come out "magic" because of that.

After a little bit of cake builds up, even the "worst" briar can still taste great given proper engineering. By the time you've got that cake going, the smoke is only in contact with briar in the draft hole, where the already cooled smoke moves through a couple inches at relatively high velocity.

Ratimus wrote:After a little bit of cake builds up, even the "worst" briar can still taste great given proper engineering. By the time you've got that cake going, the smoke is only in contact with briar in the draft hole, where the already cooled smoke moves through a couple inches at relatively high velocity.

The smoke never really contacts the actual briar in a pipe after the first smoke or two. Think about it, the tobacco burns from the middle, filters down through itself and when it does the touch the bowl this is either coated or caked almost immediately. It then goes through the airway which after the first few smokes has got it's own kind of "cake" in the form of a tarred surface.

This is why the first few smokes have that briar flavour but it soon passes and the smoke goes through a caked and tarred tube essentially. As long as the briar isn't actively leaching tannin and other crap back out into the bowl and airway it should smoke just like any other. This then is when the engineering and the physical aspects of the pipe make a difference but I would argue not as much as people like to imagine.

Briar resists fire, that's why we use it, but it's one pretty face after another. Air flow is critical, that's why we go to all the trouble to make it right! Magic can be had with good air flow and a not so pretty face; but never without the good engineering! It's quite simple as complicated as it is in the beginning for new pipe carvers...Hope this helps??? Briar is better when dry which takes time.Some sources do this for us, but I still let it dry after I cut it for quite a long time to make sure it gives its' best when smoking...