Matching Blends to Pipes.

I was just going to post something on this, with a slightly different take.
I know pipes have to be broken in before truly judging them, but I found that a tobacco that burns one way in a briar often burns better and more completely in a cob.
Needless to say, I am ordering a few more. I think they will quickly take over half of my rotating pipes.
One thing I did was replace the medico style filter with a Savinelli. May try the rock maple in the future. Way back when I removed the filters altogether. I believe the term was "I was a hard guy."
The upshot is that aros will go into my cobs and meers while non-aros go into my others. Not really afraid of a little ghosting. If a non-aro tastes a tad sweeter I won't complain. However, that does not include Captain Black Grape, the New Penzance.

I prefer to smoke flakes in conical shaped bowls (dublins/brandys) or in larger chambered billiards. For some reason I sometimes tend to fill latakia, balkan or oriental blends in sandblasted pipes. I find that some blends that include cavendish tend to smoke hot unless smoked in a thick older briar. It's not only about the tobacco varietal with me, I also consider the tobacco cut. Rough cut or certain broken flake tobacco smoke best for me in pot shapes or large billiards. Loose cut goes to canadian shapes or medium billiards. Therefore, the shape and size of one of my pipes is more of a deciding factor for me than the pipe brand.

For the most part, Burley goes in cobs, Lat in meers, Va and VaPers in briars.

My only two strictly dedicated briar pipes are for my favorite aros, a Pete 307 for Mac Baren Vanilla Cream and a 2004 bent JM Boswell billiard for Boswell Pennsylvania Dutch Treat. No way anybody will ever get the ghost out of either after I pass on to the next phase.

I also have a seriously bent Baki blasted poker meer dedicated to Solani #660 Silver Flake. Wonderful this one.

Peterson System pipes and Mac Baren tobacco seem to go exceptionally well together. For some reason, I've always seen a conspiracy here.

The learning curve for me to get here was about eleven years and I still haven't figured out the difference between baby sh*t and apple butter.

Still learning.

I have some that only get fed English or Balkan. Others for VaPers. Still others for aromatics. Trial and error to decide what works. I have a cob for Lakelands, but may dedicate a virgin McCoy billiard to it.

I have too many pipes and honestly I can't remember, though at times some blends shine in a particular pipe. I do have an HB cob and a meer lined ceramic Billiard I use for Mixture #79 as I won't smoke that blend in any of my other pipes.

I have gone through several attempts at trying to dedicate certain pipes to certain genres of blends and had trouble remembering the rules. But I do have some rules that I follow. Aromatics are for meerschaums and cobs. Briars are generally reserved for non-aromatics. I smoke Lakelands in most of my pipes because I love Lakelands so much that I don't care if they pick up a little ghost. If I ever become a purist, I can always ream them out and send them in for a $2 ozone treatment.

I have a couple of pipes that wound up being dedicated to certain blends more by default than design. I generally just put anything I fancy at th moment with whatever blend I desire at the time. I try not to overthink the process.

I have all the time in the world to do this but I still don't go through great lengths deciding what pipe gets packed with what tobacco...I decide what blend and whatever pipes catches my eye..I grab it and start packing it!

That's you talking Shell Head, not me ! Anyone would notice the resemblance!

You would have to prove it to me by taking a blind man and giving him pipes of exact shape but made of different materials. Then there would be no biased, or mythical belief instilled or involved. Then give him 3 months to form his opinion.

Thanks.  It's not really a gift so much as learning from experience.  I have 70+ pipes in the set that I smoke from.  I have learned to set aside preconceived notions about what style of pipe should be smoked with what style of tobacco.  Instead, I have learned to listen to the pipe and it will tell me what it likes to smoke.

For example, when I bought my BST blasted Billiard, both Todd and I speculated that it could be a good Va flake pipe from looking at it.  Once I started smoking it, I found that the pipe preferred full English blends over straight Va.  Then one day, I happened to load it up with Prince Andrew and the pipe grabbed me by the lapels and screamed at me "I love this blend!"

I have a few of those rare and elusive "magic" pipes in which any blend smokes great.  The rest end up being dedicated to a genre and a few end up being de facto dedicated to a single blend because the combo of that blend and that pipe perform so well together.

Unless I suspect that a new pipe will be a straight Va pipe, I smoke a Burley blend for the first several partial bowls in order to break in a new pipe.  Pegasus is currently my favorite blend for getting the cake started.  Then, I start trying various "benchmark" tobaccos from different genres and sit back and listen to my pipe until it starts to really sing with a particular genre.  My benchmark tobaccos are ones that I have smoked a lot of and am very familiar with the nuances of.

Even once a pipe is dedicated to a genre, I every once in a while load up something totally different in it as I never know when I am going to have a surprise like I did with my BST.

With the size of my collection, my blend genres for dedication are narrower than most people use for dedication.  My genre list includes straight red Va, straight light Va, mild English, full English, Balkan, Oriental-forward, aromatics, Burley, VaPer, and a few more.

Inside every dinosaur egg, a Roy must Falls. 

Lmao!

I just pick up a pipe, most any pipe, an go...

Short strong smokes generally are loaded in small pipes...

Ghosts rarely interfere with my enjoyment, though they may linger...