I got a Chacom pipe and tried some straight virginia followed by a blend called 5 Star from sterling tobacco.

The 5 star wasn't bad, but the straight virginia wasn't so good. I might try blending it with some cavendish. Also, a buddy of mine said it won't taste very good for the first few bowls anyways.

Is it normal to hear the whooshing type noise when you draw from it? I'm wondering if I packed the bowl too loose. I seemed to have some difficulty keeping it lit too.
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That sounds like a loose piece of tobacco made its way up the draft hole. Make sure to take a prelight draw to make sure you got the right pack, and if you hear that again, just try to repack it, or deal with it if its not gonna bother you.

You'll probably want to start on some aromatics and then move your way on over to englishes(like the straight virginia). My favorite tin of aromatics is Peterson's Irish Whiskey, good kind of hearty aromatic. That said I'm not a fan of the real sweet stuff.

I have a Chacom as well, great pipe, my only complaint with mine is the holes in the stem and shank are off by just enough to make it near impossible to shoot a pipe cleaner through.
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I had some difficulty getting a pipe cleaner through on mine as well. I bought some solution to remove tar. Should I use this on a cleaner regularly? Or should I be wetting the cleaner at all?

I got some English blend and it smells very smoky. Like campfire. I'm a little afraid to try it! Once I smoke an aromatic, does the pipe need to be reserved for aromatics only? Someone told me that. Thanks for your advice!
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Grats on the new pipe!

I found Virginias in my pipes smoke hotter so I needed to really make a conscious effort to go slow or they would get kind pretty crappy. I did find them pretty enjoyable when I could muster the discipline to slow it down, but pretty light in flavor.
I don't believe you'll need the tar cleaner ever time. I usually just swab the pipe with a pipe cleaner or 2 through the shank and loop it and gently wipe the bowl. I do from time to time also soak a pipe cleaner in high % rubbing alcohol to swab the shank out. Only doing a hardcore cleaning when needed.

Going from cigars to pipes I haven't found too many aromatics terribly enjoyable, but I have quite a few. Usually people consider aromatics much more goopy and they impart more ghosting in a pipe therefore using separate pipes for aro's and others is usually the preferred method. I have quite a few briars, but I found if only going from one bowl to another there wouldn't be much if any ghosting involved, it's when you do multiple bowls of the same type that problems may arise. Of course there are always exceptions.

Chris
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Virginias are the best blends out there, but they are not easy to smoke. They are naturally sweet because they are high in sugar content, so they need to be smoked slowly - I like to say they need to be sipped. If you smoke them to fast they can burn to hot and often develop bitterness.

Of course, if you packed to loosely, that may also have been part of the flavor issue.
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I tried again tonight with more of the 5 star blend. This time I packed the bowl more tightly and to just below the rim and had much better luck. I like the flavor of the blend and think I might lean towards a more natural or slight aromatic. I think I may try and blend some of the Virginia and cavendish and see what that produces.

I seem to have to really puff on it several times to get any decent volume of smoke. I also noticed its still making that hissing noise when I take draws, but maybe that's just how it's supposed to sound. Also, it started gurgling. I wonder if maybe the tobacco is too moist. Either way, it's been enjoyable! I'm already eyeballing my next pipe!

Thanks again for your replies.
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Gurgling is normal, just run a pipe cleaner through it when it starts to.

Take some draws with it unpacked to make sure its not the pipe itself that does it. It may also be how hard you're tugging, it should be a very easy draw and you should never have to draw on a pipe harder than on an average cigar
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I often have gurgling problems with new pipes.
New pipers often have gurgling problems with any pipe.
New pipers go together with new pipes, creating a born-to-gurgle combination.
Smoke slow, fill loose, swab out mid-smoke as advised.

Experience and cake accumulation solves the problem except in the infrequent instances of really bad pipe geometry. Really bad pipe geometry, by the way, is often easy to correct if it comes to that.

Yours in bovine felicity,

M. Moo
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Well when I went to take the stem off to run a pipe cleaner through it, the tenon broke off from inside the stem. It's like it was glued in the stem and the bond broke. Ugh.

Sending it back to smokingpipes.com today.
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R'uh r'oh.... you leave the stem in when you swab during mid-smoke. Was the pipe hot or warm when you torqued it out? A new or used pipe, this Chacom?

Maybe better start here when you get the replacement.
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One quick point that I might mention. Don't use rubbing alcohol to clean your pipe after a smoke, which was suggested earlier. The best thing is to dip a pipe cleaner in Everclear and run through the pipe after each smoke. This will keep your pipe smoking fresh each time you light up.
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I actually waited about 45 minutes after I smoked before I tried to remove the stem. There were no warm parts. I read somewhere else that you should wait for it to cool, which I did, but even though it was cool to the touch, could I have not waited long enough?
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It's possible. Smoking and moisture may have caused a bit of swelling in briar, hence a tighter fit then when it is dried out. If it was really tight when first purchased this may be the cause or a possible manf defect in the stem material. It should never need excessive force to remove a stem, but only you can be the gauge for that ;-)
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Well, smokingpipes.com received my returned pipe yesterday and a new one is being shipped today. Very good customer service! Hopefully I will have better luck with this one.
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I got my replacement Chacom today and smoked a bowl of sterling 5 star. I can't seem to run a pipe cleaner all the way through to the bowl, so I'll wait several hours and try to take the stem off to clean the shank. The pipe seems great so far! I can't wait to try different blends. I'm still feeling a little shy about trying the Stokkebye proper english :-)
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