For the serious explorer with an eye towards understanding how it all fits together this may be the ONLY thing that makes sense. I was thinking along these line earlier today that getting a cob for newguys is good advice but a meer (with some caveats) is probably better.

According to how you're thinking, get a good meer. There are a lot of $35-$65 (smaller where it sucks) meers that are more claw-and-ball than pipe, if you know what I mean. Get a full-sized quality meer with a 4mm bore from the respected Altinok line or get a Fikri Baki. No problems with construction or geometery - a great pipe for life that will reveal tobacco with great clarity. After a while you may augment such a meer with 5-50 briars or you may find that one or two meers will satisfy a lifetime of adventure.

Of my three conventional meers, two are large and made right and one was cool looking, a bit on the small side and modestly priced. The little one is a gurgly PAS and the two others (cost me twide as much but) smoke wonderfully.
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What about tobacco choices? Any suggestions? Something that is relatively pure for it's variety?
As far as the pipe goes, I have been watching the CAO offerings on the 'bay.
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Big field, that.
Carter Hall, SG FVF, Escudo and Red Rapparee is one way to cover four basics but there are 10000 answers to your question.
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You can buy, and smoke tobacco that is meant to be used for blending if you want, to taste straight burley or cavindish or virgina but if you are smoking a bowl of straight Perique, or Latakia I would have a feeling you'll have a short pipe career.
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Maybe start with the burley, cavendish, and virginia to be able to recognize the bases and then know what the perique or latakia are adding to the blend. Do you think that 2oz. of each is enough to get a handle on it, or would it take more?
At more than $100 for a new one, a good, basic meer might be beyond what I want to spend on this endeavor. Any suggestions? Anyone perusing this have a gently used one that they'd want to part with?
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Howdy pipe smokers. I'm thinking about getting my first pipe soon and wanted to drop in this section to say hello and begin my reading and learning. Hope to be a part of the hobby soon :-)
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I've heard where people take out a bit of tobacco for drying out some before they smoke it.

How long do you suggest it drying out?
Any pros/cons to drying it before you smoke it?
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Depends. If I open a tin and the tobacco feels a little wet, i'll let it sit out fifteen minutes or so so it will lose a little bit of that moisture. Too moist and it will burn bad.
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How long do you suggest it drying out?
Depends. If i know the tobacco well, and how it smokes at certain degrees of dampness, then i'll leave it out until it feels right to me.
it also depends on where you live (local humidity, etc). by living in KC area, if it's summer, leaving it out will probably moisten it up a bit; if it's winter, 15 - 45 minutes max.


Any pros/cons to drying it before you smoke it?
pros
*tobacco smokes better (less moisture build up in the draught hole, which leads to gurgle)
*less tongue bite, which some attribute to the steam from too moist of tobacco and overpuffing, others say it's something to do with the chemistry of something er other that doesn't jive with the tobacco.
*fewer relights, tobacco doesn't go out as often due to moisture
*better flavor (if you know what an over-humidified cigar tastes like, it's the same as over-humidified pipe tobacco = flavors are muted)

cons
*you forget about it for a few days, and even then it's still smoke-able.
*you forget about it for a few days, and it was a McClellands broken flake (which means it's hard as a board and ruined cuz you'll never be able to rub it out without going to the ER to have splinters removed)
*you forget about it for a few days, and you really wanted to try it a few days earlier.
*i'm making sh*t up now, cuz i know of no cons.
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pros/add on - if you decide you let it get too dry you can always rehumudify whatever's left; it will never mold

cons/add on: if you get it bone dry and then it gets handled and bopped around and gets broken down into dust it is forever wasted.
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Nothing that I love cigars, a buddy for a secret santa gift a month ago got me a corncob pipe and some pipe tobacco. However, I have NEVER smoked a pipe and have no idea even as how to fill or light it lol. So I'm asking y'all to give me the basics on how to fill and light it or anything else that is germane. It seems to be a relatively cheap corncob pipe if that means anything

Thanks in advance :-)
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Had a tin of Sutliff #5 come to house as a sample, so said to self why not another slope to slide down, bought cob pipe after reading MANY MANY threads here, along with cob pipe bought a bag of my local B&M's blend, found the #5 not to my liking and found the B&M's to be very aromatic and a little sweet for me. Now I enjoy alot of different cigars, but before I go and spend a rediculous amount of money on multiple tins, any of you cigar smokers out there have a suggestion for a more medium to full aromatic I could try? I do enjoy medium to full cigars. :-)
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Cobs usually have relatively small bowls. No need to get real exotic on filling technique - pretty much ram and jam or, if you want to take it up a notch, make a grape-sized cannonball (aka "wad") of tobacco and plug it in. Don't fill the bowl tight enough that the draw is more than mildly restricted; commence to light puffing and set fire to the top of the bowl enough to get it all burning. Relax. Contemplate.

Then notice the bowl is probably not burning after a minute or less. Mash down on the tabak with a pipe tamper (a big nail or golf tee works fine) to recompress it a bit and relight; it oughta keep going for a while, now. Sip-puff slowly - just enough to keep it going - so you don't end up frying your tongue or sucking your cheeks off. Get in a few snorks if you can.

Cobs are excellent, if somewhat disposible, pipes. That pine shank which extends into the lower part of the bowl is going to char out during the first several smokes. Expect things to taste a little forest-ie during that period.

Got pipecleaners? Stick one all the way into the pipe at any time during a smoke if it starts to get wet or gurgly.

That's about it. The rest is details. Fire that muthuh up.
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Do yourself a favor and try a pouch of Carter Hall (or Prince Albert or Half&Half or Captain Black) - usually found at any discount cigarette store along with some grocery- and drugstores (still).

Easy to find, easy to fill and light, not expensive and mildy aromatic. All of them, esp. Carter Hall or Prince Albert, go very well with a cob and rarely offend bystanders. Have at it.

After that, there are about 1000 other possibilities.
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Thanks a bunch! :-)
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Is there a "right" way to smoke aromatic blends? I just got in some of the different Boswell blends for when I smoke indoors, and while they smell fantastic in the pouch I can hardly taste anything while smoking them. Or is this just simply the nature of the beast in regards to aromatics? Thanks.
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The nature of the beast. I aroma is 90% for the ladies in the next room and 10% for you.
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I suppose I can live with that, especially considering my two roommates are female.
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There are a couple out there that are not to bad, but for the most part, that's it. Personally - I think C&D does it best. Two Friends Celtic Mist is my favorite, but I don't smoke that much at all.
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Some of the stuff that seems merely to have had some sort of syrup cooked onto a bunch of burley can be pretty dreadful from my perspective, others not so bad. Some aromatics are pressed and aged with a flavored casing --I'd rate PS Luxury Twist Flake as an aromatic, but it certainly bears no resemblance to something like 1Q, which is a reasonably decent version of the goop group. Some people would call Royal Yacht an aromatic, which is yet another thing, but it probably doesn't smell good enough to non-smokers to rate. The few Boswell blends I've tried were quite good.

I pack them very loosely and use the tamper to establish the proper draw after it's lit. Pack an aromatic too tight and you're basically done for. It can be sticky, too, so it often pays to let it dry a bit, until a wad of it falls apart rather than coagulates into an airtight, flameproof clump. Always bear that in mind when tamping -- they tend to burn wet and the tobacco will clump if you tamp it too hard and never burn right again.

For me, aromatics are dessert tobaccos. Basic smokes constitute most of my smoking, but a bowl of Three Blind Moose (my favorite aromatic) is nice for a change of pace. I also like to tone down the TBM with some PA mixed in. I think a lot of aromatics are a lot more tolerable "thinned" with something neutral.
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