Brendhain wrote:Kurt..... What exactly is your situation with briar?
For how long have you had the "poopy" briar? Where is it kept? Does it look good but just taste bad?
I've had it for about a year, I didn't even touch it for about six months after receiving it. After the sixth month I made a tester pipe (as I do with all new riar shipments) to see what it was like - man was it disgusting.
I keep the briar on a wire shelf in my basement - the basement is finished, and not some dank hole. The temp and humidity are fairly constant - about 65 degrees and the dehumidifier tells me 70-75% in the winter, less in the summer.
I can tell which blocks will taste bad just by looking at them. They've got a reddish hue, they're typically out of square, and they tend to have more mold than "normal" on one surface or another. The worst ones will actually be quite warped. The stuff that doesn't taste bad will be a creamy color, almost no mold to speak of, and very square. I've separated them so that I don't get them confused when I need a piece of ebauchon.
What have you tried so far?
Time - waiting didn't work, they still taste aweful six months after I first tasted them, and a year after receiving.
Alcohol and Salt - AKA The Professor's Pipe Treatment. Mixed results, and nothing conclusive.
Bowl Coating - A *very* heavy boal coating using activated charcoal. No effect.
Oil curing - mostly a dismal failure due to not fully understanding oil curing. I may revisit that some day, but mostly I don't think I'll go down that route again.
Accellerated drying - Some success. The pipe needs to be bored, drilled, and rough shaped. Remove all the excess wood - important for getting the drying time down. After drying in the oven for 8 hours, and then setting out on the counter for 12 more, the pipe has an acceptable taste. It isn't neutral or sweet, but at least it doesn't taste like you're smoking wet wood shavings.
Given the above, I have to assume that the wood was either not properly boiled the first time around, or not dried sufficiently or both. Since oven-drying it takes away the bad taste, obviously more drying is needed. I could just let them sit, but given that I have had them for a year and there's no change in taste, that could be a *very* long time.
How much, exactly, is a "metric butt load"? Meaning how much of it are you sitting on?
I've got about 150 blocks from this supplier, roughly half are the "bad" blocks.
Can you not sit on it and keep working with the Algerian until the "poopy" taste is gone? I know that money is always an issue, and frustrating when you want something NOW.
Actually, that's what I've been doing. At this point I'm not even missing the bad ebauchon, since I've been using the Algerian for everything. The taste is great, the wood is incredibly workable, and the quality is very good for the price I pay.
Are you aging your other blocks or do you immediately work it?
At one point I was aging everything I got direct from a cutter for at least 6 months before I even considered using it on a pipe. However, the Algerian briar that I've been using is ready work right from the supplier. The taste is very neutral, and it is very dry wood.
The Algerian stuff can benefit from more drying - obviously. But in a pinch, it's good for use right away. Right after I got my first shipment, I made a tester pipe from it, and I was *very* pleased. I made a second one and sent it to a regular customer for his opinion, and he told me that this was, possibly, the best naked (as in untreated - like oil or whatever) briar he'd ever tasted. Based on that, I decided to leet it dry for three months and start using it for customers. Every single customer has contacted me and told me how much their pipe rocks (if I may inject a small amount of bragging).
What I normally do now is let the briar age for about 3 months, just to get acclimated to this environment, then I'll bore, drill, and rough shape it. After rough shaping, and prior to finish sanding, I let it rest for a minimum of one week on rush orders, longer on most orders. Just to give it time to further dry - though it doesn't really *need* it.
I hope you don't mind me prying but this wood, although frustrating, does provide an opportunity for experimentation.
Of course! I'm learning quite a bit aout what makes good or bad briar here.
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