I just had a thought concerning your experience between cobs and briar.houtenziel wrote: ↑Tue Sep 04, 2018 2:43 pmAfter doing some side by side experiments on my taste buds, tallying up the number of briars I have been unsatisfied with, and the amount of time I will get back not constantly looking for the magical briar that will deliver a smoke free of the burning.. I have concluded that my experience coincides with yours. Any perceived flavor difference I could detect seemed to mostly just be placebo. I guess I will have to spend my time finding ways to hotrod my cobs.Whistlebritches wrote: ↑Sun Sep 02, 2018 1:47 pm You've pointed something out that I've experienced with almost every blend I have tried.In a briar tongue bite and off putting flavors is all I get.Had I not tried a cob I probably would've put the pipe down long ago.Now all those beautiful briars just sit on the mantel.......while the cobs do all the work.I'm mostly a vaper smoker and not one of those Vapers has ever tasted worth a tinkers damn in a briar.
You'd think after being ~10 years in, I would have come to this conclusion already.. and you'd be right. I just chose to ignore it
I have not experienced this myself between cobs and briar, but was wondering if possibly some physical differences between the cob and briars migth have someting to do with it. For example the stem length or the stem shape. The reason I say this is because I have a bent billiard that angles the stem button more upward toward the roof of my mouth which will cause a hot spot in that place if I'm not careful. I know this is a characteristic of this pipe so I compensate for this by smoking it while I am sitting so I can hold the pipe in my hand and direct the pipe button to another angle rather than clinch it in my teeth and experience the burn. The cobs I have had over the years were typically straight stemed and did not create this problem.
Just a thought.