The Mysteries of the Briar Break-In Process

The mysteries of the briar break-in process refers to the ongoing debate born from the fact that no single explanation is considered sufficient on its own for why a new pipe starts smoking sweeter and milder after the first several bowls.

The common account attributes the whole effect to the carbon layer that builds up in the bowl; the counter-view holds that the cake is only one factor among several, and that the raw material and curing also play a part. This objection became widely debated in the community largely through American pipe writer Fred Hanna's piece in The Pipe Collector, the newsletter of the North American Society of Pipe Collectors. Hanna is the author of The Perfect Smoke and received the Doctor of Pipes title in 2010.

The Role of the Raw Material

The debate's starting point is that pipes made with equal care can smoke noticeably differently from one another. It is accepted that grain beauty does not account for this difference; it is known that a plain-looking block can yield a sweet pipe, and a flawlessly grained one a bland one. Drawing on a conversation with the German pipe maker Rainer Barbi (d. 2011), Hanna argues that what matters is not the country the block came from but the soil and microclimate the briar plant grew in; on this view, distinguishing Greece from Corsica or Italy is not on its own an indicator of flavor. The claim has not been tested by an independent measurement — it rests on the writer's own observation.