Briar Curing

Briar curing is the collective name for the drying and purifying processes a briar burl goes through from the moment it's dug from the ground to the point it becomes a block ready for working. It appears in English sources as curing.

The purpose is twofold: to remove the sap, resin, and other residues inside the wood, and to keep the remaining moisture balanced at a level low enough not to crack, yet not so high as to spoil the cut. A block whose curing was left incomplete behaves unreliably on the lathe and gives a hot, harsh taste when smoked; curing is therefore considered the least visible stage that determines a briar pipe's quality.

Stages at the Sawmill

When the burl comes out of the ground, the wood is still alive; curing's first job is to kill it without letting it crack. Because sudden drying opens splits, burls are covered with branches or damp soil as they're transported, so that moisture is drawn out slowly. At the sawmill, the same principle is maintained under controlled conditions; burls placed in pits and covered with sacking are reportedly left in this state for roughly three months.

The dead burl is then cut into blocks with large circular saws. Because the dry outer layer can chip on contact with the blade, the surface is wetted just before cutting; the direction of the first cut is the maker's most careful decision, since it determines how many usable blocks the burl will yield. The separated blocks are sorted by size and by whether they come from the bark-covered outer layer or the interior.

The real purification happens through boiling: wood boiled sack by sack releases most of its sap and resin and takes on water in its place. Blocks whose surface has dried are then graded more closely. Grading is largely subjective, because what's inside a block cannot be known until it's cut, and the criteria have also shifted over time. Today bark-covered plateaux is treated as the top grade, whereas Alfred Dunhill Ltd's 1928 encyclopedia About Smoke named the wood from the center of the root as the most prized section. Most sources report that blocks are left to dry for roughly another year and a half before being considered ready for sale, though in practice this period can be shortened depending on the buyer's urgency or the workshop's need for cash.