Curing & Treating

Curing & treating is the umbrella term for the full sequence of drying and purification stages a cut block of briar goes through on its way to becoming a pipe. Part of the work is carried out at the cutting workshop in the country where the root is harvested, and part at the bench of the pipe maker who buys the block.

The two stages complement each other: the first makes the raw material roughly usable, the second brings that block to maturity by the standards of a particular workshop.

Initial Preparation at the Cutting Workshop

Once logs pulled from the root are roughly divided into blocks, they're boiled in large vats. The purpose is to draw resin and sap out of the wood's pores and let water take their place; this largely prevents the sharp taste that would otherwise hit the palate in the earliest smokes. After boiling, the blocks are dried slowly under controlled conditions. This first drying is said to take roughly eighteen months. The length also varies by the region the root comes from; sources give a maturation window of one to three years for Calabrian briar and three to five years for Tuscan briar.