My Fold-n-Stuff Method

[commonsenseman]

It's officially taken me just shy of two years to figure out flakes, and I still have plenty to learn. Flakes are by far my favorite form of tobacco because you can control so many aspects of the experience. From folding-n-stuffing, to fully rubbing out, to the "screw-in" method (or, in my case the "screw-up" method), there are many different ways to prepare a flake to be smoked. Besides that there are numerous flakes to be smoked, all of them have slightly different burn rates, are processed a little thicker or thinner than others (in the case of SG flakes, they're both), some have a rubbery texture, & some come dry as a bone. To throw another wrench in the gears, every flake smokes differently in every pipe.

So how's a fella to figure all this out, without spending years & years? Well, long story short, he's not. Nomatter how much advice anybody offers, it's one of those things you have to figure out on your own. Just like riding a bike. A few well placed pointers can help speed up the process though, I'll try to keep this as easy to understand as possible.

For the purpose of this thread, I'll focus on the fold-n-stuff method, my personal favorite. I like it because it smokes very slowly, allowing for a much longer smoke than other methods. If done properly, it can really enhance the "flake experience".



Ok, enough rambling, here's my "commonsense" approach. (thanks to Dub for some of the methods)

Pipes: A lot of people seem to say that a narrow, tall pipe is best for flakes. I have no evidence against this, except that you could potentially smoke them in any pipe, not only tall thin ones. For each pipe the amount of tobacco needed may differ, as well as the number of times it will have to be folded to fit properly. One of my personal favorite pipes for smoking VA flakes is My Savinelli 101, it's a very basic pipe with an average sized bowl. It's kind of a chubby Billiard. Technically a filter pipe, but I don't use filters most of the time. It just seems to like flakes so much that I smoke them quite often in it.



Flakes: Of course any flake will do. One thing to consider is the moisture content. If it's too dry it'll crumble into nothing or spontaneously combust in your face. Too wet & it'll taste like crap, smoke like crap, & leave a ton of moisture in the bottom of your bowl. Not to mention that the more moist a flake is, the more it seems to expand, sometimes making the draw impossibly tight. While all tobacco is slightly different, I prefer most of mine just on the moist side of really dry. In other words, dry, but not quite crumbly dry. To gauge this, when I fold a flake in half I like it to break a little bit, but not snap like a twig.

Method: After drying my flake to my preferred moisture content, I set it on the table next to my pipe. I do this to try to guage the bowl depth. I shoot for about 2/3rds the depth of the bowl, so it leaves a little bit of air at the bottom. I can't emphasize enough how much of a difference this makes. For the above savinelli, with most "normal" sized flakes (like Irish Flake), I fold them in thirds, trying to keep each section the same length. Then I sort of roll it the other way to make it a cylinder of vertical strands of tobacco. Here's where you can control the rate of burn. (By rubbing it out just a little you can increase the rate, by leaving it as is it will burn much more slowly.) Then, I start to put the roll of tobacco into the pipe. It takes some experience both with the pipe & with the flake to determine how much to shove in. If you fill it too tight, the tobacco will expand making the draw way too tight. If you fill it too loose, you won't be able to keep it lit. A good general rule of thumb I've found is to fill it 75-80% of the diameter of the pipe with tobacco. You can test the draw & it should be quite loose at this point, since it will be expanding after the initial light. Then I will sprinkle a very small amount of well rubbed out tobacco on top. I have learned that too much of this actually makes it harder to get it lit properly. It make take several false-lights to get it going all the way. One way to help is to "pull" the tobacco towards the middle of the bowl with the little spoon thingy on the czech tool, that makes getting the outside tobacco lit much easier. Once you get it going puff very slowly & methodically, even rhythmically, the cadence required for this method is slightly different than other methods. Do not tamp down the tobacco after the initial light (even there, do it as gently as humanly possible), this will close the air pocket at the bottom of the bowl & possibly ruin the draw, thus ruining the entire experience. If anything is needed to maintain, just gently pull the tobacco inwards, and/or re-light.












That's about it. If done properly it can be extremely rewarding, if not it can be extremely frustrating. For more info check out the MacBaren page on flakes, very informative.

Carry on.