Hello everyone, I’m a pipe lover from China. You can call me Guangji. There is a serious problem bodering me for over 10 years, which is the funky meerschaum smell. I’ve tried nearly all soulutions I can think or I can find over the webside, but nothing works.
Description of the smell：
It almost can’t be catched from the unsmoked meerschaum. For most of the unsmoked ones, they don’t have any smell at all.
If you at first time and always use a coloring bowl on your meerschaum, there won’t be any funky smell in your meerschaum.
If you don’t use a coloring bowl, which means putting tobacco directly in the bowl, when you finish your smoking, there will be the funky smell immediately.
The funky smell is just like the smell of sea. I don’t think it’s from the bowl inside but the skin of the whole pipe.
When you smoke, the funky smell don’t boder you but after you finish, the smell of sea is always unconfortable.
Which brands of meerschaum have I tried?
Altinay, Tekin, F.baki, IMP, Karahan, SMS, H.cor, F.yavuz, Ender, Eyup Sabri and so on. The all have the funky smell.
What have I done?
Smoke as much as I can.
It did lessen the smell, but it took at least over 100 times. However the funky smell can’t be elininated, there is still some kind of subtle smell of sea.
Soak the meerschaum in pure water/baking soda/tea for 24hrs.
It didn’t work at all.
Soak the meerschaum in alcohol(75%/95%/brandy/whisky) for 24hrs.
It didn’t work at all, however these experiments seem that alcohol is not so harmful to meerschaum.
Salt + alcohol
It didn’t work at all.
Boile the meerschaum for 2hrs.
The wax was seperated from the meer, the smell was still here, but it seems to transform to another kinds of smell. Once the wax is absent, the meerschaum will no longer be colored.
Burn the meerschaum.
Nothing change but color.
Hypothesis
Hypothesis 1: The smell comes from the wax.
As we know the wax on the meerschaum is not pure beewax. It consists of beewax, other kinds of wax, and oil. Maybe there are some other materials we don’t know, because when we heat or burn the beewax of oil, their won’t be the funky smell.
Hypothesis 2: The smell comes from the meerschaum.
Hypothesis 3: The smell comes from the chemical reaction between tobacco/smoke oil and meerschaum.
Hypothesis 4: The smell comes from the chemical reaction between wax and meerschaum.
Hypothesis 5: The smell comes from the chemical reaction between tobacco/smoke oil, wax and meerschaum.
Experiment design
It’s very difficult to eliminate the wax from the meerschaum, so we need a brand new unwaxed meerschaum and a brand new normal meerschaum with wax.
First we need to heat the normal meerschaum in 220°F without tobacco in the bowl. If the funky smell appears, Hypothesis 1 or 4 will be verified.
Otherwise we start the second experiment. Then we need to heat the unwaxed meerschaum in 220°F without tobacco in the bowl. If the funky smell appears, Hypothesis 2 will be verified.
Otherwise we start the third experiment. Then we continue to use the unwaxed one and put tobacco into the bowl and then smoke. If the funky smell appears, Hypothesis 3 will be verified.
Otherwise Hypothesis 5 will be verified.
It’s my first post here, I don’t know much more about this forum. I found here because I found this post. https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/funky-meerschaum-smell.546777/
If you want to know the following experiment result, please let me know and give me some suggestion on the improvement of the experiment design.
And I am always interesting and waiting for your experience on getting rid of funky smell from meerschaum.
Description of the smell：
It almost can’t be catched from the unsmoked meerschaum. For most of the unsmoked ones, they don’t have any smell at all.
If you at first time and always use a coloring bowl on your meerschaum, there won’t be any funky smell in your meerschaum.
If you don’t use a coloring bowl, which means putting tobacco directly in the bowl, when you finish your smoking, there will be the funky smell immediately.
The funky smell is just like the smell of sea. I don’t think it’s from the bowl inside but the skin of the whole pipe.
When you smoke, the funky smell don’t boder you but after you finish, the smell of sea is always unconfortable.
Which brands of meerschaum have I tried?
Altinay, Tekin, F.baki, IMP, Karahan, SMS, H.cor, F.yavuz, Ender, Eyup Sabri and so on. The all have the funky smell.
What have I done?
Smoke as much as I can.
It did lessen the smell, but it took at least over 100 times. However the funky smell can’t be elininated, there is still some kind of subtle smell of sea.
Soak the meerschaum in pure water/baking soda/tea for 24hrs.
It didn’t work at all.
Soak the meerschaum in alcohol(75%/95%/brandy/whisky) for 24hrs.
It didn’t work at all, however these experiments seem that alcohol is not so harmful to meerschaum.
Salt + alcohol
It didn’t work at all.
Boile the meerschaum for 2hrs.
The wax was seperated from the meer, the smell was still here, but it seems to transform to another kinds of smell. Once the wax is absent, the meerschaum will no longer be colored.
Burn the meerschaum.
Nothing change but color.
Hypothesis
Hypothesis 1: The smell comes from the wax.
As we know the wax on the meerschaum is not pure beewax. It consists of beewax, other kinds of wax, and oil. Maybe there are some other materials we don’t know, because when we heat or burn the beewax of oil, their won’t be the funky smell.
Hypothesis 2: The smell comes from the meerschaum.
Hypothesis 3: The smell comes from the chemical reaction between tobacco/smoke oil and meerschaum.
Hypothesis 4: The smell comes from the chemical reaction between wax and meerschaum.
Hypothesis 5: The smell comes from the chemical reaction between tobacco/smoke oil, wax and meerschaum.
Experiment design
It’s very difficult to eliminate the wax from the meerschaum, so we need a brand new unwaxed meerschaum and a brand new normal meerschaum with wax.
First we need to heat the normal meerschaum in 220°F without tobacco in the bowl. If the funky smell appears, Hypothesis 1 or 4 will be verified.
Otherwise we start the second experiment. Then we need to heat the unwaxed meerschaum in 220°F without tobacco in the bowl. If the funky smell appears, Hypothesis 2 will be verified.
Otherwise we start the third experiment. Then we continue to use the unwaxed one and put tobacco into the bowl and then smoke. If the funky smell appears, Hypothesis 3 will be verified.
Otherwise Hypothesis 5 will be verified.
It’s my first post here, I don’t know much more about this forum. I found here because I found this post. https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/funky-meerschaum-smell.546777/
If you want to know the following experiment result, please let me know and give me some suggestion on the improvement of the experiment design.
And I am always interesting and waiting for your experience on getting rid of funky smell from meerschaum.
. I forgot how bad stinky that pipe was when I got it lol.
