Problems With Consistency

[Haz]

Last week I tried the super chief for the first time (thanks to MNH for the quick delivery though slightly chipped). I packed it with AF rose in a mya QT and used two quicklights broken in halves. It was the best smoke I've had in a long time. One of my top 5. The rose was flavourful, it smoked for ages and never got coaly or harsh. The water level was quite high and slightly hard to drag and that was the only flaw.

The next day I had the same setup except the water level was lower (one inch above the stem) but it wasn't as flavourful. Does the water level make a difference to the flavour? Or perhaps the ratio of water to air space?

It'll be a couple of days before I can experiment myself and I was just wondering if anyone had any advice.

[Scoop]

realistically, im going to say not at all...i highly doubt the water has anything to do with the taste of it unless youre drinking it or something not expected.

[The King]

water level could filter a little of the flavor out i guess its possible, but I'd be suprised if you would even notice...

[joeaflak]

Although you should take note of water level and try remain consistant, i highly doubt that it would affect the flavour.

Only a few things come to mind,

1. did you mix the tobacco prior to packing it into head? Important to mix settled syrip into dryer tobacco on top.
2. you say it was a little hard to take in the first time. this in fact may have been becaue of the higher water level. generally you need to have the same amount of airspace in your base as you would have in the shaft of your pipe, anything less and its hard to take up, however, the fact it was hard to take up would generally result in less air flow running through the head, less air = more flavour. test this next time by taking slower, less deep breaths. Not any fun but definately more flavoursim.

Hope this helps.

[Glottis2]

Was the weather any different?

[Sonthert]

Yeah, a change in weather is what I was thinking. Humidity shock, acclimation.

[Haz]

No change in weather. If its not the water level then the only difference could have been how I packed the bowl but I doubt there was much difference there.

[Sonthert]

Its possible that the tobacco wasn;t used to the weather when you smoked it and it smoked fine...when you smoked it the second time it had gotten acclimated...or maybe the humidity changed or whatnot...sometimes subtle changes in weather can cause dramatic changes in smoking quality. The other possibility, like I think somebody mentioned is to stir the tobacco real well before each bowl.