I fiddle and scrape and poke for a while, banging out the dottle from my previous pipeful into an ashtray and puffing down the stem like a horn player warming up his trumpet.
The last bit of unsmoked or partly smoked tobacco remaining at the bottom of a pipe bowl Should be as little as possible, both to avoid waste and to keep pipe caking evenly from top to bottom Knock out the dottle by tapping the pipe against the heel of the hand – never against a hard surface
The small accumulation of clay formed on the end of the wire as it passed through the stem blank forming the bore The dottle is often to be seen remaining attached inside the pipe bowl Detached examples have been recovered by careful washing and sorting of detritus