If it had some sort of cut in it you might have started to burn that and thats what you were tasting. Or you were just burning it. Almost no one understands how to smoke the stuff. The objective is to get it hot to liquefy but not TOO hot. Smoke is created as it cools, not as it gets hotter. This is why you roll the pipe slowly, you are moving the liquid away from the heat source (the bottom center of the bowl) and it cools and produces smoke, as you roll back it crosses the heat picks up some heat then cools on the other side. Keeping the flame on it the whole time trying to get smoke is why you DONT get it. I've watched more dumbasses kill a bowl by burning in one hit, when there was enough to pass around or back n forth several times. If you're using a bic style lighter and the bowl is getting black soot on the first use you are TOO CLOSE to the bowl, you do not put the flame ON the glass, you hold it away from it a little, yea it takes 10 seconds longer to heat up, but thats the idea
I hide my torch lighter, people dont get it and toast a bowl in a quicky :-/
If you do not burn the shit, the bowl will stay clean WAY longer and if you keep the flame off the glass the outside will also stay cleaner. My pipes more dirty on the outside than the inside and using a scratchy side of the sponge to clean the outside brings it back clear. I clean the outside like 5 times to the insides 1 time. I dont use a wet rag to wipe it off every time, cause I dont need too and it cools the glass too fast and they end up breaking from that anyways. If you want to cool the liquid just blow on the bottom of the bowl for a few seconds and that should cool it enough for it to harden, if it doesnt you got it too hot.
So I said all that to say I dont use any chemicals to clean mine, when its time I cut off a little corner of a scratchy sponge drop it in then take a small stick through the top hole and swirl it around and bingo, clean bowl
When you see a fire, like a campfire there is no smoke where the flame is, depending on the size of the fire the smoke starts above the flames, where it cools. And its also why you see more smoke from a smoldering fire than a flaming fire, the flame is burning more of the fuel (whatever is burning) so there is less residual.
