Originally Posted by Mister Moo

One end of a fluffy pipecleaner to wipe out stems anytime-allthetime; and the other end, looped, to brush out what a pipe tool may have left behind after the bowl cools.

As soon as something tastes "off" (sour, ashy) I'll dip bristle pipecleaners in Everclear and scour out that stem and shank of that pipe along with any other pipe in eyeshot.

That alcohol salt/cottonball or retort thing is good to sanitize pipes, to get stain out of a new dipped bowl (most Petersons for example) or to out the ghost of that which you wish to disappear in a certain pipe. I don't think anyone routinely soaks pipe bowls this way as part of regular maintenance although some folks like to dip pipecleaners in booze and massage bowl innards. I never had any inclination to do that.

Cake appears gradually and kinda sneaks up on you if you just forget about it. It never appears if you are looking for it. I think you need to smoke a pipe a good 50-times before there's anything to consider, cakewise. Call the hotline when you think you have cake in your pipe that's thicker than a nickel and we'll figure it out then. Clan out the bowl of a cool/cold pipe and whatever cake is forming will hang on; take care not to let a tamper scrape the walls of a pipe you're smoking or it'll retard cake formation (which, at some point, isn't a bad thing).