1. Take a pinch of tobacco and put it in your pipe.
2. Tamp it down very lightly.
3. Continue to fill your pipe pinch by pinch. With each pinch, tamp down slightly harder than the pinch before.
4. Keep going until you get about 1/8” from the top of the bowl.

The resulting fill should be slightly springy, but compressed. When you draw on the pipe, you should feel a little resistance, but not much.