[Zickzack]

The rule of thumb I know is that you need about twice the amount of long pepper compared to black pepper. Check, if this works for you.

There is another thing which I like to do: bite off a little bit of long pepper, leave it in your mouth, and wait. The flavour changes several times. If that does not happen, then you have got a bland sample, I guess.

Here is is a nice resource for spices: http://gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com/engl/Pipe_lon.html