Home Cooked Liquid

[jdrancor]

Allright, so I think it'd be swell to get a topic started on home-cooked liquid, so that together we can perfect the method of making a strong-flavored non-clogging liquid. Tropical Bob, Jimldk, and Nazareth have been experimenting. Would you post your results? It would be extra good if you could post quantities, cooking times etc. so that your own attempts could be improved upon. As much data as possible.

So, here's what I did to make my tobacco stock.

2 Cups purified water
1/2 cup American Spirit organic rolling tobacco

Simmer for 1/2 hour, covered

Strain with a coffee filter 2x, yeild ~ 1cup

Simmer, no lid, to concentrate. Watched closely after 10 min, and after 17 minutes removed from flame.
Yield was ~ 1/16 of a cup

mixed 1/1 with flue-cured ecig liquid.

I could definitely taste the new tobacco flavor. It was strong, but the smoke had a raw tobacco rather than burnt tobacco taste to it. It was fairly strong, but could have been stronger. I dripped twice, but started to notice particulate build-up on the steel wool, so stopped. I need a finer filter to remove the microparticles. I will be getting a lab filter kit (http://www.unitednuclear.com/equipment.htm about 3/4 of the way down the page, "vacuum filtration kit") and try the process again, and get a more pure liquid.

Possible improvement on the raw taste: burn a cigarette and add the ashes to the stock to create a smoke flavor.

Also, Tropical Bob used pipe tobacco - perhaps this has more of a smoke flavor?

One other thing, about the tar in a cig - is this from burning, and does anyone know if the tar is retained in the stock? This would be double bad, once for lungs and twice for atomizers.

Allright, let's make the perfect liquid recipe!!

[sanneke]

No no, not me.

[TropicalBob]

Fine formula. I, too, am waiting for some lab quality paper filters before I go further. So far, I've not had an atomizer clog on me, but the dark liquid tells me it's filled with particulates (and your lungs don't like particulates of any kind; neither, I assume, do atomizers). I need to end up with a light yellow fluid, not a dark brown one. When I can get the filters, I'll start again and post results.

I do think pipe tobacco made a big difference. When I first tried this, I had some nasal snuff lying around that I didn't like and would never use. So I cooked it. Yuck. That stuff was nasty. I ended up throwing out everything after test smoking a limited amount. With the pipe tobacco, it smelled great even while cooking. I use just enough in the vegetable glycerine to add some real tobacco flavor.

[jdrancor]

I don't know anything about pipe tobacco. I went out today and got a little tin of Briggs for $5. How does this brand measure up, and what brand would you recommend for good flavor?

[TropicalBob]

I think you'll be fine with most any pipe tobacco, with a possible exception of the extreme aromatics. The mixture I most recently used contained some very fine pipe tobacco and some cheaper drugstore stuff. I won't cook expensive stuff again, so my next trials will be with something like Carter Hall (a good burley) or Prince Albert. Each are under $3 in a small pouch that contains way more than you'll use in cooking out flavor.

BTW: Pipe tobacco often contains propylene glycol, sprayed over it to maintain a steady moisture state.

[dnakr]

I guess I need to try pipe tobacco and see if I like it. I bet my tobacco shop is wondering what the hell I am doing when I start buying all this different stuff.

When I bought chewing tobacco for the experiment, the guy asked me when my husband started chewing. I told him it wasn't for my husband, it was for me. I thought he was going to fall out of his chair...

[TropicalBob]

That must have been funny. With chewing tobacco and even pipe tobacco ... it's a male-dominated thing. Thus the sexist question.

The initial poster of the DIY formula noted that any tobacco would do, and I think that's true. Even discarded cigar butts could have flavor and nicotine cooked out. But the nasal snuff I first used was dreadful, so I moved on to tastier stuff, pipe tobacco. I look forward to others trying, say, Marlboro tobacco collected from snuffed-out cigs. Does the vapor taste like Marlboro?

Crystal ball: I see bums collecting real cig butts from urns on Main Street, scraping out the tobacco, cooking it in beer over fires burning in homeless communities under Interstate overpasses, then sucking on e-cigars they bought with money collected by standing in the medians of major intersections holding "Iraq War Veteran" signs.

[Minus Sign]

what about a touch of liquid smoke in the mix for less expensive brands? My experiments with TOP brand rolling tobacco have been...less than flavorful.

If store bought doesn't do the trick for our flavor, we can make our own.

Build a fire with some tobacco, use a vacuum to draw the smoke through a water filter ... you get liquid smoke. The flavor components in the smoke are water-soluble, the bad stuff like tars and carcinogenic agents aren't, far as I know.

The smoke flavor can be separated from the water. Then add a drop or two to your mixture of nicotine solution.

eHow has a how to for making liquid smoke. We can substitute the wood chunks for tobacco leaf, cut down on the charcoal, etc etc.

Its like collecting bong water. Dang, that's two pot references around here in as many weeks. I R NOT A HIPPIE.

I have a different vision TB: I see the government deciding to step in to "protect" people from the evils of using non-carcinogenic substances to control their addiction...and finding they can't--this time--decide "whats best for us". Freedom of information sends everyone who wants to quit the knowledge they need to make their own e-cigs, their own e-liquid.

Like the moonshiners of alcohol's past, smokers who want to lead healthier lives set up back yard grills and distilleries in their kitchens, custom build atomizers for home use, plug in devices for their cars, and pocket versions that can stave off cravings while working at their desk. I see "bootleggers" ebaying quality product across the US for those who don't want to tinker until this turns into the same mess that choked prohibition to death.

And when the government finally caves, I see any of us walking into any tobacco store or ABC(T) store and buying our favorite flavor, our personal preference of all the ingenuity that people who didn't give up on e-smoking helped foster.

[bishybob]

One other thing, about the tar in a cig - is this from burning, and does anyone know if the tar is retained in the stock? This would be double bad, once for lungs and twice for atomizers.

As far as I know from what I've read the "tar" is from the burning of the tobacco. I don't think you get tar from unburnt tobacco, or if you do it's a very small amount.

I saw this video on youtube where a guy extracts tar from 300 smoked cigarettes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jjZ0sJkitI

If you guys are making your own nicotine solution, I would first try boiling all of the moisture out of it to see what is left. If it's anything like what this guy got I wouldn't use it... or at least filter it until it burns without leaving a residue.

[dnakr]

I don't even have the required equipment in order to try this. If you try it, please let us know how it turns out.