What is the Best Way to Store E-Liquids?

[MaDPimP]

anyone have an update on this? Im a newbie here and dont have apparently anywhere near as huge a supply as some of you guys are rolling with lol, but i still dont want my liquids to go bad especially since i just bought some backup juice to store while i work through my first 30 ml. Right now i've been keeping it in a ziplock baggie in the fridge, pulling it out, giving it a shake or two and then filling my carts and then replacing it in the fridge. Does it need to be room temp in order to refill? Is shaking bad? Am i fridging my liquid to death? If someone could help out a poor newbie i would be greatful

[nubee]

I read a few people and vendors that had juice go bad from having it in the fridge - too much moisture.

Most seem to recommend a cool/dark place like a basement. That's where I have my liter of juice right now in fact

[MaDPimP]

unfortunately, i dont have a basement (i rent) and the apt has been avg like 77 degrees so far since i moved in... sometimes higher... I know ridiculous, but i dont get control over the thermostat since i dont pay for it... so im basically SOL huh?

[bearscreek]

MaDPimP, I don't think 77 will hurt anything. Also, no one really knows the truth yet about storage, but some will strongly advise against the fridge.

[cassavetes]

That is correct, Emsmom, I did lose hundereds of dollars by putting it in the refig. It went rancid after 3 months. The e-liquid was from Totally Wicked, Puresmoker, E-smokeytreats, and JC. The reason why I lost it was that the tempeture was to cold in the refig at 40 degrees and the refrig is not a dry envoirment with the door opening and closing.

I have e-lquid that I have stored in my closet that is almost a year old and is still as good as when I got it. The key is Cool, Dark, and Dry place. I do not post this to tell people anything else but my experience. If you feel for some reason that the refig is the place for your e-liquid---then go for it. I can only tell you my first hand experience with losing e-liquid.


Sun

::removes stash of liquid from fridge::

[circeseye]

you know this might sound funny but i found the perfect place to store my liquid. if you have an older home that has a crawl space (raised foundation) like mine the access is in the master bedroom closet. i lift the lid have a box hanging from a wire by the opening. it always stays cool and dry down there even during the summer and dry during the winter too and the only reason any moister would be down there is if you have a leaking pipe

[jcarcopo]

I don't understand why 40 degrees is too cold? I want to understand so I can overcome my pigheadedness. A supplier I had dealt with told me he keeps his stock kept in a freezer. I fail to understand why it would go rancid if you take new sealed product and put in the freezer. I would love to understand exactly what is causing the product to go bad? What is the mechanism of degradation? Microbes/bacteria can't thrive in a freezer and external moisture can't penetrate glass bottles. If you put your bottles in a freezer it should keep the product in stasis until needed unless extreme cold causes any breakdown of active or inactive ingredients. If you take it out the bottle sweats, but I don't understand how that matters. If there is residual moisture in the bottle and it condenses then it was moisture that was in the mix or flavoring or moisture trapped in the small pocket of air that was sealed in with the product so why would the difference of a few degrees have any affect on what was in the bottle in the first place. When the freezer defrosts sure the temperature will rise, but only enough to raise the temperature a few degrees over freezing and weather its 32, 42, 52 or 62 degrees seems moot as its still plenty cold and whether its humid or dry in the freezer at any particular time doesn't seem to matter as moisture can't permeate glass (maybe the cap depending on how well it's bottled).

PG has the properties of antifreeze so the product doesn't freeze into a solid, it only thickens which thawing it out seems to correct this. PG has antimicrobial properties (I confess I haven't researched why) and is used to retard microbes from ruining your cigar collection which is one of the reasons why humidor pg liquid is used. Among other things its used to keep cigars fresh, moist, and microbe free (i dont smoke cigars, but I noticed that usp pg liquid is marketed on ebay as a humidor solution). I can understand that these ejuice companies may not have the most sanitary or sterile environment when they prepare the mix batches so maybe some contaminant is bottled into the product and then because of temperature fluctuations and moisture getting into the product from opening it or direct contamination because a person opens up a bottle and syringes some fluid out without taking proper sanitation precautions and then puts it away in the fridge and then it slowly grows into a culture ruining the product, but even this seems hard to imagine.

Exactly what grows and thrives in PG...... a known antimicrobial?
What can thrive swimming in nicotine which is toxic and poisonous and can't possibly be food for microbes (assuming there hasn't been some weird mutating bacteria/fungus that converts nicotine into a food supply)?
I guess maybe microbes could feed on the flavoring, especially if there is sugar in the flavoring, but seems like a cold frigid environment with nicotine/poison and antimicrobial pg is not a very hospitable environment for microbes to thrive and ruin the product. If there is any vodka or alcohol added to the recipe then the chances are even more remote that a living organism is living high on the hog while swimming in antiseptic posion.

As An Aside: I am amazed how nonchalantly I can read what I just typed and not question just what the hell am I doing inhaling this stuff, but compared to cigarettes I am hopefully doing my body greatly reduced harm, but frankly I switched to vaping so I could stop obsessing over dying from a smoke related disease, not because I think I am living a healthy new lifestyle that is devoid of any possibility that I still won't end up with cancer/copd/heart disease whether its tobacco related or not. No longer will I worry and feel uncomfortable watching anti-smoking PSAs. No longer will I hate myself (as much) for enjoying a habit that I hate myself for becoming addicted to and unable/unwilling to stop for good without reverting back which only made me hate myself more. I'm sick of getting raped on tobacco taxes and having my addiction used to usurp money out of my pocket to give free healthcare, not to me, but to everyone else's children, because I dont matter anymore as I am doomed to die and disgusting slow and deservedly painful death because I am a wretched person with no willpower or self control. -end diatribe

I guess if I was paranoid and wanted to protect my investment and stock pile. I would disinfect the exterior product bottles with bio-greenclean or bleach. I would vacuum seal and freezer store only new unopened glass bottles at room temperature using my vacuum sealer with some desiccant packets to absorb any minute moisture left in the now vacuumed sealed bags/containers of glass bottles. I would place vacuum sealed product into a small mini-igloo cooler to block light and buffer temperature changes when taking product in and out of the freezer to reduce condensation and wild temperature swings when the freezer goes through defrost mode, power outages, or from people opening & closing the door frequently or leaving it open for extended periods of time as I often do because I like wasting electricity and destroying the environment; J/K: I have ADD and forget is usually what happens.

If the freezer's cold (somewhat fluctuating) temperature is breaking the nicotine down, harming the efficacy of PG/VG or ruining the flavoring then I would love to know why because I know I don't know everything and will concede to any logical argument or facts that I am unaware of.

I would much rather keep the product in as cold of an environment as possible because its seems logical, but I am more than willing to keep an open mind and humble myself to any logical rationale to the contrary. I am too new to vaping to know best practices, but doesn't any other suppliers or ejuice manufacturers have any insight or facts to set the record straight. I only know one supplier who told me he freezes his product and never noticed any issues doing so. I do not know at what temp, for how long, from what source, in what container, etc....so I am not saying he's right either, but he's been very helpful, informative, and take him at his word.

I don't want to ruin or prematurely expire my 4 bottles of Wicked Smoke platinum ice 52mg, 12 bottles of 24mg ejuice via ruyandirect, and I was also considering investing in 500ml of 36mg RY4 for safe keeping/stockpiling to give myself a 2 year supply to weather the FDA's eventual power grab or the state attorney general's potential witch hunt/banning/overtaxation.

If any scientist, know it all, supplier, or manufacturers reads this and has all the facts please set me straight so I can stop worrying about my reserves of ejuice growing legs and ending up in the landfill.

Thanks Everyone!!

Ciao,

Jonathan

[jcarcopo]

I would not put my juice in the fridge. Fridge can cause condensation Moisture,air and sunlight are the biggest enemies. Patches and chew are not refrigerated. Propylene glycol is not refrigerated and has no shelf life. Keep it in a dark, cool(just not hot IMO) place and squeeze the air out of the bottle and cap it or move it into smaller bottles for long term storage.

Camel snus is refrigerated but I figure its a marketing stunt.

[Snarkyone]

Keep in mind that even under refrigeration most nicotine and other juices I have seen out there have a shelf life of about 2 years.

[MaDPimP]

So small update. I just got a new shipment in from ecigexpress, and while my menthol flavor, like the first bottle i got, wasnt labeled with much other than menthol 24 mg, my grape had a disclaimer saying to keep out of reach of children, yada yada yada, but it also mentioned storing it in the fridge...

Additionally, I was just thinking about the shipping of the liquid itself. Unless your ordering pallets of this stuff and are willing to shell out for a refrigerated truck and for refridgerated storage in the meantime these things are sitting in unairconditioned warehouse/depots and being shipped in unairconditioned trucks so would temp variants really be that big of a deal? I mean my juice usually take 2-5 days to arrive which isnt a huge time but especially with overseas shipping it would be in an uncontroled environment for quite awhile i would imagine...