Big problem with diy flavors in my calculation

[Skyway]

After trying yet again to make a flavor I like I ran into a problem of sorts. I was using eye droppers for making my juices since they are easy to clean and using them I should have been able to keep consistency.
I started to make a 3 ml test flavor when after done mixing it just did not look like 3ml in my 5 ml bottle. I ran some tests. Because of the viscosity of certain mixtures(pg vg water or pg based liquids) each drop is not the same size. So this so call common idea that 20 drops equals out to 1 ml is complete crap in my book. These are the numbers as I have measured with my syringes that are correct measurements.
1ml of water = 34 drops
1ml of vg = 31 drops
1ml of pg = 50 drops
So suffice it to say, I am going to have some problems with all these calcs that are saying all drops are equal. The juice Me up program is nice since you can tell it how many drops equals 1ml but my problem comes in since not all drops are equal.
Anyone else running into these problems? Probably why all my juices thus far have turned out to be crap.
One way of getting around this is to just use my syringes but I will not be working those amounts all the time.

 

[Liv2Ski]

Drops are ballpark. For accuracy use a sryinge or a pippette w/ ml markings.

 

[Skyway]

Yeah, I pretty much stated that in the fact that the drops were not equaling out.

 

[Para]

I never bought into the "drops" and I kept screwing up so I use 2 sizes of pipette pumps and the 1ml, 2ml, 5ml, 10ml pipettets. It's the only way I can get accurate mixes for small batches. One Stop DIY has them. A few bucks to get started, but you get accuracy in return.

Pumps
Pipettes

I see they have all sizes of the pipettes to fit the 10ml pump now so you don't need to get both

 

[Travis798]

I'm not really all that into DIY, but I thought that it has always been common knowledge that not all drops are equal. Maybe we read in different areas of the forum, but I have never read anyone saying that all drops are equal without immediately getting correct by someone with more knowledge.

 

[DVap]

Drops are not only not equal, they're inconsistent from one dropper to another.

Pipettes/syringes are the way to go... using droppers = guessing.

 

[Skyway]

I'm not really all that into DIY, but I thought that it has always been common knowledge that not all drops are equal. Maybe we read in different areas of the forum, but I have never read anyone saying that all drops are equal without immediately getting correct by someone with more knowledge.

I guess we must have. I have not really come into this section of the forum all that much since every time I made some ejuice it never came out right. lol, guess I should have stuck around more from the looks of it. Only reason I decided to try it again is because my normal seller was a little late in shipping my supply out and I was starting to run out.

I have not seen those pipettes before, I might have to look into those. Thanks for the link Parallex.

 

[mauzey]

If you are making 3ml samples you almost have to use the 1ml pipettes and pump that parallex2 mentions.

 

[daath]

I agree - I've upped the standard 20 drops/ml to 25, which isn't enough but close in my calculator - Though you can set it yourself.

Me? I use my 3, 5 and 10 ml syringes and sometimes my 1 and 3 ml pipette. I found out very quickly when I made a 5ml batch that seemed like less than 3ml...

 

[zoiDman]

When I first started DIY, I foresaw the same problems with drops per unit volume. I also really didn’t want to do everything from a graduated cylinders for every flavor mix every time. Since the juices I wanted to make were all going to be the same VGG ratio, 70:30, and the same nicotine level, 20mg, here is what I came up with.

I took my unflavored nicotine bases, 100mg VG and 100mg PG and down mixed them to 23.5mg. For this I did use a graduated cylinder to get a 70:30 ratio of VG to PG. For my dilute, I used 4:1 VG to water and pure PG. So now I had 120ml or so of unflavored nicotine base at 23.5mg.

The choice of 23.5mg was based on the fact that all but one of my DIY recipes call for between 12-17% flavoring/sweetener. Diluting 23.5mg by 15% gets me down to 20mg. The actual final mg might be 19.2mg or 20.7mg depending on the flavor ratio. I don’t really worry about it. I don’t think that anyone one can tell the difference between 19.2 and 20.7mg when they vape.

So the only thing left to do was to get a drop factor for my flavoring. I have found that there is almost no variation in viscosity of the flavor concentrates I use. I also have All my flavor concentrates in glass dropper bottles I got from The Perfumer’s Apprentice. So the flavoring drops are all going to be the same size per unit volume. A quick test of drop volume of 23.5mg base verses drop volume of flavoring shown that the volume of the 23.5mg base was 1.5 times greater than the flavoring. This is do to the size of the dropper used and the difference in viscosity.

So the flavor drop factor is 1.5x. Now when I go to mix up a Batch of Cherry-Watermelon or Caramel-Waffle, I add 85% 23.5mg base, 85 drops, and then add 15% of flavor, 15 x 1.5 = 23 drops of flavoring.

Another upside to down mixing to a lower nicotine level is that you are not constantly working with high concentrations of nicotine which you should be wear gloves when you do. There also isn’t a sink load of lab glass to wash and dry every time you want to make 15ml of juice.

 

[oldsoldier]

@zoiDman: Thanks for a great post. My wife and I are going to start mixing our own juices very soon and you brought forward some great ideas and techniques for us to consider.

 

[zoiDman]

No problem.

Down mixing has Greatly simplifies the process of DIY for me.

My biggest suggestion to anyone who is new to DIY is to KEEP ACCURATE AND DETAIL RECORDS. Once you get a recipe fine tuned, it is maddening to not be able to reproduce it.

Also I would suggest that you start with a lower flavoring level first and then increase it if it is strong enough later. It is much easier to make a mix stronger than it is to make it weaker.

Last thing is that the flavor of a juice seems to increase and max out in about 3 days. So a just mixed batch might weak when you make it. The temptation is to add more flavoring. This is where many newbies go wrong. Mix a batch and let it sit in a cool dark place for at least 48 hours before you test it.

Best of luck and let us know how things work out.

 

[RedneckHippy]

It should also be noted that what bottle you are mixing into plays into it as well. My first set of 5ml bottles were from Liberty Flights and after mixing the level seemed short to me. I also noticed that LF 5ml flavorings seemed short, as opposed to Vapor Bomb whose bottles are always full. So, I grabbed a syringe and put 5ml into the bottle. It was correct. The 5ml child proog bottles actually hold 7ml all the way to the top(before installing dripper). 6.5ml comes to the top "curve" of the bottle. I just adjusted my recipe calculators for 6.5ml. Also the 10ml bottles hold about 11.5ml. To get acurrate levels and calculations you really need to figure out exactly how much your particular bottle holds.

 

[zoiDman]

Bottles vary wildly. I would be leary of them for making a volume messurement. Also, there is a wide range of plastics used. Some pass termendous amounts of moister and air. Some are not suitable for storing certain flavor. For the small expense, I would suggest moving to glass.

Speaking of bottles. Here is a site that has a good selection and reasonable shipping.

Glass Bottles - Specialty Bottle