DIY E-Liquid?

[TropicalBob]

I've been exchanging a bit with peers on a nasal snuff forum and one member offered this in posts about the electronic cigarette:

"It sounds like the vapor is probably glycerine. It carries flavors pretty well and makes nice fluffy white clouds that are thick enough for smoke rings. You can make your own juice for this system with a little effort. For a test batch you can use ten grams of any tobacco you choose. Simmer with a cup of water on very low heat for 20 minutes. Strain liquid through coffee filter and reduce over very low heat until almost all water is gone. Remove from heat. Dilute tobacco essence to taste with pure, food grade glycerine and have yourself a "smokeless smoke.""

Hmmm. These are very inventive guys, heavily into creating their own nasal snuffs, own flavors, etc. They almost come off as survivalists! I might try that recipe -- then add a food extract flavoring for taste. I have some nasal snuffs I don't like and could start cooking with those.

 

[markab]

Hi TB,
The idea of making your own home brew e-liquid is an interesting one, but one that requires extreme caution. A single cigarette contains enough nicotine to make a person very ill. 10gm of tobacco is equivalent to 11 cigarettes worth of tobacco/nicotine (.9gm per cigarette). This is enough nicotine to kill someone several times over. Now I dont know how much of the nictine is extracted in the 20min. simmering process but because of nicotines high toxicity I urge you to be very careful. The last thing you want to do is make yourself ill, or worse.

Mark

I've been exchanging a bit with peers on a nasal snuff forum and one member offered this in posts about the electronic cigarette:

"It sounds like the vapor is probably glycerine. It carries flavors pretty well and makes nice fluffy white clouds that are thick enough for smoke rings. You can make your own juice for this system with a little effort. For a test batch you can use ten grams of any tobacco you choose. Simmer with a cup of water on very low heat for 20 minutes. Strain liquid through coffee filter and reduce over very low heat until almost all water is gone. Remove from heat. Dilute tobacco essence to taste with pure, food grade glycerine and have yourself a "smokeless smoke.""

Hmmm. These are very inventive guys, heavily into creating their own nasal snuffs, own flavors, etc. They almost come off as survivalists! I might try that recipe -- then add a food extract flavoring for taste. I have some nasal snuffs I don't like and could start cooking with those.

 

[TropicalBob]

I appreciate the concern. Indeed, the problem with home brew would be the lack of any idea how much real nicotine would be in the solution. I've often thought of creating my own patches, for instance, to use overnight. I need 'em much stronger than the FDA-set 4mg. But I also thought I could die in my sleep! Not ready for that. Fact is, the commercial e-Liquid isn't a bank buster, so I think I'll let someone else test home brew.

 

[Carlito1974]

Hi TB,
The idea of making your own home brew e-liquid is an interesting one, but one that requires extreme caution. A single cigarette contains enough nicotine to make a person very ill. 10gm of tobacco is equivalent to 11 cigarettes worth of tobacco/nicotine (.9gm per cigarette). This is enough nicotine to kill someone several times over. Now I dont know how much of the nictine is extracted in the 20min. simmering process but because of nicotines high toxicity I urge you to be very careful. The last thing you want to do is make yourself ill, or worse.

Mark

Nicotine content is measured in milligrams, not grams. An example would be Camel regulars contain 1.7mg of nicotine per cigarette. It takes 1,000 milligrams to equal 1 gram. This means it would take a little over 5,882 cigarettes to equal the 10 grams your referenced. Quite a big difference.

 

[markab]

Hi Carlito1974,
Thanks for the reply, but my reference was to 10gm of Tobacco not nicotine.

Mark

Hi TB,
The idea of making your own home brew e-liquid is an interesting one, but one that requires extreme caution. A single cigarette contains enough nicotine to make a person very ill. 10gm of tobacco is equivalent to 11 cigarettes worth of tobacco/nicotine (.9gm per cigarette). This is enough nicotine to kill someone several times over. Now I dont know how much of the nictine is extracted in the 20min. simmering process but because of nicotines high toxicity I urge you to be very careful. The last thing you want to do is make yourself ill, or worse.

Mark

Nicotine content is measured in milligrams, not grams. An example would be Camel regulars contain 1.7mg of nicotine per cigarette. It takes 1,000 milligrams to equal 1 gram. This means it would take a little over 5,882 cigarettes to equal the 10 grams your referenced. Quite a big difference.

 

[TropicalBob]

Right. Ten grams of tobacco was the start for that recipe (many of these nasal snuffers do 5 grams a day; they would have no idea how many milligrams of nicotine they were consuming, and wouldn't care).

For us, though, we would need to know the milligrams of nicotine in 10 grams of tobacco after it's been reduced to an extract. Then we'd have to likely dilute the extract. But how on earth would we get good measurements?

 

[Carlito1974]

Hi Carlito1974,
Thanks for the reply, but my reference was to 10gm of Tobacco not nicotine.

Mark

My bad. I see where you're coming from now. I saw the comment about tobacco/nicotine and thought you were putting the two together on measurement value alone. Sorry about that.

 

[markab]

Hi Carlito1974,
No problem. I could have been more clear.

Mark

Hi Carlito1974,
Thanks for the reply, but my reference was to 10gm of Tobacco not nicotine.

Mark

My bad. I see where you're coming from now. I saw the comment about tobacco/nicotine and thought you were putting the two together on measurement value alone. Sorry about that.

 

[markab]

Hi TB,
I did a search online in the hopes of finding some sort of home test kit for nicotine. Unfortunately all I could find were sites for "beating drug tests" and cotinine test kits. I suppose you need some upper end lab test equipment to measure percise nicotine levels in a sample solution. Thats a shame.

Mark

I appreciate the concern. Indeed, the problem with home brew would be the lack of any idea how much real nicotine would be in the solution. I've often thought of creating my own patches, for instance, to use overnight. I need 'em much stronger than the FDA-set 4mg. But I also thought I could die in my sleep! Not ready for that. Fact is, the commercial e-Liquid isn't a bank buster, so I think I'll let someone else test home brew.

 

[TropicalBob]

I'd settle for a dip stick that changed color to indicate the level.

When I first saw e-Liquid, I was ecstatic, cause consumers have never been able to buy strong nicotine except as an insecticide. One of my first thoughts was to drip some liquid onto the surface of a nicotine patch, to kick up the strength to something that might really help. The FDA regulates these doses down to levels that essentially keep a smoker in a perpetual craving state. I guess that keeps a patch from killing a kid or dog. Not sure why they'd do that otherwise, since the devices have a colossal failure rate in getting smokers off cigarettes. They're not strong enough.

And, I'm not kidding, I might have to find another way to boost my nicotine level. I relied rather heavily on the e-smoking devices yesterday and ended up coughing into the pillow as I tossed and turned last night. Just like when I was smoking cigarettes. Something in the vapor is irritating my lungs more and more. I'm going to try a day on e-smoking, a day on just snus, a day on just nasal snuff, etc., to see if I can isolate this.

 

[TropicalBob]

Found this today on E-Cig's forum:

As some of you reading this may recall, A few weeks ago I posted about placing the eliquid in either a gel or paste form.

Well, finally I got the nerve up to make a first test... for this test I simply placed a dab of lip balm mixed with a couple drops of eliquid on the end of a half dead cartridge and screwed it into my ecigar.

The results?

at least twice the vapor, twice the kick, twice the flavor (go figure on that one), AND the cartridge has lasted at this point over twice as long and is still going strong!

Before I was vaping at least 4 cartridges a day it seemed, now... Ive been puffing away on the same cartridge for 3 days with still no end in site!

 

[windblown]

Okay, I've gotta try this one! What kind of lip balm did you use?

WB
sucky-face

 

[TropicalBob]

That was from a post on e-Cig. I think that same question was asked. When it's answered, I'll post it. It does sound fascinating. Right now, I don't know what kind was used.

 

[Meltrex]

The results?

at least twice the vapor, twice the kick, twice the flavor (go figure on that one), AND the cartridge has lasted at this point over twice as long and is still going strong!

Before I was vaping at least 4 cartridges a day it seemed, now... Ive been puffing away on the same cartridge for 3 days with still no end in site!

Sounds far fetched to me. Maybe he should try vasoline or even better, vapor rub...lol J/K Interesting if it does work.

 

[TropicalBob]

Here's the problem I see: All lip balms are for external use only. The analgesics are external analgesics. And heaven forbid using a natural product like beeswax. We know that e-Liquid's residue in the lungs breaks down into lactic acid, which the body handles and excretes. But what if an ingredient in the home brew, lip balm vapor began coating the lungs? Could that lead to difficulty in breathing? Just as I have some concerns over the safety of the vapor, I'd have even more if we willy-nilly inhaled ingredients approved for external application or consumption but never tested for inhalation. My stomach lining is much tougher than my lungs', that's for sure. I think I'll hold off on personal experimenting.

 

[Oliver]

Quite right Bob, and I think it's a point we should all try to bear in mind throughout our experimenting - much of the body is very capable of regenerating, so as long as it is not exposed to mutagenic substances is usually quite capable of repairing itself. Unfortunately the lungs are almost entirely incapable of self-repair. In other words, once the damage is done, it is done.

I think as (ex) smokers we can often be a little more foolhardy about what we do with our health than we would had we not spent years inhaling toxins, but really this is new territory. If you were to end up with oxalic acid deposits in your lungs, for instance, you would be in serious trouble (oxalic acid is what other glycols are metabolised to in the body, as mentioned in a previous post).