What does steeping do exactly?

[4Sho]

I just put the lids back on for all my juices. I hope I did not ruin them having the cap off for a week (since I really do not know what effect the oxidized nic has on the juice).

Earlier today I places all of my juices (with caps on of course) in boiling water for 2 hours (places bottles in zip lock so labels would not disappear). Replace the hot water once. Just before I put the lid on all but 3 out of 14 or so seem to smell correct and nice now. I will let them steep with lids on for a few more days before I try them though.

Thanks to everyone so far; great info here!!!

no worries dude, and the few that smell good try them out so you can last till the rest are done steeping and also somebody mentioned that every juice won't steep in the same length of time... so let the rest of em sit and enjoy the ones that smell right or good have fun n good luck

 

[SloHand]

Dammed if I could find it now but I seem to recall reading that when VG is heated that it's viscosity is lowered (flows easily) and that even when cooled again it will maintain a lower viscosity than before it was heated. This being true (which I'd love to confirm) would be a great reason to mildly heat a higher percentage VG/PG mix so that it would wick better, flow better and more importantly for this discussion, blend flavors more.

BTW leaving your nic exposed to air for any prolonged period of time is not good I ensure that any mixes I have that are going to be stored for any time have as little air in the container as possible. As stated it will oxidize, get a foul odor and can go from clear to yellow to even brown over time.

 

[Switched]

I knew there was something fishy about that, hence why I myself have never done it

To let them volatilize by themselves is one thing, ex-pulsing the air something totally different. Admitting fresh air into the bottle decreases nic concentration as it oxidizes the nic. Now we are not talking huge volumes here, but a decrease nonetheless. I normally do not participate in these threads as their is far too many granny remedies out there. (read cow pastures)

 

[Song]

Dammed if I could find it now but I seem to recall reading that when VG is heated that it's viscosity is lowered (flows easily) and that even when cooled again it will maintain a lower viscosity than before it was heated. This being true (which I'd love to confirm) would be a great reason to mildly heat a higher percentage VG/PG mix so that it would wick better, flow better and more importantly for this discussion, blend flavors more.

BTW leaving your nic exposed to air for any prolonged period of time is not good I ensure that any mixes I have that are going to be stored for any time have as little air in the container as possible. As stated it will oxidize, get a foul odor and can go from clear to yellow to even brown over time.

I can confirm that, without heating the VG at sometime before, even a 70/30 mix will have a hard time going into a carto, one heat treated, even after it cools off it flows into the carto easily.

 

[SloHand]

Thanks Song, Part of my weekend plans is to mix up some batches (got my orders yesterday!) and want to increase my VG percentage in my mixes to 50/50. I'll give this steeping (heating) a try and report back in a week. I could not find the reference that I had read about decreasing viscosity through heating but I'm sure I didn't dream it.

 

[KevinT]

I have a bunch of All VG from Jugs and I find that they taste terrible in cartos compared to when I use them with an atty/cart combo. I'm also going to try the hot water bath, see if it thins out and possibly vapes better in the cartos.

 

[Toronnah]

Personally, I wouldn't use boiling water. This can cause the nasty shizz in the plastic bottle to leech into the stuff you are absorbing into your lungs.

Yes most are PE, but you wouldn't leave PTFE water bottles in the trunk of your car in the summer.

PE has a melting point of 105 to 130 depending on it's grade.

If you must boil, decant to a glass container and allow to cool before putting back in plastic.

 

[VapoX]

Perfume or no perfume taste .......... I'll vape it all ..lol

 

[sunil]

I have to steep all my liquids from jugz. I find if I let them sit for 4 DAYS,THEY TASTE AMAZING ....if I Vape them when I get them they suck....bad. Unlike other liquids like flavor crafters or capitalnicfit all taste bomb from day one.

 

[mikeinbc]

Steeping is more like steeping tea, you dont just put water in to the teapot and toss in a tea bag and pour yourself a cup of tea now do you?, you have to let it sit, and let the tea soak into the water, much like steeping joose, pg and vg are thicker then water, so it takes more time for flavoring to diffuse into the pg-vg/nic within your joose, and yes depending on the joose in question it can vary in time, but if you can at least a week is good (one of the reasons why i like getting joose from the USA, by the time it reaches me its already steeped ) Ive been steeping since like day 1 of buying joose and have left them for a week at a time, or a couple days works if you have lots of joose to try by the time you make the next round of sampling it should add more time to the steeping process. And I hate to say this but i have a joose that did not taste better with age tasted worse so im stuck with like 27ml of unvapeable joose

Is joose the Canadian version of juice? Like Canadian goose, eh.

 

[mikeinbc]

I'm on the fence when it comes to steeping "joose". I've been doing DIY for two months and tried both steeping and non-steeping. To be honest, did not notice a difference in taste, although the steeped juice had a stronger smell....the mystery continues...

 

[SloHand]

As promised here is the results of my experiment this weekend. Steeping (essentially putting my 10 ml freshly mixed juices in a bowl with hot water and changing the water often to keep it hot) did make quite a difference to my flavor. I'm finding that it is richer somehow. The batch I made was benchmarked against a none steeped batch of the exact same mix (PG/VG 70/30 with 10% flavoring).

The batch that I made of 50/50 was also heated in the same fashion and cooled. Is it thinner after cooling? I would need some kind of controlled measurement to say for sure but it's impossible to tell from my observations whether it is 'thinner' than without heating.

 

[Rttch]

I'll never be able to find the comment again, but I remember someone with a chemist background commenting on a topic of steeping to NOT heat VG juice because it changes the chemical composition into something else. I do recall that it was an answer to Kat (from ElectroVapors) about heating VG to thin it out. Thoughts, research to prove or disprove this?

Also, I just put the caps back on all of my Jughead juices and hope that they're not ruined

 

[man91433]

I'm a Food Scientist by education & Trade and most liquid foods do require some steeping, ejuice is no different. Most flavours use alcohol as a carrier even when diluted in VG or PG. ejuice is essentially a blend of multiple chemical compounds and when blended together, the chemicals need time to react with one another and stabilize. Leaving them open for 24 hours allows the alcohol (perfume like taste) to evaporator off and allows the juice to oxidize and letting it sit sealed for a couple of days will allow the system to equilibrate and the flavours to blend into a stable matrix. This will happen anyway as you use the juice over time but if you start using immediately, the flavours will change from the beginning of the bottle to the end. Steeping allows the juice to stabilize so that the flavour is consistent throughout usage. I DIY my own juice with multiple flavours in a single blend including tobacco flavour and find on initial blending that some flavours dominate while others are hardly detectable.

After leaving them open for 24 hours and then sealing them up and keeping in a cupboard for 6 days, the resulting juice has mellowed and the flavours are well rounded and all come through without any one flavour dominating the others.

This is what works for me and my formulations, also I find the same goes for the Highbrow vapors juice that I occasionally buy.

At the end of the day, experiment and whatever works for you, go for it - we are dealing with flavour perception here and there is no right or wrong way, just what tastes good to you.