what is steeping your e liquid?

[drifter17x]

I have a bottle of snakes blood and a bottle of bluffing I'm not using. I'm currently in love with halos TriBeCa. and I have plent left. so what's steeping and if its a good thing I might as well steep the two I don't use.hoping I get a better flavor. right????

 

[Rachy_B]

Freshly made up juice (particularly in DIYing) benefits from being left for a few days, maybe even a couple of weeks for the flavour to dissipate throughout the juice. Most pre-boughts don't need it though. You can easily leave them for a little while but remember that juice has a shelf-life of about two years so don't leave it for too long!x

 

[drifter17x]

thank you.appreciate the info

 

[eLsonZ]

i'm not exactly pro but i heard that you could open up the cap & leave the juices in a dry cupboard or drawer to steep.

Fruit types are the fastest followed by gourmet then tobacco.

Usually when they're steeped the liquid will turn darker in colour.

Hope that helps

 

[Rachy_B]

I don't leave the caps off my DIY'd juice because I have the worst luck in the world and will knock them over...even in a dark cupboard or drawer! It works fine for me to leave them with the caps on for a week or so...x

 

[dikizzinya]

I remove the top of the juice bottle and let it sit in a cool dark place.Squeeze the bottle and shake daily, do this for one month and your juice will be lovely...

 

[RooRooBears]

There are dozens of ways vapors steep their eLiquid. Do whatever works for you, but personally I let it steep by simply leaving it alone for 1-2 weeks. No occasional swirling, no alcohol evaporation (what people do by leaving the top cap off), no boiling in hot water, etc. Works fine for me. Steeping simply allows the chemicals/flavor to disperse throughout the juice at the molecular level. Whatever ways you think is best to get it done, then by all means, go for it.

I recommend you to try all flavors once they arrive, since some juices are actually quite tasty right out of the box. If it's not to your liking, do your steeping process and determine if it made a difference or not.

 

[mynamesreallong]

Yea, I just left sme juice in a shoe box. And trying to forget about it for a cple of weeks! It's hard to do, but hopefully it will be worth it!

 

[Robino1]

The best place to get steeping advice is from the vendor that you bought the liquid from.
The vendor I use has this to say about their juices:
48 hour cap and dripper off - to get the extraction alcohol out - shaking several times each of those two days.
Dripper tip and cap back on, shaking at least once a day (whenever you think about it) for a week or two.
Simple mixes (one or two flavors) need less time.
More complex mixes need more steeping time.

An analogy. When you create a sauce it can be ok as soon as you mix the ingredients together. If you let it simmer...much better flavor. The leftovers? Outstanding flavor!

There are vendors that have juices that are ready right away. More and more vendors are creating the liquids as you order them. Even more vendors are coming along that are extracting their own flavors to mix. The fresher the liquid, the more chance it needs to steep.

Like I said in my opening sentence, ask the vendor. They want you to have the correct information so that you will get the best experience and come back for more. If the vendor is unwilling to answer, well then, they dont need your business do they?

I really wish that steeping was part of a New members handbook of sorts. It should come with every first purchase of juice from a vendor for their new customers.

 

[Vapoor eyes er]

Couldn't agree more with your post Robino1...nine times out of ten the vendor willingly gives that info if asked and takes the guesswork out of it. When I began vaping 30 out of 50 samples were awful. A few months later I tried those 30 and enjoyed them all except one- was it the steeping or did my taste change?

The best place to get steeping advice is from the vendor that you bought the liquid from.
The vendor I use has this to say about their juices:
48 hour cap and dripper off - to get the extraction alcohol out - shaking several times each of those two days.
Dripper tip and cap back on, shaking at least once a day (whenever you think about it) for a week or two.
Simple mixes (one or two flavors) need less time.
More complex mixes need more steeping time.

An analogy. When you create a sauce it can be ok as soon as you mix the ingredients together. If you let it simmer...much better flavor. The leftovers? Outstanding flavor!

There are vendors that have juices that are ready right away. More and more vendors are creating the liquids as you order them. Even more vendors are coming along that are extracting their own flavors to mix. The fresher the liquid, the more chance it needs to steep.

Like I said in my opening sentence, ask the vendor. They want you to have the correct information so that you will get the best experience and come back for more. If the vendor is unwilling to answer, well then, they dont need your business do they?

I really wish that steeping was part of a New members handbook of sorts. It should come with every first purchase of juice from a vendor for their new customers.

 

[Hoosier]

To answer the question in the subject line:

Steeping is letting a closed bottle sit for a period of time away from light.

Airing or Breathing is letting an open bottle sit for a period of time away from light.

They are two different things and have different effects so it always confuses me that they are confused with each other.

I find the vast majority of juices, even the ones I mix, do not need any steeping. I only have one recipe that is helped by breathing. I have a number of tobacco recipes that need some steep time before they taste right, but not all, and none of the tobacco recipes taste better with breathing. Everybody's experience with steeping and breathing are different. I know people who have to steep everything, some have to breath everything, some who steep nothing, some who breath nothing, and some who find mixing the various options to be optimal.

 

[Robino1]

Couldn't agree more with your post Robino1...nine times out of ten the vendor willingly gives that info if asked and takes the guesswork out of it. When I began vaping 30 out of 50 samples were awful. A few months later I tried those 30 and enjoyed them all except one- was it the steeping or did my taste change?

A bit of both, I would assume. As we get over messing up our mouth from cigs, it's bound to change how we perceive our foods or juices to taste. And if you think about it even further, it is just moist air that we are tasting. So it stands to reason, if our buds are not 100% how are they supposed to taste something that elusive?

It totally boggles my mind that I'm getting flavor from just moist air.

 

[Robino1]

To answer the question in the subject line:

Steeping is letting a closed bottle sit for a period of time away from light.

Airing or Breathing is letting an open bottle sit for a period of time away from light.

They are two different things and have different effects so it always confuses me that they are confused with each other.

I find the vast majority of juices, even the ones I mix, do not need any steeping. I only have one recipe that is helped by breathing. I have a number of tobacco recipes that need some steep time before they taste right, but not all, and none of the tobacco recipes taste better with breathing. Everybody's experience with steeping and breathing are different. I know people who have to steep everything, some have to breath everything, some who steep nothing, some who breath nothing, and some who find mixing the various options to be optimal.

Ok, let's expand on that. The vendor I use does their own extractions to get the flavoring. Not premade flavoring that they purchase. To get the alcohol out after the mixing, they recommend (to use your wording) the bottles to breathe (not breath if you really want to get technical )

I think steeping has become just a term to encapsulate the whole process. We could use the analogy of wine tasting then.

 

[mrmorephun]

I have some El Toro Eden from the house of liquids and since i steeped it, it gives a fuller taste....Not sure if other liquids will get enriched flavor

 

[Hoosier]

Ok, let's expand on that. The vendor I use does their own extractions to get the flavoring. Not premade flavoring that they purchase. To get the alcohol out after the mixing, they recommend (to use your wording) the bottles to breathe (not breath if you really want to get technical )

I think steeping has become just a term to encapsulate the whole process. We could use the analogy of wine tasting then.

Yep, meant to type breathe.

Just because a term has come to encapsulate does not make it correct, just that those who use it as a generic term for two different processes are wrong. Take wine, there is a difference between aging, steeping, and letting it air out before drinking, breathe. If the term aging in wine were to be repeated by a number of posters in a wine forum to include the time between opening and drinking, it might catch on, but there would be old and grumpy curmudgeons, like me, who would still be attempting to note there is a difference.

I just take issue with confusing Steep and Breathe as the same thing. As I pointed out, some things benefit from airing out and some things benefit from steeping without being aired out. Depends on your juice. It would be a shame if someone's juice would benefit from steeping and made worse if it was allowed to breathe, for the same time period, and because of the confusion about the meaning of the term caused them to constantly wonder why their oxidized & evaporated juice never was any good.

Also note I'm not saying steeping is a magic fix. It's just a tool that might help that takes no effort to try beyond placing the closed bottle in a location away from sunlight. And some folks may notice a bottle is better after steeping because their sense of taste has changed due to healing in old "smeller". I'm more than 3 years into vaping and don't have to worry about my sense of taste changing due to healing, just mucus production impacts my sense of taste with vapor now.

 

[Robino1]

Yep, meant to type breathe.

Just because a term has come to encapsulate does not make it correct, just that those who use it as a generic term for two different processes are wrong. Take wine, there is a difference between aging, steeping, and letting it air out before drinking, breathe. If the term aging in wine were to be repeated by a number of posters in a wine forum to include the time between opening and drinking, it might catch on, but there would be old and grumpy curmudgeons, like me, who would still be attempting to note there is a difference.

I just take issue with confusing Steep and Breathe as the same thing. As I pointed out, some things benefit from airing out and some things benefit from steeping without being aired out. Depends on your juice. It would be a shame if someone's juice would benefit from steeping and made worse if it was allowed to breathe, for the same time period, and because of the confusion about the meaning of the term caused them to constantly wonder why their oxidized & evaporated juice never was any good.

Also note I'm not saying steeping is a magic fix. It's just a tool that might help that takes no effort to try beyond placing the closed bottle in a location away from sunlight. And some folks may notice a bottle is better after steeping because their sense of taste has changed due to healing in old "smeller". I'm more than 3 years into vaping and don't have to worry about my sense of taste changing due to healing, just mucus production impacts my sense of taste with vapor now.

And that is why I started my statement with asking the vendor directly. We are on the same page after all

 

[RooRooBears]

Sound advice on asking the vendor directly! I'll make sure to include that when I make recommendations. Good info people

 

[CloudZ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steeping

Really, we are not doing this, but this is what we call it.

I agree that we should have different terms like "airing out" for the evaporation/oxidation to occur and "aging" or "resting" for the time spent sitting in the dark. "Steeping" will probably stick though, as a general slang for these procedures.

 

[Hoosier]

True, steeping is more like aging. I usually say it is allowing entropy to happen, but the term Steeping meant aging long before I ever logged on here and I just adopted it. My grandmother used to taste the soup on the stove and say, "Nope, needs to steep some more.", so adopting the term came rather naturally to me since what the soup was doing and what the juice was doing was pretty close in my mind.

 

[CloudZ]

I usually say it is allowing entropy to happen

Good old random disorder in nature. Where would we be without it?