A couple of newbie questions relating to DIY NET.

[Ian444]

Hi, just a couple of quick questions if its OK.

First, is it OK to put some nic in with the PG for a cold extraction process? The reason I ask is that it could save steeping time so I could sample the extraction after a few weeks without waiting for steep time. Of course, I would have to dilute the sample with added nic and VG, but just wondering if having nic in there would hurt the extraction, and offer the slight advantage of much less steeping time.

2nd question, has anyone had success doing extractions of dried fruit, or is there too much sugar in the fruit? The reason I ask is I am thinking of mixing a little dried fruit extraction (raisins, prunes, mixed fruit or dates) with a tobacco extract.

Any responses appreciated, thanks.

 

[Dustmight]

Hey Ian, I haven't done any cold extractions yet, but I would imagine as long as your container is sealed throughout the steep process, using a nic based carrier couldn't hurt. Bet to just try it and see.

As for the fruit, you are definitely going to get some of the natural fructose in your extraction. I would recommend extracting the fruit separately from your tobaccos and then blend the results to your liking. I've so far only attempted dried cherries and am waiting for it to stew a bit longer before testing.

 

[Ian444]

Thanks. I got some small jars, did 2 cigar mixes, one with a small amount of nic, one without. Also did a coffee and a mixed fruit mix. The coffee looks like dark mud, going to be fun filtering that Its a bit difficult sourcing nice cigars or tobacco into Australia. Tobacco is taxed at $500 per kg (2.2lb). If there was somewhere I could buy say 1/2 oz the import tax would be OK.

 

[ForeverDiving]

Tobacco is taxed at $500 per kg (2.2lb). If there was somewhere I could buy say 1/2 oz the import tax would be OK.

Ouch! And I though Mexico was bad... I can freely import up to 250g for personal consumption through the mail. I regularly get tins from my pipe & tobacco supplier in the US. If I put some 10 grams in a ziplock and mail them to you in a manila envelope (undeclared) do you think it would be intercepted by customs?

 

[Ian444]

That's a great thought and I'm sure you have some real nice tobacco's on hand, but I think customs would get me, they are protecting the excessive tobacco prices in this country. The tax on 10gm would only be $5 plus 10% GST on the value of the goods plus the freight. I'd be very interested in paying someone to send different lots of quality tobacco or cigars in very small amounts, and the customs fee would be manageable. My main problem is being able to buy very small quantities of good tobacco from overseas. Anything local already has the customs taxes paid, but I need to spend around $43 just to buy a nice 50gm pouch of tobacco which I might not like, so it gets expensive to try different tobaccos. The cheapest tobaccos are 30gm for around $25. I did a cold maceration of Drum Mild (Drum Blue) and its not too bad, it was the last packet I bought before I took up vaping near 5 months ago, still got some left and put another 10gm or so into a mix today. I'm really glad I found the DIY NET discussions here.

 

[boomerdude]

I've shipped 20 8ml bottles of extracts to Australia. Marked as testing samples. That's what they were. Tobacco extracts to make 50 ml bottles of juice. Purely for taste testing.

 

[ForeverDiving]

Ian, I can spare three or four XXL sized pipe-bowls of your choice(s) between:
Samuel Gawith "Perfection" (Balkan/English type; Virginia, Turkish, Latakia and a wee bit of Cavendish)
Samuel Gawith "Squadron Leader" (Traditional English blend with Va's, Ori's & Latakia)
Bulk Cup O'joes Black Cavendish #B220.
Davidoff Danish Mixture
G.L. Pease Blackpoint and/or Sextant.

You can get the manufacturer descriptions and reviews at TobaccoReviews.com.

Look me up in FB with my forum name and give me a postal address and your choices. I believe I'm the only one by that name but in any case, I'm the one from Uruapan, Mexico.

I see you're a motorcyclist too. I'm the proud owner of a BMW R100RS that I've restored to salon condition and I'm itching to take it for a loooooong spin; however, tight agenda babysitting grandkids has kept me from it. Safe riding.

 

[Ian444]

I've shipped 20 8ml bottles of extracts to Australia. Marked as testing samples. That's what they were. Tobacco extracts to make 50 ml bottles of juice. Purely for taste testing.

Yes, that would be fine, liquid nicotine or e-liquid or NET's have no import duties, its only tobacco leaf product that gets taxed on import.

Jorge, that is a very generous offer, thank you.

 

[Ian444]

Jorge, I decided not to take up your wonderful offer, mainly because if I made a really nice extract from one or more of your tobaccos, I would then be dependent on you, or would have to import my own at fairly heavy prices. But thanks again, it is very much appreciated, above and beyond the call of duty.

I made my first mix on 26th Feb of 4 cheap cigars from a local Smokemart shop, they were Cafe Creme Blue, a tin of 10, for $13.95, the cheapest I could get - please don't laugh Although I've drained off a few small samples along the way, which were encouraging but pretty rough, tonight after 2 1/2 weeks I put the rest through a cotton filter in a syringe and had a sample taste without steeping. I was amazed at the result and had to have a little celebration The extract is amber, and when mixed with pg/vg/nic at around 15% is quite light in color. The flavor is not complex but not dull, and the strength of flavor is good. These cigars didn't seem to break down in the maceration, no floaties or debris at all, which also surprised me, this made it easy to filter and a coffee filter did absolutely nothing, didn't even change the color of the filter.

I'm thinking I should continue with different cheap local cigars and do more macerations, and only then start searching for more exotic sources of tobacco if/when I feel the need. Looks like I jumped the gun in wanting terrific tobacco when I still don't really know what I'm doing. I need to crawl before I walk. Thank you all for your comments, suggestions and offers to help. I don't know where this road will lead me, but it looks good right now.

 

[ForeverDiving]

Ian, the offer is up if/when you wish to take it. I'm truly glad your juice came out OK; my two experiments are too harsh and It's dawning on me that the concentration is probably way too high, judging from your results. OTOH, I macerated some mint tea ("Pure Moroccan Mint" from Teavana) and I'm puffing the now ten days old juice from a Kanger Aerotank with reeeeeely pleasant results. You might want to give it a go. I'm fairly sure tea isn't (heavily) taxed Down Under. ;-) The recipe and method are in the Recipes section right here in ECF. I plan to experiment with this one and other tea blends as condiments to my NETs.

Matter of fact, today I pilfered several samples of Rooibos, Maté, Peppermint, Vanilla and Linden infusion blends from the cupboard of one of my daugters and tomorrow I shall begin macerating them, albeit I dunno where I'm gonna get enough recipients to do all of them. Nevertheless I've got more than enough 30ml dropper bottles to place the finished product to steep.

I suspect that keeping the NET to a reasonable minimum, some of the herbal extracts can and will enhance them.

Anyway, keep cooking and —of course– rolling that bike. What is it BTW?

 

[Ian444]

Thankfully its only the tobacco (and alcohol) products that get heavily taxed here, not so much tea or other condiments! Hey I did put down a maceration of my wife's herbal tea on the weekend, will let you know how it goes. I'd like to experiment with mixing the tobacco nets with the other non-tobacco nets when they are ready.

The bike, its a Buell Lightning 1200cc, made in USA. I've had it 9 years, bought new, still going strong

 

[ForeverDiving]

So how's the juice coming along Ian? Any good? I drained my first batch of Moroccan Mint and I'm doing another this week. I'll use double the tea concentration this time for a higher kick!

 

[Ian444]

I'll be bottling some more this weekend, and I'm looking forward to sampling the oolong tea. The mixed fruit maceration tasted sweet in liquid form but didn't seem to come out in the vape, I've put that away for sampling further down the track. It does seem that whatever you put in the jar is what you get out of the jar as far as tobacco goes. My Drum Mild cold maceration tastes like Drum Mild, that's what I last smoked, only it tastes a lot better vaped. Still, I think the more fragrant tobacco's, pipe tobacco's and flavourful cigars are the way to go for me. I've been sampling commercial NET's and prefer the more fragrant ones that don't taste like straight cigarette tobacco. A friend told me of a brick and mortar cigar shop about 20 minute's drive away that I hope to visit in a couple of days. Apparently very nice cigars at this shop, so I'm looking forward to the visit. I hope he is vape friendly and doesn't get upset that I want to put his beautiful cigars into PG or VG!

 

[ForeverDiving]

I hope he is vape friendly and doesn't get upset that I want to put his beautiful cigars into PG or VG!

LOL! The FB pipe groups I frequent or belong to are kindof cold shouldering me since I started vaping. I want to comission a pipe that is friendly for modding from Sabina Rivas (look her up in FB) but I'm weary she won't take lightly that I gut one of her beautiful pieces with batteries, cables and connectors! In any case I'm over my allowance...

Whatever you do, DO_NOT_RUIN_A_COHIBA_SIGLO_VI on the juice! A decent $5 piece should do the trick.

 

[Ian444]

I visited the cigar man, he was cool about it, but I could see he was disappointed I didn't want to *smoke* one of his beautiful cigars. He said there's 2 ways we can go about this, and one of them was that he kept the clipped ends of the cigars he smoked, since the pipe guys like to mix it in with their pipe tobacco. He had a big bag and I said I only need 1/4 of that bag so he got a small bag and filled that up. He put the money straight into a tin for a local womens' shelter, which was nice. When I got home I broke up these tips and put them in my little jars and covered them with PG, and this time used a bit of gentle heat over about 6 hours to see if this would speed things up, compared to the usual 3 weeks cold maceration, or more, if I could wait. I tried a sample but decided to put the jar in the cupboard for a couple of weeks, I don't think 6 hours is enough, it did bring out the color though. These cigars did seem to taste cleaner than the Cafe Creme, I could see the tobacco looked different, much coarser.

I tried the Taiwanese oolong tea today, it had been in cold maceration in PG for 2 weeks and getting dark. I thought 2 weeks might be too soon but wanted to try it. It tastes good with no steeping. My wife loves it (it was for her) and she is rather picky with her flavors, in fact she was amazed. I'm hoping the flavors will develop further with steeping, there are some nice flavors in it. I mixed the extract 4 drops per ml of base liquid, around 50/50 PG/VG. The taste is not completely unrelated to tobacco, perhaps a bit like a herbal cigarette, but moreso a definite green tea flavor.

The cheap Cafe Creme cigar has been in cold maceration in PG for 3 weeks, it came out today and is nice without steeping. A bit subtle, but nice, could nearly be an all day vape. There's a few minor rough edges though, like a bit of the ashtray taste of a real cigarette (or cheap cigar?) Sometimes its there, sometimes not there. I mixed it 4 drops per ml. Hoping steeping will improve it. I find the cigar macerations need minimal filtering, I basically pour the PG out of the jar into a syringe with cotton wool filter. The cigar tobacco seems to stay intact, there is not much to filter. I don't bother squeezing the soaked cigar tobacco, there is little to gain.

I found a place in Australia that sells 10gm (approx 1/3oz) pipe tobacco samples, I ordered 4 samples last night and will see how they go, really looking forward to it. Tobaccoblends

So overall, I'm getting some great results, the methods described in this forum work well. The hardest part is believing it could be so simple - put tobacco in jar, cover with PG, screw the lid on and leave it in the cupboard for a month if possible. Then filter the extract through a syringe with cotton wool. Or if you're in a hurry, use the hot water bath/slow cooker method.

 

[Ian444]

I've posted a pic to show the colors of the extracts and resulting mixed juice. The oolong tea extraction is quite dark as you can see.

 

[ForeverDiving]

So how was the oolong extract mixture after steeping? I'm amazed how my NETs have evolved. Tonight I tried a dripper with one made of Stanwell Melange (a Danish blend) and it's completely outwordly. It caught all the subtleties of the tobacco and then potentialized them. It's been aging for two months and tastes nothing like it did just after cooking.

 

[Ian444]

Hi FD, it turned out really nice, much better after a couple of months steeping, with a lingering taste, and plenty of flavor, a bit of sweetness too. I made it for my wife and she likes it. In fact all the extracts I've made got better with time, seems 6 weeks is the minimum required for most. Those cigars I did changed dramatically for the better after 6 weeks, they changed from something good to vape into a real cigar taste At the other end of the scale, the Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake was good early on, then slowly got even better with time. And a couple of others I was worried about right from the start, didn't or haven't yet become convincing flavors, I think they may have benefited from extra time in maceration. One of those tobaccos was also put into a cold maceration recently and is still going, I will see how it goes with the extra time.

Overall the results have far surpassed my hopes. A few of my favorites are:
Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake
McClelland Old Dog
Samuel Gawith Grousemoor
Peter Stokkebye Luxury Navy Flake
Samuel Gawith Brown Rope No. 4 Rum

Your Stanwell Melange has been noted and added to my list of interesting tobaccos I'm really glad to hear it transferred into a vape so well! And I believe you, although I never smoked a pipe, if I did, I'm sure McClelland Old Dog would have been one of my number one tobaccos!

I've been thinking of starting a thread titled something like "What have you extracted lately?" so we can share our experiences of different extracted tobaccos, hopefully useful to all of us, who knows what gems we may collectively come across.