A question for all you E-mixologists.

[zoiDman]

I just spend a lot of money screwing things up till I get it right...

Actually I keep lots of notes, make lots of different e-liquids. I then mix the completed e-liquids together in various percentages, say a nice chocolate e-liquid and a nice mint, more mint or more chocolate, it isn't so hard getting the basics, but fine tuning is the most difficult thing in the world to nail down.

By way of example I was vaping a particular flavor I made and got it down to 1/3 of a tank on my genesis, I had to go pick up one of the kids so I grabbed a different flavor to top it off a bit of a swirl and BAM it was like magic...holy crap this is freaking nice. So the 2/3 + 1/3 mixture will become a new flavor for me to work on; with some 9 different flavors used to make it, I'm thinking it will be a fun one for sure.

Mostly though I just screw stuff up, and spend far more money than I should.

Maurice

It's cool when you Stumble on a Killer Combination.

I chased the Perfect Cherry Flavor for about a Year. I got close Many Times by adding a drop or two of Pineapple and a few drops of Strawberry. But never Reach Cherry Nirvana.

In a Very ...... Off moment over a Terrible Experiment with Cherry/White Pear, I wanted the Bottle it was in so I dumped it into a Bottle of Coconut. Which Didn't turn out very good Either.

But I'll be Darned. Cherry/White Grape/Coconut wasn't all that Bad. Not Bad at All.

Funny how the Flavoring Gods Smile on us Once in Awhile.

 

[Maurice Pudlo]

It's cool when you Stumble on a Killer Combination.

I chased the Perfect Cherry Flavor for about a Year. I got close Many Times by adding a drop or two of Pineapple and a few drops of Strawberry. But never Reach Cherry Nirvana.

In a Very ...... Off moment over a Terrible Experiment with Cherry/White Pear, I wanted the Bottle it was in so I dumped it into a Bottle of Coconut. Which Didn't turn out very good Either.

But I'll be Darned. Cherry/White Grape/Coconut wasn't all that Bad. Not Bad at All.

Funny how the Flavoring Gods Smile on us Once in Awhile.

I think it is very interesting how it may take many more flavors to get the perfect individual flavor you are hunting down, when you realize this it seems to be a daunting task to nail anything to perfection.

An 8 flavor e-liquid has some 1,677,721,600,000,000 possible combinations if you use 0.25% increments and max out at 20% flavoring, oh and that is with just 8 flavors available to you. If you have more flavors on your table it is going to take you a long long time mixing every possible combination.

That being said, you can get pretty close fairly quick, it remains that fine tuning is what becomes the serious time killer.

Now what would be interesting is knowing the exact composition of each flavor, that way one could effectively determine when combinations of flavors would create new flavor profiles, it's that magic moment when 4 flavors become 5 just because the individual ingredients make it so.

Maurice

 

[HeadInClouds]

Now what would be interesting is knowing the exact composition of each flavor, that way one could effectively determine when combinations of flavors would create new flavor profiles, it's that magic moment when 4 flavors become 5 just because the individual ingredients make it so.

Maurice hit the nail on the head there.

Imagine a mix of maple, vanilla, rum, and coconut. It can taste like coconut flavored rum with maple-vanilla. Or like maple-rum syrup on coconut cream. Or like vanilla flavored rum with coconut-maple candies. You can alter the effect by varying your percentages, or just the voltage you vape with, or even the mental power of suggestion. I love mixes like that! If you can come up with 3 or more flavors where each pair is compatible like that, it makes a perfect recipe starter...or complete recipe in itself.

 

[boomerdude]

I have to politely disagree with the majority here. Flavor concentrates all have their own chemical make up. When you mix just one other flavor to that, your changing the chemical composition. A flavor chemist would look at that mixture as a molecule chart, while we just look at vanilla mixed with pear. The chemist charts out a new molecule chart for the mix looking at it as one flavor molecule while we call it vanilla-pear. Every time you add a flavor concentrate to your COMPLEX mix, you'll change the flavor profile. Sometimes what you get is not what you expect.

Now if your just adding an already made one flavor juice to another it's a mix, not a recipe. So maple, vanilla, rum, and coconut juices makes a mix and taste one way, while a recipe made by combining concentrates will taste different.

You can share your mix with others if you use one type of dropper for your mixes. Just count how many drops make a ml and use that total as a benchmark when you want to share your mix with others. You may get 24 drops per ml while your buddy gets 36 drps. per ml. If your mix has 40 drops of vanilla, your friend has to come up with a new ratio that fits his dropper that does one third more drops per ml.

Mixing juices also changes the ejuice ph level and you need to take that into consideration if your serious about DIY.

I may take up to six months to get a recipe the way I like it and share the recipe with others. It takes a lot of boring 3 ml tests to come up with a good juice.

I could go on forever writing about DIY like, why your juice tastes different when you go from your 6 ml bottle of success to a 30 ml bottle of, "What the hell happened to my juice" disaster. Or why some DIY'ers add lemon juice or apple cider vinegar to their juices. Don't get me started on steeping.

I don't want to hog up the thread with a lengthy post but if your serious about DIY, there's a long learning curve.