Why
I'm a VG-only user and you can't buy VG-based flavors in my little country, only PG-based. I buy Ecopure base by the litre (500ml 36mg base + 500ml mixer) so all I need are the flavors. Their tobacco flavor liquid at its strongest is best described as 'extra mild' and I was a mega high tar smoker so need all the hit I can get. OK, Ecopure is safe safe safe but I need more hit; and since I use the unflavored 'Krystal' base anyway, I need some serious flavor addition.
As it's quicker and cheaper to make your own tobacco flavor than ship it here (see cost comparison below), I brewed some up. Anyway, even if the store bought stuff says 'No PG', you never really know, but you'll know your own stuff is good. (PG makes my lungs clamp up, I can even tell if there is PG in flavors never mind the liquid, unfortunately I'm one of those 'allergic to everything' people.)
Someone told me via PM how to do this, so I went ahead. There were two things that were problematic: the right gear and the right quantities. I'm only interested in very small quantities of flavoring, not total eliquid creation since it's not banned (yet) where I live. Because of this I'm not too worried about what is in the final mix, the amounts are so tiny (and so insignificant compared to actually smoking the tobacco) that if there are a few things like TSNAs, ammonia or other synergens etc I don't really care. Whatever is in the tobacco is diluted by about 5,000% by the time I'm vaping it, as far as I can see.
Cost
Shipping in some pure VG-based tobacco flavor from the US of A would cost me about $15 - $20 all up. Brewing my own costs me less than $2 for 50ml, so no contest. You could say the cost is virtually nothing, less than a buck for about 15ml of concentrate: tobacco, 1gm = ~50c; VG, 30ml = ~30c.
What I wanted:
10ml or 20ml of tobacco flavor concentrate to add to unflavored base VG eliquid.
What I did:
Boiled some strong handrolling tobacco in VG, then filtered it.
What I got:
A perfect result - tons of thick, goopy tobacco flavor VG that works extremely well as a flavor additive. I made far, far too much though (50ml) even though I only used what looked like a tiny amount of tobacco.
Equipment & materials
Small pack of strong handrolling tobacco, 12.5g, 'Drum' brand, @£3.50 (= about $5 or so). This is a strong, dark tobacco - there are lighter ones.
Distilled water, PGA or spirit for cleaning bottles.
Small glass jar. An ex-Coleman's Mustard jar, about 150ml size (170gm / 6oz). The mix is boiled in this.
50ml, 20ml dark glass storage bottles with tight screwcaps. The final result is stored in these.
5ml dark glass dropper bottle for flavor in use.
Small plastic funnel, 90mm dia.
Tea strainer, nylon, superfine mesh, with handle and edge hooks. Nothing will pass through this except fine particles. No tobacco leaf, no matter how small, passes through. The strainer sits perfectly in the funnel.
Microwave oven. Far easier to use than a stove top or whatever.
Assorted saucers etc.
Method
The quantity of tobacco is crucial and I made a big error here. I used a quarter of the 12 gramme pack of tobacco, figuring that it might not be enough but I could repeat the process to make more. In fact, it made about 5 times too much flavoring. One-quarter of 12.5 g was about 3 grammes and was way too much. Next time I'll use NO MORE THAN ONE GRAMME at a time. That's 1gm or about a twelfth of the small pack of tobacco. A little goes a very long, long, long, long way...
Place the empty and well-cleaned 150ml jar on a saucer. The jar should be rinsed with distilled water, or PGA, or a spirit such as rum if nothing else is available.
Take 1gm of strong handrolling tobacco (or maybe pipe tobacco, apparently this works fine). That's ONE GRAMME and no more - a twelfth of the smallest pack of handrolling tobacco. Fluff up the compressed tobacco, place in the bottom of the jar. Pour on VG to cover well*. It took 20ml to cover 3gm so you can work it out - maybe 7ml for 1 gramme, maybe more. It doesn't matter at all if you add too much as you will be adding more later. At this stage, better too much than too little.
* It would probably be good to add some alcohol to the VG as it would act better as a solvent - but I don't know how much.
Place an inverted small saucer or similar on top of the jar. The idea of this is to contain the vapor but allow the mix to boil over if necessary. Metal can't be used and plastic is not advisable, glass or kitchenware is best.
[The best of all for microwave etc is Pyrex glass ovenware, it can take thermal shock, dropping on the floor, most anything.]
It was suggested that the tobacco should be boiled for 1 minute in the VG, so this is what I did.
Place the jar in a microwave. Microwave on full for 90 seconds (1.5 minutes). Check halfway and near the end for boilover. I used a 1kW oven but it doesn't matter what power, adjust the time longer or shorter. What happened is that the liquid heated for about 45 seconds and boiled for about 45 seconds. At the end it just boiled over slightly.
Be careful here, *the jar is boiling hot*. VG boils faster than water in a microwave, it must contain fats and/or carbos. Beware fumes here, have a window wide open. There may be a fume hazard, also the room takes on a tobacco aroma if there is insufficient ventilation.
Remove from microwave and set aside to cool down. Take care, it's super hot. If the mix looks 'dry' then add more VG at this point, it needs to be well-covered and not too thick otherwise it won't pass through the filter. By the end of the process I'd used 50ml or so of VG just for 3g of tobacco.
Leave to stand overnight, with the jar covered, ensuring the tobacco leaf is well-covered by VG. Re-warm in the microwave the next day, add more VG if necessary (it probably will be), and filter the mix. I added Ecopure Mixer liquid to try and reduce the viscosity a bit as it's goop - much the same as thick honey but looks almost black, molasses is the best comparison. The Ecopure Mixer is zero-nic* and slightly thinner than the base eliquid. I'd have used PGA except you can't buy alcohol in my country in pure form, it's prohibited even in small quantities. I didn't want to try strong Vodka etc without thinking that through, and needed to move on.
* I think it's VG, distilled water, and ethyl maltol.
Filtering
To filter the mix in order to remove the tobacco leaf mash, I simply poured it through a very fine mesh nylon tea strainer. The mesh is probably 0.5mm or smaller, no leaf got through, not even the tiniest piece (it's swollen by the process no doubt). However there are some fine particulates showing in the result so another stage of filtration is needed.
The strainer sits in the funnel, the funnel sits in a dark glass bottle, the liquid drips through slowly. You must warm it well or it won't shift (10 seconds in the microwave). However it may be best to add alcohol at this stage.
I filtered it for a second pass, using Kleenex tissue paper. This is 3-ply, I separated it and used one ply only. First I poured a capful of strong rum through in order to flush out any bleaches or whatever in the tissue, disposing of the rum.
Warmed the goop again, poured it into the filter setup, and left it to drip through. Filtration was very slow indeed through the single ply of tissue, one drop every 4 seconds, so it had to be left alone to filter through over a half-hour, and also warmed in the microwave halfway through.
You're left with a small bottle of dark goop, and some nasty-looking black tobacco mash to dispose of carefully. I think it wise to protect the eyes and the hands when doing all this, there is a splash risk. The goop is viscous but will just about work in a dropper, it's now about the consistency of pourable honey. It might be better to thin it with alcohol and I'll maybe try that with some, I sure have enough to play with.
All the utensils rinse off easily, but please protect your hands at this time. It's wise to have some cloths and kitchen towel close by to mop up any spillage, also a sink and tap to wash stuff if needed (it will be).
Result
I ended up with 50ml of thick, very dark liquid (let's call it 'concentrate'). It was far too much and I'd use 1gm of tobacco next time, not 3gm. One gramme of tobacco looks tiny but it does the job, somehow you end up with more than enough liquid as a result. 3gm produced 50ml's of concentrate so 1gm should get you 15ml or more which is plenty enough. A 20ml bottle nearly full would last me a long time. And that's without dilution in alcohol.
Thinking about it, next time I'd probably use half a gramme. That way I'd get say 5 or 6ml concentrate, which would go to at least 10ml with alcohol. That's enough to be getting along with.
I keep it in the fridge as it's dark and cold.
In use
I add 1 to 4 drops of concentrate to 1ml of eliquid, depending on whether it had any previous flavor content or not, and if a strong or mild result is needed. The concentrate is a dark brown and showed some fine particulates after the first rough filtration, after the second it is clear.
The flavor is excellent, a dark and natural flavor. I think this would vary according to the tobacco used. The most interesting fact is that adding it to other flavors transforms and improves them a lot, somehow. For example, one eliquid mix I had existing, of 2ml extra-light tobacco + mint in a dark glass dropper bottle, had developed a harsh metallic edge to the taste. The concentrate entirely removed that metallic taste, and also rounded out the flavour superbly, even though I only added a very small amount. How it does this I've no idea, maybe it's got the BT version of MSG in there... Another mix, light tobacco + caramel/toffee, had developed a rough, burnt taste to it, but that was removed by the concentrate.
It is an excellent tobacco flavor, 'dark', 'full', 'round', is how I'd describe it, I guess. No sharpness or nasty edge at all. Seems to me it's a bit like the Perfumer's Apprentice description of their Tobacco Absolut, ie very strong and only to be used in small amounts.
The best thing is it works really well with other flavors and somehow fixes their problems.
Nicotine strength of concentrate
This is irrelevant to me since I'm only using tiny quantities as flavoring. However, I treat the concentrate as a potentially dangerous liquid since it might have a high nic content of course. It would be hard to titrate for a color change nic strength test as it's very dark brown, it would need dilution x 10, maybe more. Perhaps it would not be possible to titrate, as a heavily-diluted test sample would be yellow in any case (the color-change point that a titration test for nic strength is looking for). Some other way to test the nic strength would be needed.
Straight vape?
If someone wanted to use this for vaping straight, due to an eliquid ban, there are a bunch of issues. Safety would be the first although I guess nothing is as dangerous as smoking, in any case. Diluted down by ten times or something I guess you could test-vape it for strength, any experienced person would know what the nic strength is immediately. I wouldn't do this unless I absolutely had to though, as you're vaping processed tobacco that BT has added who knows what to. As for doing it with leaf you've grown yourself or bought in, that is another matter entirely.
Questions
Should I have used alcohol as the solvent, or an alcohol/VG mix?
Should I add alcohol to the final VG-based mix, to make it less viscous? (As I can't buy alcohol I'd have to use vodka.)
Is the final mix safe to vape even as a flavor additive, bearing in mind the rubbish that's in cig tobacco? (On balance I think yes, bearing in mind the tiny quantities used for flavoring.)
What other recipes are there?
How can you adjust the flavor apart from using a lighter or darker tobacco?
Is pipe tobacco better than rolling tobacco? (I was advised to use pipe tobacco but couldn't find it anywhere.)
Have I found the answer to VG-only tobacco flavor or is it all an illusion?
Is the world going to end?
Hit me baby...
I'm a VG-only user and you can't buy VG-based flavors in my little country, only PG-based. I buy Ecopure base by the litre (500ml 36mg base + 500ml mixer) so all I need are the flavors. Their tobacco flavor liquid at its strongest is best described as 'extra mild' and I was a mega high tar smoker so need all the hit I can get. OK, Ecopure is safe safe safe but I need more hit; and since I use the unflavored 'Krystal' base anyway, I need some serious flavor addition.
As it's quicker and cheaper to make your own tobacco flavor than ship it here (see cost comparison below), I brewed some up. Anyway, even if the store bought stuff says 'No PG', you never really know, but you'll know your own stuff is good. (PG makes my lungs clamp up, I can even tell if there is PG in flavors never mind the liquid, unfortunately I'm one of those 'allergic to everything' people.)
Someone told me via PM how to do this, so I went ahead. There were two things that were problematic: the right gear and the right quantities. I'm only interested in very small quantities of flavoring, not total eliquid creation since it's not banned (yet) where I live. Because of this I'm not too worried about what is in the final mix, the amounts are so tiny (and so insignificant compared to actually smoking the tobacco) that if there are a few things like TSNAs, ammonia or other synergens etc I don't really care. Whatever is in the tobacco is diluted by about 5,000% by the time I'm vaping it, as far as I can see.
Cost
Shipping in some pure VG-based tobacco flavor from the US of A would cost me about $15 - $20 all up. Brewing my own costs me less than $2 for 50ml, so no contest. You could say the cost is virtually nothing, less than a buck for about 15ml of concentrate: tobacco, 1gm = ~50c; VG, 30ml = ~30c.
What I wanted:
10ml or 20ml of tobacco flavor concentrate to add to unflavored base VG eliquid.
What I did:
Boiled some strong handrolling tobacco in VG, then filtered it.
What I got:
A perfect result - tons of thick, goopy tobacco flavor VG that works extremely well as a flavor additive. I made far, far too much though (50ml) even though I only used what looked like a tiny amount of tobacco.
Equipment & materials
Small pack of strong handrolling tobacco, 12.5g, 'Drum' brand, @£3.50 (= about $5 or so). This is a strong, dark tobacco - there are lighter ones.
Distilled water, PGA or spirit for cleaning bottles.
Small glass jar. An ex-Coleman's Mustard jar, about 150ml size (170gm / 6oz). The mix is boiled in this.
50ml, 20ml dark glass storage bottles with tight screwcaps. The final result is stored in these.
5ml dark glass dropper bottle for flavor in use.
Small plastic funnel, 90mm dia.
Tea strainer, nylon, superfine mesh, with handle and edge hooks. Nothing will pass through this except fine particles. No tobacco leaf, no matter how small, passes through. The strainer sits perfectly in the funnel.
Microwave oven. Far easier to use than a stove top or whatever.
Assorted saucers etc.
Method
The quantity of tobacco is crucial and I made a big error here. I used a quarter of the 12 gramme pack of tobacco, figuring that it might not be enough but I could repeat the process to make more. In fact, it made about 5 times too much flavoring. One-quarter of 12.5 g was about 3 grammes and was way too much. Next time I'll use NO MORE THAN ONE GRAMME at a time. That's 1gm or about a twelfth of the small pack of tobacco. A little goes a very long, long, long, long way...
Place the empty and well-cleaned 150ml jar on a saucer. The jar should be rinsed with distilled water, or PGA, or a spirit such as rum if nothing else is available.
Take 1gm of strong handrolling tobacco (or maybe pipe tobacco, apparently this works fine). That's ONE GRAMME and no more - a twelfth of the smallest pack of handrolling tobacco. Fluff up the compressed tobacco, place in the bottom of the jar. Pour on VG to cover well*. It took 20ml to cover 3gm so you can work it out - maybe 7ml for 1 gramme, maybe more. It doesn't matter at all if you add too much as you will be adding more later. At this stage, better too much than too little.
* It would probably be good to add some alcohol to the VG as it would act better as a solvent - but I don't know how much.
Place an inverted small saucer or similar on top of the jar. The idea of this is to contain the vapor but allow the mix to boil over if necessary. Metal can't be used and plastic is not advisable, glass or kitchenware is best.
[The best of all for microwave etc is Pyrex glass ovenware, it can take thermal shock, dropping on the floor, most anything.]
It was suggested that the tobacco should be boiled for 1 minute in the VG, so this is what I did.
Place the jar in a microwave. Microwave on full for 90 seconds (1.5 minutes). Check halfway and near the end for boilover. I used a 1kW oven but it doesn't matter what power, adjust the time longer or shorter. What happened is that the liquid heated for about 45 seconds and boiled for about 45 seconds. At the end it just boiled over slightly.
Be careful here, *the jar is boiling hot*. VG boils faster than water in a microwave, it must contain fats and/or carbos. Beware fumes here, have a window wide open. There may be a fume hazard, also the room takes on a tobacco aroma if there is insufficient ventilation.
Remove from microwave and set aside to cool down. Take care, it's super hot. If the mix looks 'dry' then add more VG at this point, it needs to be well-covered and not too thick otherwise it won't pass through the filter. By the end of the process I'd used 50ml or so of VG just for 3g of tobacco.
Leave to stand overnight, with the jar covered, ensuring the tobacco leaf is well-covered by VG. Re-warm in the microwave the next day, add more VG if necessary (it probably will be), and filter the mix. I added Ecopure Mixer liquid to try and reduce the viscosity a bit as it's goop - much the same as thick honey but looks almost black, molasses is the best comparison. The Ecopure Mixer is zero-nic* and slightly thinner than the base eliquid. I'd have used PGA except you can't buy alcohol in my country in pure form, it's prohibited even in small quantities. I didn't want to try strong Vodka etc without thinking that through, and needed to move on.
* I think it's VG, distilled water, and ethyl maltol.
Filtering
To filter the mix in order to remove the tobacco leaf mash, I simply poured it through a very fine mesh nylon tea strainer. The mesh is probably 0.5mm or smaller, no leaf got through, not even the tiniest piece (it's swollen by the process no doubt). However there are some fine particulates showing in the result so another stage of filtration is needed.
The strainer sits in the funnel, the funnel sits in a dark glass bottle, the liquid drips through slowly. You must warm it well or it won't shift (10 seconds in the microwave). However it may be best to add alcohol at this stage.
I filtered it for a second pass, using Kleenex tissue paper. This is 3-ply, I separated it and used one ply only. First I poured a capful of strong rum through in order to flush out any bleaches or whatever in the tissue, disposing of the rum.
Warmed the goop again, poured it into the filter setup, and left it to drip through. Filtration was very slow indeed through the single ply of tissue, one drop every 4 seconds, so it had to be left alone to filter through over a half-hour, and also warmed in the microwave halfway through.
You're left with a small bottle of dark goop, and some nasty-looking black tobacco mash to dispose of carefully. I think it wise to protect the eyes and the hands when doing all this, there is a splash risk. The goop is viscous but will just about work in a dropper, it's now about the consistency of pourable honey. It might be better to thin it with alcohol and I'll maybe try that with some, I sure have enough to play with.
All the utensils rinse off easily, but please protect your hands at this time. It's wise to have some cloths and kitchen towel close by to mop up any spillage, also a sink and tap to wash stuff if needed (it will be).
Result
I ended up with 50ml of thick, very dark liquid (let's call it 'concentrate'). It was far too much and I'd use 1gm of tobacco next time, not 3gm. One gramme of tobacco looks tiny but it does the job, somehow you end up with more than enough liquid as a result. 3gm produced 50ml's of concentrate so 1gm should get you 15ml or more which is plenty enough. A 20ml bottle nearly full would last me a long time. And that's without dilution in alcohol.
Thinking about it, next time I'd probably use half a gramme. That way I'd get say 5 or 6ml concentrate, which would go to at least 10ml with alcohol. That's enough to be getting along with.
I keep it in the fridge as it's dark and cold.
In use
I add 1 to 4 drops of concentrate to 1ml of eliquid, depending on whether it had any previous flavor content or not, and if a strong or mild result is needed. The concentrate is a dark brown and showed some fine particulates after the first rough filtration, after the second it is clear.
The flavor is excellent, a dark and natural flavor. I think this would vary according to the tobacco used. The most interesting fact is that adding it to other flavors transforms and improves them a lot, somehow. For example, one eliquid mix I had existing, of 2ml extra-light tobacco + mint in a dark glass dropper bottle, had developed a harsh metallic edge to the taste. The concentrate entirely removed that metallic taste, and also rounded out the flavour superbly, even though I only added a very small amount. How it does this I've no idea, maybe it's got the BT version of MSG in there... Another mix, light tobacco + caramel/toffee, had developed a rough, burnt taste to it, but that was removed by the concentrate.
It is an excellent tobacco flavor, 'dark', 'full', 'round', is how I'd describe it, I guess. No sharpness or nasty edge at all. Seems to me it's a bit like the Perfumer's Apprentice description of their Tobacco Absolut, ie very strong and only to be used in small amounts.
The best thing is it works really well with other flavors and somehow fixes their problems.
Nicotine strength of concentrate
This is irrelevant to me since I'm only using tiny quantities as flavoring. However, I treat the concentrate as a potentially dangerous liquid since it might have a high nic content of course. It would be hard to titrate for a color change nic strength test as it's very dark brown, it would need dilution x 10, maybe more. Perhaps it would not be possible to titrate, as a heavily-diluted test sample would be yellow in any case (the color-change point that a titration test for nic strength is looking for). Some other way to test the nic strength would be needed.
Straight vape?
If someone wanted to use this for vaping straight, due to an eliquid ban, there are a bunch of issues. Safety would be the first although I guess nothing is as dangerous as smoking, in any case. Diluted down by ten times or something I guess you could test-vape it for strength, any experienced person would know what the nic strength is immediately. I wouldn't do this unless I absolutely had to though, as you're vaping processed tobacco that BT has added who knows what to. As for doing it with leaf you've grown yourself or bought in, that is another matter entirely.
Questions
Should I have used alcohol as the solvent, or an alcohol/VG mix?
Should I add alcohol to the final VG-based mix, to make it less viscous? (As I can't buy alcohol I'd have to use vodka.)
Is the final mix safe to vape even as a flavor additive, bearing in mind the rubbish that's in cig tobacco? (On balance I think yes, bearing in mind the tiny quantities used for flavoring.)
What other recipes are there?
How can you adjust the flavor apart from using a lighter or darker tobacco?
Is pipe tobacco better than rolling tobacco? (I was advised to use pipe tobacco but couldn't find it anywhere.)
Have I found the answer to VG-only tobacco flavor or is it all an illusion?
Is the world going to end?
Hit me baby...
Last edited:
