Adding Nicotine to eJuice

[numsquat]

My wife (less than a week vaping) and I (4 weeks of vaping) went to our first B&M Thursday night to check out a variety of juice flavors. I have bought 9 different flavors over the internet, mostly samples, and all 24mg. Had been lucky so far, 1 bad flavor, 2 "eh" flavors and 6 I liked of which I have/will reorder 4 of. My wife liked 2 of the 9 and the main reason of going to the B&M was to find some flavors we both like. My wife also was able to try the same juice but at different nic mg levels to see what she prefered (now an ex-Ultra Menthol Light smoker). She ended up liking the 6mg level so all 3 flavors we picked were mixed at 6mg.

On the 80 minute drive home, we talked and thought about finding out how we (as in I) could add nicotine to the levels I like (currently 12-18mg). I've read through some of the DIY forum but have hit a bit of information overload. I was just wondering if there were some cliff note information of this subject. Right now I just want to be able to buy 0mg nic juice and add nic to the levels my wife and I each like. I'm thinking I need a reputable nic supplier, syringes, mixing bottles and a chart/program/app to calculate the mixing. Not really wanting to get into the whole flavor DIY (at least not yet) but possibly going a little further by adding menthol to fruit flavors but that's another post.

So thanks in advance for any assistance on this.

 

[carrielsal]

This would require buying concentrated nic and using a calculator. I use eJuiceMeUp. Have you browsed the DIY forums yet? There is a wealth on information in that section, DIY E-Liquid.

eJuice Me Up calculator, eJuice Me Up - Best eJuice Calculator
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/400977-ejuice-me-up-ejuice-calculator.html
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/298547-nicotine-comparisons.html

 

[numsquat]

From what I read that was pretty much what I thought I needed. Downloaded eJuice Calculator earlier this evening, haven't installed it it. Have found some mixing bottles and syringes on Amazon I'll be ordering once I found some nic to order.

 

[Andy Leichty]

Look at wizard labs they have everything you'll need to get started I use ejuice me up good app and very easy to use

 

[InTheShade]

Good to hear you are on the journey with your wife num, and even better to see you on the forums learning about vaping like the rest of us.

As Andy said above, Wizard labs have a good variety of beakers, stirrers, syringes and other bits and pieces. I used to buy my nic from them as well, but the last two I have bought have been from My Freedom Smokes. It's $50 for a liter of 100mg / ml and $40 when you catch it on sale. It's good clean nic.

Adding nic to an already flavored e-liquid will of course change the flavor. In order to minimize this change, I would use the highest concentration nic you can (which is the 100mg/ml I linked above) Of course you can get lower strengths, but you will need more of them to get to your desired nicotine strength and this will dilute the flavor more.

Just a word of warning, it's 100mg / ml so you need to handle it with care. You need to dilute it correctly to your strength (that e-juice me up seems complicated at first, but it's actually a great program)

You probably already know this but it'd be wise to use eye protection, gloves and long sleeves when mixing it. Of course, keep it in the original container (in the freezer works great) and out of the way of tiny hands or pets.

Good luck to you, DIY e-liquid is fun. When you get bored with store bought liquids, maybe get yourself some flavors and try making your own recipes too.

 

[numsquat]

Thanks everyone for the direction and tips, gives me a starting point. I will continue to research and learn more here.

I could see myself someday making DIY ejuice, wife will probably shoot me if I did though. I tend to take my hobbies seriously, been homebrewing over 20 years and been competing and/or judging in the KCBS for almost that long. Those hobbies, work and a new grandson take up most of my time.

 

[philoshop]

Another option is to buy the pre-made juices with different nic levels and mix them to get the levels you want. Eg, mixing 24mg with 0mg in equal proprtions will give you 12mg, etc. The nice thing about this is that you're not diluting the flavor. Best of luck to you.

 

[zahzoo]

A simple, short term solution for you now would be to purchase a flavor you and your wife enjoy at the highest nic level whichever one of you prefer. It's easier to bring the nicotine content down rather than raise it... You can pick up a bottle of Vegetable Glycerin (VG) at any local drug store... CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, etc... May be labeled just Glycerin just make sure it's labeled USP.

Example... say you prefer 12 mg and your wife prefers 6mg. Buy one 30ml bottle of e-juice at 24mg. Take 2 empty bottles.

Put 15ml of the 24mg juice in one and top it off with the VG. You now have 30ml at 12mg. Put 7.5ml of the 24mg juice in the other bottle, top it off with VG. You now have 30ml of 6 mg juice. Label which is which, shake well several times and you're good to go. Flavor will be slightly less but with certain flavors I really can't tell the difference when diluted.,

I would advise staying away from 100mg nicotine juice until you feel real comfortable with DIY and have gloves, safety glasses and a good clean place with all the proper handling tools to mix in. I'd suggest sticking with 24-36mg nicotine base to begin with as it's far less toxic to handle.

 

[readeuler]

Hello, and welcome to ECF!

I have a bias; I've never used a mixing calc and I don't plan on it. Luckily, working with 100mg/ml nicotine is extremely easy, as far as calculations go!

Let's say you've got 0 nic juice, to which you'd like to add 100mg/ml nic base, and you'd like 10ml of 24mg/ml. You can think of this as simply diluting the 100mg/ml to only 24% of that, 24mg/ml. So you want 24% of your final 10ml, which is 2.4ml, to be base, while the rest, 10 - 2.4 = 7.6 ml, will be the 0 nic juice. Ta-da!

This will only dilute the flavor by 24%, which won't necessarily be too bad. It would be even better (although the calculations will be marginally more complicated, but not by much) if you purchase the lowest strength nicotine either of you vapes, rather than increasing the nic from 0mg/ml.

You will have to choose between PG nicotine, VG nicotine, or a 50/50 mix. I would suggest VG, only because if you do step into DIY eventually, the flavor component can make up a lot of PG already, so it's hard to achieve more than 50% VG with PG nicotine.

But yep, I do all my mixing with syringes, needles, and bottles, and that's that! You will want a rather wide needle, 14ga or lower, for VG, as it's very viscous.

 

[Dalova]

I've wondered about mixing my own & love the info here.

 

[numsquat]

Another option is to buy the pre-made juices with different nic levels and mix them to get the levels you want. Eg, mixing 24mg with 0mg in equal proprtions will give you 12mg, etc. The nice thing about this is that you're not diluting the flavor. Best of luck to you.

I have done that with 3 juices and it does work well. The only issue I have with it is financial, as every time I buy 2 bottles of one flavor means I'm buying one less bottle of another flavor.

 

[sparkky1]

Hello, and welcome to ECF!

I have a bias; I've never used a mixing calc and I don't plan on it. Luckily, working with 100mg/ml nicotine is extremely easy, as far as calculations go!

Let's say you've got 0 nic juice, to which you'd like to add 100mg/ml nic base, and you'd like 10ml of 24mg/ml. You can think of this as simply diluting the 100mg/ml to only 24% of that, 24mg/ml. So you want 24% of your final 10ml, which is 2.4ml, to be base, while the rest, 10 - 2.4 = 7.6 ml, will be the 0 nic juice. Ta-da!

This will only dilute the flavor by 24%, which won't necessarily be too bad. It would be even better (although the calculations will be marginally more complicated, but not by much) if you purchase the lowest strength nicotine either of you vapes, rather than increasing the nic from 0mg/ml.

You will have to choose between PG nicotine, VG nicotine, or a 50/50 mix. I would suggest VG, only because if you do step into DIY eventually, the flavor component can make up a lot of PG already, so it's hard to achieve more than 50% VG with PG nicotine.

But yep, I do all my mixing with syringes, needles, and bottles, and that's that! You will want a rather wide needle, 14ga or lower, for VG, as it's very viscous.

So your saying if you took a bottle of dr pepper and poured out 24 % and then added 24 % distilled water the taste wouldn't be that different ?

Just saying if you do alter the original recipe ratio which would then be muted and then I couldn't imagine if it were put into a cheaper clearo what the muted taste would be like...

 

[Treeburner1983]

A simple, short term solution for you now would be to purchase a flavor you and your wife enjoy at the highest nic level whichever one of you prefer. It's easier to bring the nicotine content down rather than raise it... You can pick up a bottle of Vegetable Glycerin (VG) at any local drug store... CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, etc... May be labeled just Glycerin just make sure it's labeled USP.

Example... say you prefer 12 mg and your wife prefers 6mg. Buy one 30ml bottle of e-juice at 24mg. Take 2 empty bottles.

Put 15ml of the 24mg juice in one and top it off with the VG. You now have 30ml at 12mg. Put 7.5ml of the 24mg juice in the other bottle, top it off with VG. You now have 30ml of 6 mg juice. Label which is which, shake well several times and you're good to go. Flavor will be slightly less but with certain flavors I really can't tell the difference when diluted.,

I would advise staying away from 100mg nicotine juice until you feel real comfortable with DIY and have gloves, safety glasses and a good clean place with all the proper handling tools to mix in. I'd suggest sticking with 24-36mg nicotine base to begin with as it's far less toxic to handle.

The problem with mixing like this is you are diluting the flavor of the juice by a greater amount. Would be more consistent flavor wise to add a small amount of nic than a large amount of PG or VG.

-Treeburner

 

[readeuler]

So your saying if you took a bottle of dr pepper and poured out 24 % and then added 24 % distilled water the taste wouldn't be that different ?

Just saying if you do alter the original recipe ratio which would then be muted and then I couldn't imagine if it were put into a cheaper clearo what the muted taste would be like...

No, I was speaking strictly about e-liquid, and I specifically said "won't necessarily be that bad." I diluted vendor juice with VG, probably by around 30% to 50%, and was surprised at how little the flavor was affected. That was my experience, and everyone is liable to have a different one. It could be terrible, but there's only one way to find out

A quick test for the OP would be to pick up some VG from CVS, and dilute the juice by 24%, to see what happens. It'll decrease the nic strength of course, but it will let you know whether dilution is a viable strategy for that particular juice.

 

[VNeil]

I think the best idea here was to buy 24mg and 0mg of the same guice, then dilute the 24mg with the 0 mg, preserving the flavor. Or buy your highest strength (apparently 18mg) and do the same. For the most part, my limited experience with commercial juice is that the more you pay, the more flavor you get. So there is no point in unnecessarily diluting that flavor. Plus, there are no safety concerns beyond what you would do with standard 24mg juice. And no matter how bad you screw up the mix you can't end up with an unusually high nicotine level, as you could with 100mg (assuming some brain dead-ness applied)

To do the mix, I would get 1ml and/or 3ml and/or 5ml syringes, in order to accurately measure the small quantities probably involved remixing 15 or 30ml bottles. And you want some bottles large enough to hold the mix and shake up properly. Maybe 30ml or 50ml bottles. The DIY vape suppliers have them.

Edit: to mix 0 and 18/24mg, assuming 15mm bottles, you will be mixing 2:1 or 3:1 to get to 15ml of 6mg. So 5/10/25ml syringes may make more sense. The idea is to well fill the syringe (at least half way) because the more fully filled, the more accurate the measurement. You don't want to try to measure 3-5ml in a 25ml syringe, for example.

 

[sparkky1]

I think the best idea here was to buy 24mg and 0mg of the same guice, then dilute the 24mg with the 0 mg, preserving the flavor. Or buy your highest strength (apparently 18mg) and do the same. For the most part, my limited experience with commercial juice is that the more you pay, the more flavor you get. So there is no point in unnecessarily diluting that flavor. Plus, there are no safety concerns beyond what you would do with standard 24mg juice. And no matter how bad you screw up the mix you can't end up with an unusually high nicotine level, as you could with 100mg (assuming some brain dead-ness applied)

To do the mix, I would get 1ml and/or 3ml and/or 5ml syringes, in order to accurately measure the small quantities probably involved remixing 15 or 30ml bottles. And you want some bottles large enough to hold the mix and shake up properly. Maybe 30ml or 50ml bottles. The DIY vape suppliers have them.

I like the way he thinks
Buy 18 mg pre made as well as 0 mg and it would be pretty easy to produce an 18mg to 6mg juice with the original recipe flavors.

 

[NANOTRON]

Some B&M will bump it up for you. just save a 15 ml bottle and buy a 30 ml when you go. pour half in your bottle and have them bump up yours. It would have to be a shop that makes their own in house juice.

 

[numsquat]

Very interesting discussion . Thanks for all the information and ideas. Had another question. When adding nic, how much does the nic influence the flavor? Would the flavor change be less or greater than adding VG to cut the original juice? If there is a flavor change, would the change be much different increasing by 6mg versus 12mg or even 18mg?

At this point I see myself continuing to mix same flavor/different nic but also going forward with adding nic. Long term the cost of adding nic versus buying 2 bottles of each flavor will save money. I clean, store and propagate yeast in my home brewery, so safety and cleanliness is not an issue when dealing with 100mg nic.

 

[numsquat]

Some B&M will bump it up for you. just save a 15 ml bottle and buy a 30 ml when you go. pour half in your bottle and have them bump up yours. It would have to be a shop that makes their own in house juice.

I could do this with the closest B&M as they add nic to level level you want. I order more ejuice online though as a 3 hour round trip to the B&M is not the most practical thing.

 

[Train2]

This is the way to go, unless you get into DIY fully (which I DO recommend!).
If you just add nic base to liquid, you'll increase the nic strength, but will dilute the flavor.
I suppose you could minimize that by adding 100 mg nic - for instance, going from 12 mg to 18 mg, you'd just be diluting the FLAVOR by 5% (adding for instance 1.8 mls of 100 mg nic to 30 mls of 12 mg liquid).

I use and recommend ejuicemeup, too - great calculator!!

Another option is to buy the pre-made juices with different nic levels and mix them to get the levels you want. Eg, mixing 24mg with 0mg in equal proprtions will give you 12mg, etc. The nice thing about this is that you're not diluting the flavor. Best of luck to you.