Yes, I can add a third vote to that. Unlike silica, which blasts you with 100% flavor and vapor the first time you press the fire button, an SS wick DOES take some time to get "seasoned" or whatever you want to call it... I didn't really think of that because even a new wick will have *some* flavor, usually not the flavor you expect though.
I DO wash my mesh with warm water and a drop of soap, usually just using my fingers to massage the soap into the mesh, then rinse it really well and then I shake any excess off of it. I use a little butane torch to flame my mesh dry. It's not much bigger than a lighter and it uses the same fuel. The real difference is that you get a consistent, blue flame, hot enough to make the mesh glow bright orange, even after it's rolled into a wick... orange all the way through it, what ever part of it I'm working on. That and I can keep that little torch burning where a disposable lighter gets very hot after a short time! A lighter should work in a pinch though.
I DO NOT "quench" my wick... not for any real reason, my wicks seem to turn out good even without quenching. I flame it, roll it, flame it again very thoroughly. Then I treat it with some juice and light it on fire. I repeat that maybe three or four times.
After a test fit (I like it just tight enough that it will hold position in the wick hole if I let go of it but easily slide up or down if I ask it to), I typically wind the coil on the wick in my hands and then put it in the wick hole and get down to pulsing the coil until it's nice and the ohms are steady too. I use about 7.5 cm x 4.5 cm for a solid wick (rolled so the finished wick is 4.5 cm tall) and about 6 cm x 4.5 cm for a "straw" type wick. Both fit the factory AGA-T2 wick hole the same way, not too tight... not too loose. The only difference is a small hole in the center of the "straw" one.
Fill up the tank with my choice of juice and drip a little on the coil too and give it a whirl. Usually by the time I've sucked up that first half a tank I top it off. By the time I hit that halfway point again it's really starting to be a wonderful vape. By the time it's nearly dry I dry burn it (with pulses!) to clean it up a bit and make sure all the coils are still firing fine. Then I fill it up and continue using it.
All my coils stay rock solid at the ohms I built it for and vape like crazy. I use the same wick over and over and over again. I've put new coils on one wick three times now, just because I wanted to try something different.
IF I'm going to change flavors in the tank to something completely different I use Phil's method of washing out the tank using a syringe of hot water; squirting it into the tank then sucking it back into the syringe. I'll repeat this several times, maybe giving the tank a good shake too when it's got water in it. Some water sooner or later squirts out the wick too which is fine. I try to get it as dry as possible (using the syringe) and then dry burn the wick until the water is gone and the coils are glowing a nice orange again. Adjust coils now if needed, then let it cool, fill with juice and go back to vaping.
I still think a very thick silica wick in a dripper tastes the best to me but SS Mesh is a close second and usually much better than any vivis or other top coils tanks I've tried. I don't do carts so I can't comment on those.
I'm interested to see what that wick is like in your RSST. Like I said, I don't expect a difference but if there IS we may be able to figure out what is going on here.
EDIT: Note that I am using #500 mesh and that different mesh might need more or less mesh to build the same thickness of wick. I built my first one out of the factory mesh, a straw type, and it still works well... in fact it's in my mini DID right now, but when I bought new mesh I wanted finer stuff too. I'm not sure I "taste" a difference between the new #500 I have and whatever size mesh that is that comes with the AGA though...
