Amount of menthol crystals needed in a mix?

[Kellycat]

Anybody have any experience using raw menthol crystals in 100% PG mixes? Have an excellent clove flavor here and I'm thinking of splitting it two ways since I've vaped half the bottle already and found the taste slightly lacking, was going to try a mix with sweetener, and one with menthol, since I used to smoke both kreteks and menthols when I still used analogs. Would have either 2.5mls or 5mls depending on how I split the remaining mix, and wondered about how much menthol should be added to avoid overpowering the taste. Looking at buying a quarter ounce of the crystals and melting a few slivers into the mix, figure I can strengthen it if needed by adding more menthol but I'm concerned with that small an amount of liquid that even one or two crystals would be too strong. Thought I'd see if I should go ahead and order a larger amount of juice to add the menthol to, or if I need to be looking at pre-mixed menthol liquids to add, etc. Advice is appreciated, and thanks in advance!

 

[STVNMR]

Menthol crystals are pretty strong. I don't have any exact measurements for you, but I'd highly recommend starting out SMALL. Taste it, see what you think, and move up from there.

One thing to consider is keeping your crystals dissolved. Perhaps I wasn't mixing them properly, but my crystals would always come back together after the liquid cooled and congeal around the bottle at the surface of the liquid. I'm not sure how others do it, but I haven't had much need to find out as I haven't wanted to use my bag of crystals in a while.

I'm sure someone else with more mixing experience will chime in soon enough.

 

[DustyZ]

Menthol crystals. Use sparingly menthol crystals are very strong. A little goes a long way! You may also make your own menthol drops by placing a few grams of crystals into an alcohol base such as ethanol (vodka).
TIP: To dissolve, fill a container half way with VG or PG, then the other half with menthol crystals. Shake until dissolved. Heating the VG or PG first will speed up the process. Try starting out at 5% in your recipe of that solution that you made.

DO NOT HEAT IN MICROWARE, USE A HOT WATER BATH AND PUT YOUR BOTTLE IN THE BATH TO HELP DISSOLVE THE CRYSTALS.

 

[Kellycat]

Thanks to you all, exactly the info I was looking for. MFS has pre-mixed 15ml bottles for the same price as it'd cost me to mix my own, so I'm going that route to start with just for convenience until I get a handle on things and start making larger batches of totally DIY liquid, then I might start using crystals directly. Have heard the water bath mentioned before and will keep that in mind as well, if there's one thing I took away from college chem it was how to dissolve things properly i.e. not in a microwave! I can only imagine the results of that..

Another related question now though, based on what DustyZ posted, I've heard people mixing menthol in strong alcohol, or in plain PG, are there benefits/disadvantages between the two methods? Just not sure I'd trust vaping something with alcohol in it given the temperatures involved, effects of alcohol on the body, al etc. Not that I don't drink, but I'd rather sip my liquor, not inhale it!

 

[candimccann]

I've always made my menthol drops with PG exactly the way described by peQQQ above. I won a bag of crystals in a giveaway a year ago and have barely made a dent in it so far. Super cheap and they'll last you forever.