Annoying Cotton Taste long after rewicking (24+ hours after)

[Jack Reynolds]

I have been having continuous issues with a slight cotton taste using multiple different companies cotton, i have tried cotton bacon 2.0 and organic japanese cotton. both of them have a slight cotton taste and i am wondering if it is the way i am wicking it, too much? to little cotton or if it is just the cotton itself or quite possibly the coil?

i am using an Avocado 24 Bottom Airflow edition tank with dual coil alien clapton coils at 0.23ohms and vaping at around 60 watts.
Here are some pictures for reference

if anyone could give me any tips on what i am doing wrong or what could be causing the problem it would be much appreciated.

 

[IMFire3605]

Too much cotton can cause the cotton to take a while to break in and have that cottony taste for as long as you are describing. The cotton inside making contact with the coil wire is to compact and not enough juice is getting to the coil, its hard to describe how much is to much, but the cotton should be just loose enough to allow adequate juice flow, but tight enough that it does not shift inside the coil, which takes practice to get it down just right.

Other factors could be also that the taste you are getting is not so much the cotton, but the oils and salts of sweat and other contaminants from your fingers when you wicked the coils, washing your hands with "Dawn" dish soap or wearing latex gloves prior to wicking will eliminate these contaminants.

Another step I've seen used is once the coils are wicked and pre-primed with juice, take a lighter and light the wicking on fire, then pulse the fire button a couple times before blowing the flame out, do not do this with dry wicking though, this is supposed to burn off any amonia or other contaminants in the cotton, and final step re-juice the wicking and vape away.

 

[Jack Reynolds]

Too much cotton can cause the cotton to take a while to break in and have that cottony taste for as long as you are describing. The cotton inside making contact with the coil wire is to compact and not enough juice is getting to the coil, its hard to describe how much is to much, but the cotton should be just loose enough to allow adequate juice flow, but tight enough that it does not shift inside the coil, which takes practice to get it down just right.

Other factors could be also that the taste you are getting is not so much the cotton, but the oils and salts of sweat and other contaminants from your fingers when you wicked the coils, washing your hands with "Dawn" dish soap or wearing latex gloves prior to wicking will eliminate these contaminants.

Another step I've seen used is once the coils are wicked and pre-primed with juice, take a lighter and light the wicking on fire, then pulse the fire button a couple times before blowing the flame out, do not do this with dry wicking though, this is supposed to burn off any amonia or other contaminants in the cotton, and final step re-juice the wicking and vape away.

Thank you for your input i will definately try the burning the saturated cotton idea,and washing my hands before wicking the coils. i will let you know how it goes if you so wish.

 

[brittianm]

If my cotton is in too tightly ill get that taste. Have you ever tried rayon ?

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[Jack Reynolds]

If my cotton is in too tightly ill get that taste. Have you ever tried rayon ?

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i have not is it something i should look at?

 

[brittianm]

I like it in my rdas. Real clean taste.

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[opticruby]

I find this can happen if I dry my wicks out too much when I taka a draw. I usually wick slightly looser or drop my wattage a little.

Sorry OP, I forgot to quote

 

[Jack Reynolds]

I find this can happen if I dry my wicks out too much when I taka a draw. I usually wick slightly looser or drop my wattage a little.

Sorry OP, I forgot to quote

its okay my boy, go on now

 

[Bigbob2322]

Once you use Rayon correctly you will never go back to Cotton, there is no taste to Rayon and super fast wicking.

 

[lil_buddy]

If you find a solution, I hope you come back to report it. I'm very curious.

 

[Gramdogg]

Rayon is good for lower wattages the odd taste some people get is from high wattage applications. As far a 1 day how much juice do you run through it in 1 day? 1-4ml break in is normal for most cottons, some folks just juice up the wick and pulse it all almost dry and repeat a few times to speed up the process

 

[suprtrkr]

Two words: Rayon. And Rayon. Some people notice a slight break-in taste-- I am one of them-- but it goes away very quickly, like 5 or 10 hits, and the wick is transparent thereafter until and unless it burns. Rayon is also, in my experience, less heat sensitive than natural cotton, meaning it will last longer in the mod. It also doesn't "choke" in the coil if pulled a bit too full. And just a few fibers-- seriously, like 5 or 6 of the individual fibers-- down in the juice is enough to wick. You can thin the tails like crazy, meaning more juice volume in your RDTAs.

Rayon is a man-made substance, chemically identical to natural cotton. It has crazy long staple; being extruded instead of grown, a single fiber will run the entire length of the coil. With one exception, I have literally never heard anything not to like about it. One dude-- I think it was on this board, but it could have been somewhere else-- told me he would never use it because it was made in a factory and was not organic. That is true, and unanswerable. If that bothers you, stick with cotton and enjoy the taste. Some others have said they can taste it, including some people I know personally. But when I hit their mod, I couldn't. Perhaps they have superhuman taste buds or something.

FWIW, the best natural cotton wicks I ever used were composites I made myself, spreading some KoGenDo very thin as the outer shell, and laying some Egyptian short staple in the center, then rolling it up. This gives you the wicking power of long-staple and the juice holding capacity of short staple, just inside the coil where it's needed. It's a bit tricky to get the thing the right diameter, and this varies with coil size, but with a bit of practice I found I could hit it 6 or 7 times out of 10. Then, just about the time I got good at making them, I discovered Rayon and never thought about it again.

 

[suprtrkr]

Rayon is good for lower wattages the odd taste some people get is from high wattage applications. As far a 1 day how much juice do you run through it in 1 day? 1-4ml break in is normal for most cottons, some folks just juice up the wick and pulse it all almost dry and repeat a few times to speed up the process

Now that, I did not know. Really? I'd have never found out, either. Rare for me to get above 40 Watts. Thanks, Gram.

 

[Jack Reynolds]

If you find a solution, I hope you come back to report it. I'm very curious.

i have put alot less cotton in my coils now and it has been 4 hours and no cotton taste at all from what i can taste.

 

[suprtrkr]

i have put alot less cotton in my coils now and it has been 4 hours and no cotton taste at all from what i can taste.

Overstuffing them will do that. But try rayon anyway

 

[djsvapour]

There is too much black magic in the e-cig world.

Get the wicking right (thickness, placement, ends etc) and it will work as long as the design is good.

Buying expensive products (which have little or no value added i.m.o.) and messing around with rumors and hearsay about this and that is often futile.

Rayon can be good, so can other things too.

It used to be the case that 'less is more' but since people like to show off how they compact half a handful of fluffy cotton into a sausage with creative methods is part of the secret voodoo that allows certain people to be in the club whilst others are newbie failures.
Practice, practice and learn to trust your eye. If you always get leaks try a method where you use too much instead. If you get cotton-y hits, then pull a few edges off your strands as you are gauging it and take a few risks with under-packing the cotton.

You don't need to pray, or have your hands washed by angels or even have decent eyesight.... get it right for your particular RTA and it will work.

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

Reading this thread makes me glad I'm not capable of rebuilding.

 

[Gramdogg]

There is too much black magic in the e-cig world.

Get the wicking right (thickness, placement, ends etc) and it will work as long as the design is good.

Buying expensive products (which have little or no value added i.m.o.) and messing around with rumors and hearsay about this and that is often futile.

Rayon can be good, so can other things too.

It used to be the case that 'less is more' but since people like to show off how they compact half a handful of fluffy cotton into a sausage with creative methods is part of the secret voodoo that allows certain people to be in the club whilst others are newbie failures.
Practice, practice and learn to trust your eye. If you always get leaks try a method where you use too much instead. If you get cotton-y hits, then pull a few edges off your strands as you are gauging it and take a few risks with under-packing the cotton.

You don't need to pray, or have your hands washed by angels or even have decent eyesight.... get it right for your particular RTA and it will work.

Preach it brother lol. Keep hearing this and that tastes "cleaner", whats clean taste like? I wanna know whose vape tastes dirty and what they were doing with their hands before wicking. If your vape taste dirty wash your dang hands after wiping lol.

Now that, I did not know. Really? I'd have never found out, either. Rare for me to get above 40 Watts. Thanks, Gram.

Yeah, thats why you hear folks that hate rayon and say it taste weird. 9/10 are vaping exotic coils at high watts, its not a dry burn taste but an odd taste. I think its like some people can taste metal with some wires, same thing.

 

[dangkhoa02106]

You can try the way that Rip Trippers do in the review video of Pharaoh. Prime your cotton wick and soft pulsing the coil.

 

[IMFire3605]

@djsvapour
Amen brother, amen. Really no need to pay a premium on wire, *ahem* example Anarchist Wire as example, just over-rated over-inflated priced NiChrome 80, or all these fancy wicking materials, I've used a few, Muji, Ko Gen Do, Egyptian Cotton, Cotton Bacon, bleh, not much different than standard Walgreens Green Label organic cotton balls, though I keep some Ko Gen Do and Egyptian Cotton on hand in small amounts when I am really really trying out new DIY flavors with as little flavorings as possible, and I keep couple packs of Cotton Bacon Bits in my on the go rebuild kit due to compact and easily transported. 90% of my builds I still use regular organic cotton balls from Walgreens at $4 a bag that lasts me almost 18months. Rayon, sorry add me to the list of those that refuse to use it, hello remember the Rayon scare of Chinese stuffed toys back in the late 90s early 2000's getting kids sick, sorry call me paranoid but no thanks, nor the extra price added to it.

Cotton does me just fine, as I am below 60 to 80watts my highest standard builds, 90% of the time I am under 15watts anyway, still have feet of silica and ekowool sitting around I'll break out just for the occasional hoot when I do a build on a Protank coil from time to time, or a soaker build, remember those with ekowool, on my very deep juice well RDA's. My palette is one of those very sensitive ones I can taste different wire and wicking in the background until I get used to it, change to other materials, get the same back tones of the materials used. Speaking of...*Rumages through old vape stuff* Hmm, hollow ekowool, stainless steel mesh wick, pulls out old Kraken Genny, time to do an old school rebuild...