Started DIY, and thanks to this forum, my worst products have been vapable and didn't go into the trash. I've avoided many landmines, because of those who've walked through the minefield before me. Ergo, I feel I owe something back to the community.
VG is way too thick on it's own. It was interesting how slowly VG sucks up through an 18 gauge blunt needle, but PG flows through OK. While heating it up helps, that's not useful in the tank, where it tends to dry hit the coil and shorten coil life. I prefer VG--PG just has a chemical bite I don't like. I'm OK at 50/50 mixes, but my coils aren't happy about it, so I felt I needed to solve the viscosity problem.
The rate of flow through the needle seemed to offer an easy gauge of viscosity.
By putting 10ml of vg in a graduated cylinder, I added 5% distilled water at a time, but for 95%vg/5% water I added .53 ml water, for 90% I added another .58, for 85% I added another .65, and for 80% I added another .74 ml of water using a 1ml syringe. After each addition of water, I mixed it up, then I measured how long it took to fill a certain level in the 1ml syringe via a stop watch over several tries to minimize errors. I found it easiest to use a 1ml syringe, pull the plunger to the top to create a vacuum, and release after 1 second and see where the level came up to. For PG, the syringe filled to around the .6ml mark every time. I found that at 85% was slightly low at .55, and 20% was slightly high at just over .60 ml, so for the VG I'm using the dilution needs to be about 16-18% for VG to have roughly the same viscosity as PG.
That answered the viscosity question, but how well does that translate into actual usage? I ran it through a known good recipe, I refer to as CB, that I was making at 50/50 (Subtle candy bar ADV without being overly sweet-seems to have coffee tones)
5% TPA Double Chocolate (Clear)
1% VZ SC Parliament
1% VZ SC Coconut
1% VZ SC Caramel
1% VZ SC Vanilla
1.5% EM
2 drops per 5ml ACV
1 hour Ultrasonic Steep
So, it's not exactly 100% VG, since the TPA is a PG base, but I'm not exactly a purist. I'll settle for 95/5 for this experiment.
Running it at 16 on the nic (I have 100mg/ml VG from VZ), and running it at 16% distilled water with the rest of the VG Base and then running through the Ultrasonic, it comes out the exact same color as the 50/50. In my ecig (Nova mini, 2.4ohm, 3.7v), the flavor's the same, but slightly muted. Definitely more clouds to the vape though, and there's a lot less issues with dry hits.
I'd have to agree that VG then does mute the flavors some, so the next question I have to answer--how much should I bump up flavoring to compensate?
VG is way too thick on it's own. It was interesting how slowly VG sucks up through an 18 gauge blunt needle, but PG flows through OK. While heating it up helps, that's not useful in the tank, where it tends to dry hit the coil and shorten coil life. I prefer VG--PG just has a chemical bite I don't like. I'm OK at 50/50 mixes, but my coils aren't happy about it, so I felt I needed to solve the viscosity problem.
The rate of flow through the needle seemed to offer an easy gauge of viscosity.
By putting 10ml of vg in a graduated cylinder, I added 5% distilled water at a time, but for 95%vg/5% water I added .53 ml water, for 90% I added another .58, for 85% I added another .65, and for 80% I added another .74 ml of water using a 1ml syringe. After each addition of water, I mixed it up, then I measured how long it took to fill a certain level in the 1ml syringe via a stop watch over several tries to minimize errors. I found it easiest to use a 1ml syringe, pull the plunger to the top to create a vacuum, and release after 1 second and see where the level came up to. For PG, the syringe filled to around the .6ml mark every time. I found that at 85% was slightly low at .55, and 20% was slightly high at just over .60 ml, so for the VG I'm using the dilution needs to be about 16-18% for VG to have roughly the same viscosity as PG.
That answered the viscosity question, but how well does that translate into actual usage? I ran it through a known good recipe, I refer to as CB, that I was making at 50/50 (Subtle candy bar ADV without being overly sweet-seems to have coffee tones)
5% TPA Double Chocolate (Clear)
1% VZ SC Parliament
1% VZ SC Coconut
1% VZ SC Caramel
1% VZ SC Vanilla
1.5% EM
2 drops per 5ml ACV
1 hour Ultrasonic Steep
So, it's not exactly 100% VG, since the TPA is a PG base, but I'm not exactly a purist. I'll settle for 95/5 for this experiment.
Running it at 16 on the nic (I have 100mg/ml VG from VZ), and running it at 16% distilled water with the rest of the VG Base and then running through the Ultrasonic, it comes out the exact same color as the 50/50. In my ecig (Nova mini, 2.4ohm, 3.7v), the flavor's the same, but slightly muted. Definitely more clouds to the vape though, and there's a lot less issues with dry hits.
I'd have to agree that VG then does mute the flavors some, so the next question I have to answer--how much should I bump up flavoring to compensate?
