Dilution Dilema!

[Quitter]

Okay, maybe my math skills are fading with age. But for some reason, I'm flumoxed with this! Anyone able to help me out?

I have a nice quantity of 100mg/ml nic mixing juice. I want to dilute this down with PG/VG mix to a target of 6%. Knowing that I will add about 10% flavor to it for a final mix.

So if I start with say, 1ml of the 100 nic juice, how many ml of PG/VG do I add to it to get the final target? I understand that it will need to be a little stronger than 6mg to allow 10% dilution with flavor.

Sorry to seem so dense!! I tried using the calculators and it just didn't sink in.

 

[Dave_in_OK]

If I wanted 30 ml of juice 6mg and 10% flavor I would add
1.8ml of 100mg Nic;
25.2 of PG/VG mix of choice 60/40 (13.2ml pg 12ml VG etc not 25.2 of each )
3ml Flavor

 

[Hoosier]

If you approach it backwards, it might make more sense.

Start with the finished bottle of....say 10ml for easy math.

For 6mg/ml that 10ml would need, 6mg/ml * 10ml = 60mg, so 0.6ml of 100mg/ml.

10% flavoring of the 10ml bottle is 1ml.

The remainder, 8.4 (10ml-0.6ml-1ml), is PG/VG.

A car only goes on fuel, but it's easier to drive behind the steering wheel as opposed to being in the fuel tank. Saying, "I start with 1ml of X" is kinda' like driving the math from the fuel tank. It's possible, but most folks don't want to do the algebra.

 

[JD1]

Double once = 50mg
double that = 25 mg
double that = 12.5 mg
double that= 6.25 mg

5 ml of 100mg added to 5 ml of 0mg = 10ml @ 50mg
add 10 ml of 0mg = 20ml @ 25mg
add 20 ml of 0mg = 40ml @ 12.5mg
add 40 ml of 0mg = 80ml @ 6.25mg

Adding 10% flavor to 6.25mg base lowers it to around 5.80mg more or less.

If you cut the amount of the last addition by 10% that will raise the nic to about 6.6mg which will help you stay closer to 6mg when you add blavors.

 

[Art Mustel]

Okay, maybe my math skills are fading with age. But for some reason, I'm flumoxed with this! Anyone able to help me out?

I have a nice quantity of 100mg/ml nic mixing juice. I want to dilute this down with PG/VG mix to a target of 6%. Knowing that I will add about 10% flavor to it for a final mix.

So if I start with say, 1ml of the 100 nic juice, how many ml of PG/VG do I add to it to get the final target? I understand that it will need to be a little stronger than 6mg to allow 10% dilution with flavor.

Sorry to seem so dense!! I tried using the calculators and it just didn't sink in.

You have received great responses here, all them good of course but I only wanted to ask if what you want to do is lowering ALL the 100mg/ml nicotine you have so it would be ready to just add flavors at some point.

If that is what you want to do, it seems practical but i would advise against it. I may be wrong but I believe it stores better for long periods without dilution (and less bottles to use). Also, your tastes and vaping level could change. You always can make high nic low, but not the other way unless you have high in reserve. Mabe you just don't want to keep 100mg/ml nic around, in that case i understand and it will be fine to make it all low.

 

[bwh79]

I only wanted to ask if what you want to do is lowering ALL the 100mg/ml nicotine you have so it would be ready to just add flavors at some point.

If that is what you want to do, it seems practical but i would advise against it. I may be wrong but I believe it stores better for long periods without dilution

That's not what it says here:

Few last points to cover – shelf-life varies largely by nicotine strength, [...] Higher nicotine strengths will possess more nicotine molecules, less likely to be completely solvated by their carrier (PG/VG). Put simply – 100mg/mL formulations will keep for less time than a 24mg/mL formulation.

 

[JD1]

That's not what it says here:

I could be wrong, but I don't agree with that at all. I don't really know, and I'm just going by posts that I've read here on the forum, but I tend to agree with the advice that says store it in pg, in dark glass or covered glass, and in the freezer. If you'd rather have vg, then go ahead and use that. (Pg is slightly more antimicrobial than vg.)

I tend to buy 120 ml of 100mg in pg. When I get it I split it into two 120 ml bottles, mixed with vg for a 50/50 pg/vg mix at 50mg each. I store both in the freezer and use one bottle to pull off 5 ml at a time to mix down to around 6.25 mg for my base. When I add flavors it brings it down some more, but as long as I keep it around 5mg or above I'm ok.

I tried once to go to 3 mg but I had to bring it back up. I have some plans to try a couple of recipes that use above 20% flavoring, so I'll need to measure out my nic from the 50mg but that's easy using eJuice Me Up.

 

[bwh79]

I could be wrong, but I don't agree with that at all. I don't really know, and I'm just going by posts that I've read here on the forum, but I tend to agree with the advice that says store it in pg, in dark glass or covered glass, and in the freezer.

I'm not sure what part you disagree with -- it says all that in the post I linked, too. As far as whether or not 24mg nic keeps longer than 100mg, I'm no expert either, but I figured the guys over at Nude Nicotine would likely know a thing or two about the product they sell and the substance their company is named after...

 

[Art Mustel]

That's not what it says here:

I said I could be wrong, but what you quote is confusing because at the end it reads:

Thus some may only see a short shelf-life for a 100mg/mL solution kept on a shelf compared to a 24mg/mL solution kept in multiple frozen aliquots.

 

[bwh79]

I said I could be wrong, but what you quote is confusing because at the end it reads:

Thus some may only see a short shelf-life for a 100mg/mL solution kept on a shelf compared to a 24mg/mL solution kept in multiple frozen aliquots.

What's confusing? It says both times that the stronger liquid keeps for less time than the weaker solution.

A 100mg/ml solution, kept on a shelf, will only last a "short time"...
- stronger nicotine degrades faster than a weaker solution
- room temperature will cause degradation faster
- it doesn't say, but implies that it's in a single container which gets exposed to oxygen every time you open it to take a little out

...compared to 24mg/ml kept in multiple frozen aliquots, which lasts for longer
- weaker nicotine solution lasts longer than a stronger one
- low temperatures slow down the degradation process even more
- multiple aliquots (fancy-speak for "containers") means only a little bit is exposed at a time when you open one to take some out, while the rest stays safely sealed up, free from oxygen exposure in the rest of the bottles.

I'm not sure exactly what the chemistry is that causes stronger solutions to degrade faster, but it would seem that the higher concentration is more likely to have (or they both have, but the stronger liquid is likely to have more of them) "free" nicotine molecules that aren't dissolved in the carrier liquid. These free molecules would then be more subject to degradation than the ones that were chemically bonded to the PG/VG molecules in the carrier liquid. Or something like that.

 

[Art Mustel]

Don't you see what is confusing or at least unclear? They say "some may only see a short shelf-life for a 100mg/ml solution KEPT ON A SHELF compared to a 24mg/ml solution kept in multiple FROZEN aliquots"

You are not quoting it correctly either. You wrote:
"A 100mg/ml solution, kept on a shelf, will only last a "short time"..."

That is not what it says. At least not the way you wrote it.

 

[bwh79]

Don't you see what is confusing or at least unclear? They say "some may only see a short shelf-life for a 100mg/ml solution KEPT ON A SHELF compared to a 24mg/ml solution kept in multiple FROZEN aliquots"

There are several factors that contribute to the degradation process. The example given addresses three of them:
100mg/ml vs. 24mg/ml,
kept on a shelf vs. kept in the freezer,
and the (implied) single container vs. (stated) multiple containers ("aliquots.")

You are not quoting it correctly either. You wrote:
"A 100mg/ml solution, kept on a shelf, will only last a "short time"..."

That is not what it says. At least not the way you wrote it.

You're right, it doesn't say "short time." Instead, it says "short shelf-life" and "will keep for less time." I may have paraphrased a little bit, but I don't think I've changed the meaning of what they said.

 

[Art Mustel]

There are several factors that contribute to the degradation process. The example given addresses three of them:
100mg/ml vs. 24mg/ml,
kept on a shelf vs. kept in the freezer,
and the (implied) single container vs. (stated) multiple containers ("aliquots.")



You're right, it doesn't say "short time." Instead, it says "short shelf-life" and "will keep for less time." I may have paraphrased a little bit, but I don't think I've changed the meaning of what they said.

No, you are not reading it as it is meant. They are comparing the fact of keeping 100mg/ml nicotine on a shelf versus making 24mg/ml aliquots of it and keeping them frozen.

And it reads exactly: "some may only see a short shelf-life for a 100mg/ml solution KEPT ON A SHELF compared to a 24mg/ml solution kept in multiple FROZEN aliquots"

 

[bwh79]

No, you are not reading it as it is meant. They are comparing the fact of keeping 100mg/ml nicotine on a shelf versus making 24mg/ml aliquots of it and keeping them frozen.

And it reads exactly: "some may only see a short shelf-life for a 100mg/ml solution KEPT ON A SHELF compared to a 24mg/ml solution kept in multiple FROZEN aliquots"

I see what's going on, here. I think you're hung up on the "multiple aliquots" part, in which case you're missing the point entirely. Note that mg/ml is a concentration, not a volume. If you take 100mg/ml nicotine solution (with the short shelf-life; we agree on this much, yes?) and pour it into several separate bottles, it is still 100mg/ml, only there's less of it in each individual container. Only by diluting it with additional PG/VG base liquid does it become 24mg/ml (the one that's said to last longer), or any other concentration less than 100mg/ml. I hope this clears up any remaining confusion. Otherwise, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

 

[Art Mustel]

I see what's going on, here. I think you're hung up on the "multiple aliquots" part, in which case you're missing the point entirely. Note that mg/ml is a concentration, not a volume. If you take 100mg/ml nicotine solution (with the short shelf-life; we agree on this much, yes?) and pour it into several separate bottles, it is still 100mg/ml, only there's less of it in each individual container. Only by diluting it with additional PG/VG base liquid does it become 24mg/ml (the one that's said to last longer), or any other concentration less than 100mg/ml. I hope this clears up any remaining confusion. Otherwise, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

i know what is concentration and what is volume, and i also know you are misunderstanding that statement. it is clear but you don't take a second to try to realize they are talking about 100mg/ml on a shelf versus 24mg/ml frozen.

We don't have to agree, guess we just disagree. But the important thing here is the op. Hope he does what is best for him.

 

[Dusif]

Let me make your life alot easier... Make a premade batch of your favorite pg/vg mix as a base to work with, add nicotine and flavor to a bottle and top off with the premade base

 

[Quitter]

First off, thank you all who helped me out of my math dyslexia!! I can now confidently dilute my 100mg base!

Didn't mean to drum up an argument on shelf life, but I'm kinda glad it did. I bought a 1/2 litre of 100mg VG base from e-liq (great prices!!) and have been keeping it in a dark drawer, but at room temp. Sounds from the discussion that I may not be able to vape all this before it goes "bad". Short fix is to get it into a freezer, which I will do for sure. But what constitutes it going bad? Does it simply weaken? or does it develop some other health risk anomoly?

The way I have done this kind of DIY in the past, I would buy 100mg nic and a quantity of PG & VG. I mix up a target nic quantity without any flavoring (usually about 8oz) and use this to mix in smaller quantity flavor experiments. So in my case, I'll be doing the mixing recommended by my expert panel here to get a 6mg "base" (of course it'll be a little stronger than that to allow an average of 10% flavor mixing) and making up 10 or 30 ml batches.

I started doing this sheerly out of economy years ago when 30 ml bottles from vendors would cost $20+ ea. But any more with larger wholesalers like e-liq, I may be just as well served buying litre batches of unflavored target nic juice from them and bypassing all of the chemistry/dilution exercises! (a 1 litre bottle of 50/50 PG-VG at 10 mg is like $14!!)

Then again, I have a huge amount of 100mg juice to go through before I do that!!!

Again, thank you all for your input and patient advice. These forums, and the excellent people who contribute to them, have helped me immeasurably over the seven years I've been vaping!!

 

[Hoosier]

Bad, it goes bad in taste first. The worst I've encountered to date tasted like holding a copper penny in your mouth while licking slime off a day old fish.

Since it made whatever it was mixed with taste like that, I call it "bad". It had a brown color to it too, but I've had tan colored nic's that hardly had any flavor.

Usually like to see a slight rose hue as that seems to be the most flavorless.

 

[Quitter]

So, as a guess, how long should my 100mg VG base "last" if kept in the freezer?

I put it there after reading the responses and man, it gets thicker than molasses in Alaska! I assume I have to thaw it when I'm ready to use it. No way this stuff will pour out!