Discoloring Juice! Please help!!

[mom2matoskah]

I want to first say that I am VERY pleased with your DIY supplies! The nic juice is superb, the VG and VG are clean burning and everything I have heard they should be! Your TFA flavorings are amazingly tasty and pleasing, even flavors I normally don't like taste good! LOL!


Now for my one problem... I have been keeping all of my DIY supplies in the fridge, top shelf, in a wooden box (far away from my son's curious hands!) so they are always kept cold and in the dark even when the fridge is open. I only keep enough supplies to make about 2 weeks to a month's worth of juice at a time (still wary of supplies going rancid on me after issues with JC juice...) and I mix up one 15ml bottle at a time. I keep my mixed juices in an amber bottle that sits in the windowsil in the kitchen. The window it sits in only gets maybe an hour of sun a day, it is on the shaded side of the house. After about 5-6 days, the juice in the bottle has been tasting kinda icky... I joke with my husband saying it tastes like I am vaping rancid a**. LOL. Yeah, pretty nasty. I read somewhere in the JC forum the idea that the plastic and rubber in the caps MAY have been causing some juice discoloration, even with their amber bottles, so I put all the juice into a clean syringe and put that into the fridge yesterday. When I need to refill, I just pull out the syringe and top off, then put it back (making sure there is space in the syringe for the juice to expand as it cools so it doesn't drip.) I will know in a few days if that fixes my issues with juice tasting nasty before I even get to use it all up.


I was using Stainless Steel CE2XLr5's from MVS ( 510 CE2 Cartomizer XL ) and noticed that the juice was turning BROWN pretty quickly. I would have to wash out the CE2 between fills to get that nasty tasting brown juice residue out, which is really annoying! I thought it may be the CE2s themselves and when I ran out, I ordered a new Vision tank from MV. Here is what I am using, top to bottom, in case this has some bearing on my juice issue:


Drip Tip: Vase Acrylic Black Swirl : Acrylic Vase Drip Tip, Black
Tank: Vision Stone 5ml 2.0 OhM: Vision 5ml 2.0 Ohm Stone Tank Clearomizer
Mod: Silver Bullet, Chrome Body & Switch: AltSmoke.com | Personal Vaporizers | Electronic Cigarette | Ecigs | Silver Bullet - Silver Bullet - Starter Kits
Battery: 18650 XSL 2600 mAh - Protected: AltSmoke.com | Personal Vaporizers | Electronic Cigarette | Ecigs | 18650 XSL 2600mAh Battery - Protected - Batteries - Accessories


I LOVE this setup and the only thing I want to change is the addition of a Phiniac Pyrex glass tank one of these days, the tank and battery lasts me ALL DAY with no fuss at all. The plastic in the tank is limiting when it comes to the flavors I can vape in it without cracking the tank.


My juice is this:


7.5ml Nic Juice (48mg, 100%PG)
1.5ml PG
3.0ml VG
1.5ml TFA Strawberry
0.6ml TFA Vanilla Swirl
0.9ml TFA Irish Cream


Which makes a nice, immediate-vapable Strawberry juice with an 80% PG / 20% VG ratio. Awesome throat hit, great vapor and amazing flavor, under all normal circumstances. The Vision seems to REALLY mute my flavor, but again I am vaping at 3.7v and the juice might taste better at 5 or 6 volts in the tank... until I can get a variable voltage mod, I am stuck guessing... I know the flavors taste different at different voltages and different depending on the tank/clearo/carto you use so that is my theory for now.


I got my new Vision Tank yesterday and filled it in the early afternoon with juice that was freshly mixed (5 minutes prior). This morning, there was about 1.5ml or so left in the bottom of the tank and it was looking a little dark. The fresh mixed juice is almost completely clear, maybe a teeny slight tint of yellowish-orange color but not enough to notice unless you are REALLY looking hard. The juice in the bottom of the tank was kind of a light amber color. I thought that maybe it looked darker because it is in the bottom of the tank, trick of lighting through the tank wall, or some other optical trick that makes it not REALLY browning, just looking like it might be. The color difference was slight, maybe only a shade or two darker from the fresh juice, but the flavor was a little bit off too. Again, hard to tell since the flavor was muted from the first pull on the tank, but it did definately taste different and not just that nice "aged" flavor where it becomes a bit richer... but tasting kind of icky again. Not as bad as in the CE2 but definately less yummy than the fresh juice. And this was less than 24 hours later. I took out my syringe and filled the tank anyway, just topped it off without dumping the leftovers. The juice that I dabbed out from the tank's condensation resovoir was a little darker too. Now, a few hours later, I can still look through the tank and see the clear juice sitting right on top of the darker juice on the bottom. It isn't mixing together well at all, rather sitting there like a gourmet liquor mixed drink, layered and blending only very very slowly.


I am hoping that once Moorea finishes her testing on a phiniac pyrex glass open-wick tankomizer type tank, I will be able to buy a few and get rid of the plastic and rubber issues that I am having with not only corrosive juice (like orange) but I hope that using a glass tank, stainless steel caps and no filler and a glass or stainless steel drip dip, I will be able to get a true, unadulterated and forever yummy flavor in my juice but this issue I am having with the juice discoloring and starting to taste icky is really bothersome. Unless it is just a reaction the juice is having with the plastic or steel in the tank and CE2. Any ideas on what could cause this and what I can do to prevent it?

Sorry for the book-length post, but I figure the more information you have, the less you have to ask for later If knowledge is power, I want you to be ALL-POWERFUL

 

[MiamiMom63]

I think the main reason your juice turns darker is because whenever I have used the Visions/Stardusts, or a tank with cartomizer setup, the device heats that same juice over and over and as it stays in there for awhile being heated up over and over again, it gets darker and usually thicker. Then you top off this slightly darker and thicker juice with fresh unheated juice and notice the difference. Then that mixes up and by the time your CE2 or tank gets low again, the remaining reheated juice is darker and thicker than the first time. The truth is, that's pretty normal and it's because the heat is changing the liquid after awhile. You should pour out the thick tiny remainder when it gets low and start out fresh. After awhile also the CE2 and Tank will just get the juice thicker and darker due to the coil collecting burnt debris over time and getting into the juice. That's when you know you need a new carto. As far as keeping the juice in the windowsill in sunlight even for an hour, I don't think that helps because that heats up the juice also. I would put it in a kitchen cabinet or something instead. I hope this helps

 

[MiamiMom63]

Also, many juices naturally do change color and get darker, but that's okay. I had an almond and vanilla juice that would turn dark red in a short period of time, but was absolutely fine.

 

[mom2matoskah]

Thanks MiamiMom! The heat from the coil is very feasible and probably what is going on! I moved all of my juice into the fridge, where it stays nice and cold, and always in the dark where it will be fresh. The cabinets get pretty hot during the summer, even have to move medicines out of the cabinets to keep them fresh so wouldn't be a good place for juice. The fridge seems to be helping, at least for now!

 

[MiamiMom63]

That's the only thing I don't like about Clearomizers and Tanks is they get the juice funky. Sometimes I pour that small remainder juice into a bottle and use it to drip on atomizers because it tastes fine that way. And I also try not to top off already heated juice left at the bottom with fresh and pour it out instead and start completely fresh, otherwise it does seem to make the juice get even worse the next go around.

 

[mom2matoskah]

That's the only thing I don't like about Clearomizers and Tanks is they get the juice funky. Sometimes I pour that small remainder juice into a bottle and use it to drip on atomizers because it tastes fine that way. And I also try not to top off already heated juice left at the bottom with fresh and pour it out instead and start completely fresh, otherwise it does seem to make the juice get even worse the next go around.

Great idea, that will save me from losing that dark juice, and my hubby can add a little Koolada and drip Woohoo!

 

[RenaissancePuffer]

Great answer MiamiMom63. You and I both use the same method and have the same logic when it comes to the Visions.

I've been known to vape on them long after I should have tossed them, but I'm frugal, so I try and use them until they simply aren't pleasing anymore. Once the dark juice starts to become the norm, it's time for a new one. For me that's at about the 3 week mark.

I keep all of my juices on my desk, room temperature. Some bottles are months old and they taste about the same as they did after they steeped for a week. All of them have changed colors. I believe this is due to the molecules in the flavoring reacting with the nicotine.

 

[MiamiMom63]

yes, I keep all mine at room temperature also but I do keep the a.c. running and if I didn't, I would have to rethink it maybe. They all change color almost overnight usually and slightly darker from that point on but still are fine. And when they are heated up in a clearomizer or a tank they get thicker no matter what. You have to realize the juice is sitting by a hot cartomizer or hot coil and is baking alot so it's bound to affect the juice near the end.