Hi guys, this is essentially a copy and paste from the new member section. I'm hoping to get more help now that I can post over here. If I break etiquette, please be patient. I have never posted anything on the internet before until I started posting here. I just started diy my liquids because of price and because the flavors in the bottles I've been buying aren't strong enough. And now that I've mixed my first two flavors, I'm having the exact same problem. I started with 10% concentrate and gradually worked my way up to 30% and I'm still not getting much flavor. I'm using the Volcano Inferno with a tube tank (with a Lavatube on the way) and I'm very satisfied with it. Plenty of throat hit and vaper and its reliable. I bought my Nic juice PG70/VG30 with 30mg/ml. I bought extra PG and VG with 0% nic for dilution. The flavors are Root Beer by LorAnn and Bubblegun Juicy Fruit by TFA. I started with 10% and now the recipe is 30%. For 10mL = 5mL 30mg nic, 1.5mL PG, .5mL VG, 3mL flavor. This gets me PG70, VG30, with 15mg/ml nic. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? I've read some posts about sweetener like stevia or splenda, would that help or would it just make it sweeter? Any help would be greatly appreciated. This site is absolutely wonderful! Thank you, hoop50
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To much flavor can give you no taste at all. Reduce the flavors to 5% and let them steep for 3 days then try them.
X2 on dannyv45 advice. He enlightened me. It is very true sometimes less is more when it comes to DIY Eliquids.
Since my mixing blogs were pointed out in the thread you started in the Newbie sub, there's no sense in pointing those out again as you've already read them. They cover too little to too much flavoring and additives like sweetener, but you still seem to be having the same mixing issues, so they weren't helpful.
I'm guessing might want to read dannyv45's blogs on mixing too?
Maybe try out these threads too?
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/e-liquid-recipes/343181-tpa-tfa-recipes-only.html
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/336110-flavor-apprentice-flavoring-thread.html
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/74109-guide-diy-flavoring.html <<(Nikhil notes the Root Beer works between 15-20% but is not a good flavor so if you're not getting flavor in the 15-20% range it would be time to taste test your components to see if any of them have something in them that is covering flavor....dilute nicotine before taste testing should go without saying, but I felt it needs to be said regardless.)
I'm guessing might want to read dannyv45's blogs on mixing too?
Maybe try out these threads too?
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/e-liquid-recipes/343181-tpa-tfa-recipes-only.html
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/336110-flavor-apprentice-flavoring-thread.html
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/74109-guide-diy-flavoring.html <<(Nikhil notes the Root Beer works between 15-20% but is not a good flavor so if you're not getting flavor in the 15-20% range it would be time to taste test your components to see if any of them have something in them that is covering flavor....dilute nicotine before taste testing should go without saying, but I felt it needs to be said regardless.)
Actually I was going to point out your blogs again but at 1am I was just to bleary eyed and tired and was having trouble getting the mouse to point to where I wanted it to. In my younger drinking days this may not have been a problem
Actually I was going to point out your blogs again but at 1am I was just to bleary eyed and tired and was having trouble getting the mouse to point to where I wanted it to. In my younger drinking days this may not have been a problem
I remember reading the OP's post in the Newbie sub and thought there were some good suggestions so I didn't post on it.
You're a dedicated person to be struggling to stay up at 1am to help folks get some good juice mixed! I was already snoozing away.
Hi Hoosier, perhaps a few more questions? I read through your blog and a lot of the other threads you listed. I bought splenda liquid for sweetener; is that okay or do I really need the ethyl maltol? Also, you mentioned taste testing. I'm assuming you aren't saying to stick my finger in the mix and taste it are you? When you say "taste", you are really saying put it in the cig and try it, right? Most of the recipes in the threads you pointed out have a % ratio of 10% to 15%. I started at 10% and didn't have any flavor there either. I wonder if it could be that I didn't add any sweetener? Or, could it depend on where I buy my nic and pg/vg liquids? For the record, I bought a premixed PG70/VG30 with 30mg/mL from a place called e-liq.com, based in California, and they are a subsidiary of ........... based in China. I have not purchased a nicotine test kit yet. I'm at a loss as to how to proceed. I have 21 concentrated flavors from Wizard Labs and they are all TFA and LorAnns. All of the recipes that I saw on the threads were multiple flavors mixed together. I'd just like to keep it simple for now and just use one flavor with maybe some sweetener, if necessary. One poster suggested adding 1 to 2% splenda, and another suggested reducing to 5% and adding the splenda. I will try that for now. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. My friend buys his flavors pre-mixed from a place in Las Vegas here and his flavors are very rich and nice tasting, but he's paying $7.00 per 10mL bottle! Help!
Sure, but let's break up this block 'o text so my eyes can actually process the words.
Lots of reading, that's the first step. Then you shoot the engineer and start building. (Colloquialism from my type of work, we don't actually shoot the engineers...)
Sweetener sweetens. EM does many things and sweetening can be one of the things it does. Do you really need it? I don't know. I know I use it, but I also use a knife when I'm fishin'. EM is a tool, like a Swiss Army knife kinda' tool, but harder to see what does what.
I'm saying drip some in your dripping atty and vape it when I say "taste". When I say "smell" I mean smelling the juice itself. If you don't have a dripping atty, get one. I've seen all kinds of ways to get an idea of what the juice will taste like as vapor, from cool whip, crackers, to water dilutions, but vapor tastes like vapor and vapor feels like vapor, so taste the vapor to get an accurate idea of your mixes. (You might use the other methods to get a hint, but I wouldn't count on more than a hint as texture impacts the sense of taste in a greater amount than most folks realize.)
I usually recommend Ikenvape's I06 and I06 drip tip as a good, long lasting, good flavor transfer, easy to clean, and reliable choice. Best for the $ that I have found and I've tried tons of them. (I have more than one sandwich ziplock baggie completely filled with dead/bad ones to attest to the fact that I have tried many different ones.)
Yep, and that may be completely meaningless. (I'll get to that later.)
Do Cheerios only taste like Cheerios when sugar is put in the bowl? Sweetener may make a flavor "pop", but it cannot make a flavor magically appear out of nowhere.
This could be. The parent company is blocked by ECF filters. At least I continue to Not hear good things about e-liq, so there is a consistent theme going still.
Neither have I. I'm pretty good at judging nicotine content from my body's reaction so never felt the need. Besides I'm more interested in the taste of the nicotine and a test I can do at my kitchen sink is not going to tell me anything I cannot learn with some plain PG/VG and a dripping atty.
This may surprise some newer DIY'ers, but I taste test new bottles of PG, VG, and nicotine every single time I open a new one. I haven't ever opened a PG that didn't taste OK to me, but I have read about some who have. I have found VG's I do not care for and will not use. I started because my first nicotine purchase sucked. It muted every flavor I tried to mix, if I was lucky, and did much worse if I wasn't lucky. (I diluted it down with some plain PG and vaped it in a dripping atty I had just blown out and discovered it tasted like I was standing in a vat of fish slime holding a copper penny on my tongue.)
Taste testing the components is SOP as far as I'm concerned. If a new mixer is having problems and they haven't taste tested their components, I ask them what they taste like. If they don't report back on the taste of the components, then I stop responding. Even your favorite KoolAid will taste bad if you mix it up with swamp effluent.
Two of the threads I linked mostly concern single flavoring mixes and that's why I linked them.
Danny suggested dropping to 5% and it's a good suggestion. Personally I get the taste close before I start adding sweetener or anything else. Now, the question that should pop into your head is "why" if the list of TPA/TFA single flavoring %'s at http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...entice-flavoring-thread-133.html#post10798217 says 15% for Bubblegum did danny suggest, and I say it's a good suggestion, to go to 5%? (The answer is in my Flavoring Level blog for those playing at home, but it is not directly spelled out.)
There are a few things at work here. One, "super tasting", two "flavor sensitivity", three "vaper's tongue", and four "unknown component quality" and none of these things can be known ahead of time by others trying to help. (Some may never be understood by the person who has the issue either.)
Super Tasting means your sense of taste is heightened compared to average which means you will hit levels 7 & 8 sooner than most vapers.
Flavor Sensitivity means that a flavoring or a component in a number of flavorings has a HUGE impact on your sense of taste. EM and sweeteners are the most common to fall into this category, but I've seen it happen with all kinds of flavoring/flavoring components. One example is that some who have FS to EM will taste a sickeningly sweet flavor with a tiny bit of EM that everyone else barely notices, let alone finds anything sweet about it at all.
Vaper's Tongue is well known and there are tons of threads on it here on ECF so if someone reading this doesn't know, look above and click that "Advanced Search", go to "Search Single Content Type" and search posts for the keywords. You'll get over 600 returns.
Unknown Component Quality I have already covered.
So if you have ST or FS, dropping the % of flavoring will be very telling. If you have crappy components, it won't do a darn thing different.
Well Hooiser has been at this alot longer then many of us, and I would suggest taking what he says to heart, but let me add some advice from my own personal experances.
Right now I use LorAnn flavorings and only LorAnns. My experance with the Root Beer is that it's a great flavoring.......for candy.
I've mixed it from 5% clear upto 20% (until I got nothing but a burnt taste) and I couldn't get any flavor out of vaping it. If I driped it on my finger and tasted it (I use a 100% VG base and 0nic. so it's safe) it bursts with flavor.
Just like some flavors are very strong (some mints, clove, and cinnimon you only need around 2%), and other are fairly weak (LorAnns apple needs to be at around 20% for me to taste anything), there are some flavors from certin vendors that just won't carry their flavors into vaping.
LorAnns is a candy flavoring. That's what it was designed to do. Flavor candy and other foods that you eat. So with them it might just be that the formula just doesn't vape well. There are other flavorings out there that are designed just for vaping though.
So basically what I'm trying to say is that some flavors from some manufactures just don't work. Plus there is the subjectiveness of peoples tastes. So go make some root beer candy (which is what I'm going to do with my leftover flavoring) and look around for a good e-juice flavor supplier that has root beer and give their flavoring a shot.
Good Luck!
Right now I use LorAnn flavorings and only LorAnns. My experance with the Root Beer is that it's a great flavoring.......for candy.
I've mixed it from 5% clear upto 20% (until I got nothing but a burnt taste) and I couldn't get any flavor out of vaping it. If I driped it on my finger and tasted it (I use a 100% VG base and 0nic. so it's safe) it bursts with flavor.
Just like some flavors are very strong (some mints, clove, and cinnimon you only need around 2%), and other are fairly weak (LorAnns apple needs to be at around 20% for me to taste anything), there are some flavors from certin vendors that just won't carry their flavors into vaping.
LorAnns is a candy flavoring. That's what it was designed to do. Flavor candy and other foods that you eat. So with them it might just be that the formula just doesn't vape well. There are other flavorings out there that are designed just for vaping though.
So basically what I'm trying to say is that some flavors from some manufactures just don't work. Plus there is the subjectiveness of peoples tastes. So go make some root beer candy (which is what I'm going to do with my leftover flavoring) and look around for a good e-juice flavor supplier that has root beer and give their flavoring a shot.
Good Luck!
Hi Hoosier, thanks again for all the info. Ok, so I think the first thing I have to do is make sure my nic liquids taste correct, and I need a dripping atty to do that. So I have ordered one, and when I get it, I will taste test and then post the results to you. I think I may go ahead and order some nic from Wizard Labs now too. I googled e-liq.com and got a wealth of negative reviews complaining about the taste of the nic liquids as well as the flavorings. So perhaps this is the issue. A lot of the posters seem to like Wizard Labs a lot, so I'm assuming I can't go wrong purchasing the nic from them? What do you think? Do you have other suppliers that are reliable in case they are out of stock again? In the meantime, I will open a third flavor and try it at 5% and steep it for three days like dannyv45 recommends to see what happens. I appreciate all the help. When I post to this thread will you see it? Is there a better way to just post to you? Anyone else who wants to jump in, please do. Thanks again, hoop50.
MFS has a good nic for a fair price. It's not my favorite, but I haven't tried their nic from the new source they are advertizing, so I'll have to try the new stuff sometime in the future to see if I change my mind.
I compare everything to Xtreme Vaping's nic which is the most consistently flavorless nicotine I've ever encountered, but it is pricey.
I compare everything to Xtreme Vaping's nic which is the most consistently flavorless nicotine I've ever encountered, but it is pricey.
Wizard Labs actually had nic, so I ordered some. I'll get back to you and let you know how everything turns out. I know there is a way to do this and I will get it eventually. Thanks again, hoop50
I am new to DIY and I feel like an outcast by buying from Heartland Vapes, purchased some 100mg nic at 50/50 mix.
I hope that product is pretty decent. I've searched and didn't find anything bad about their products.
I hope that product is pretty decent. I've searched and didn't find anything bad about their products.
Hi Hoosier, ok, I ran a few experiments. I got my atomizers today so the first thing I did is test the Sweet Tart with 5% flavoring that has been steeping for 7 days. What I got was a very faint taste of Sweet Tart. Then I tested my 70/30 PG to VG nic 30mg diluted with the same PG/VG to 15mg without any flavoring. First, it is virtually odorless. I cannot smell anything either from the 10mL I just diluted, or from either bottle of PG/VG with or without nic. Second, I really cannot taste anything either. There is no sour or sweet smell, however, after several drags I began to get the "tongue curling" effect, like when I'm about to throw up. I wasn't even close to that, but I had the impression that if I kept dragging for any length of time, I might. I don't get that effect when I mix flavorings. I even tried some Sweet Tart concentrate in the atomizer, and I still only had a very, very faint taste. I have nic coming from Wizard Labs, so whats the next step? Wait until it comes? Thanks for reading, hoop50
Could it be that I'm using too much nicotine? I dilute to 15mg/mL. Perhaps trying it at 12 or 8 might make a difference? It doesn't seem that would matter because I don't detect any taste or smell from the original liquid. What do you think?
I doubt that it would be the nicotine, but then I could be wrong. Have you tried vaping the PG and VG by themselves? The PG should give you a throat hit, and the VG a little sweetness. Other than that they both should not have any flavor or odor.
With your sweet tart flavor it could be that you need to bump up the flavor a percentage point or two. The percentages are just recommendations with flavors from different vendors not being at the same strength, and personal tastes being taken into consideration, you might like it a little stronger than I might. So the key is to start low and gradually increase it til it's just right to your liking.
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Hi, thats what I just did. I vaped the nic diluted with more PG/VG at 15mg and I didn't really detect any taste, just a curling of my tongue after numerous hits. I've been trying different flavors, I started at 10% and worked my way up to 30%, and I just can't get the taste strong enough. Its a very mild flavor, even at 30%. I made the sweet tart at 5% on the advice of a member and it didn't work either (I steeped it also for 7 days). My nic came from e-liq.com and I have some new nic coming from Wizard Labs to try. Any suggestions? Thanks, hoop50
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