Awesome! And thanks for sharing
Wethinks if everyone would just give it a try, they'd have a VERY positive report! - Status
Awesome! And thanks for sharing
Wethinks if everyone would just give it a try, they'd have a VERY positive report! 
Forgive me for being stupid, when is ACV called for(what type of recipes)? And correct me if I'm wrong, Em(cotton candy) is mainly for baccy mixes, sweetener ie: marshmallow, sucrolose, stevia, etc.etc is for bakery and fruits and sweets? AP for nut mixes and for adding a nutty background to baccy mixes? Smooth is for any mix needing smoothed out? VW to smooth and blend multiple flavors?
I've been reading thread after thread, recipe after recipe, sticky after sticky and it's just a bit overwhelming to a noob such as myself. Thanks
I've been reading thread after thread, recipe after recipe, sticky after sticky and it's just a bit overwhelming to a noob such as myself. Thanks
I use marshmallow in a lot of my tobacco mixes and Smooth in most every mix....but then, I only do tobacco's
There's nothing stupid (and nothing to forgive) about you being smart enough to ask good questions that will increase your knowledge!
ACV stands for Apple Cider Vinegar. Vinegars & Lemon Juice are added to increase acidity - which sometimes helps certain flavors to "pop" (be a bit stronger & more prevalent). Many of us have experienced that while this is true - it is temporary effect...and can actually cause a flavor loss over time. Many say that lemon juice is for fruits, while vinegars are for tobacco.
EM (Cotton Candy) is Ethyl Maltos crystals (typically mixed at 10%). It's an additive that is sometimes referred to as a "sweetener"...but anybody that has vaped it straight knows it adds very little true "sweetness". Too much equals a 'burnt sugar taste'. It tends to help 'blend flavors' and smooth off sharp edges; it adds a "marshmallow type" thickness to juices, and tends to dull flavors (sometimes substantially). In our estimation, it's "sweetness factor" is substantially less than what adding real marshmallows to real recipes would provide. It can be used in any juice, as desired (it's not just for tobacco). Just like with most additives, test all your juices/recipes without it before adding it
True sweeteners, like sucralose/Splenda, stevia, etc - actually sweeten like plain sugar sweetens food. Use sweeteners anytime you simply want a juice to be sweeter. Fwiw, with over 350 different flavors and thousands of trials (hundreds of mixes), we RARELY find it necessary to add sweetener to anything. Ymmv, of course...but start without, taste, and then add slowly at small percentages (just like any additive). It's much easier to 'add more' than it ever is to 'subtract'.
VW (Vape Wizard) MM (Magic Mask) by FA, and Smooth (by TFA) are not true "flavors" (even though VW & Smooth have some type of flavor added). They are chemical blends that are used by flavor chemists to artificially alter the action of our taste buds & taste receptors, temporarily causing us to perceive that something tastes different than it actually does. (Yes, we did confirm this directly with TFA). We prefer to alter our juice recipes rather than chemically alter our taste buds...but we're all free to prefer whatever they'd like.
AP is Acetyl Pyrazine a flavor chemical that is very reminiscent of Frito's corn chips (when used at strong levels)! However, used in lighter percentages, it works to add a 'baked note' and/or a nutty taste. While some use it straight (typically at a certain amount of drops per ml, but sometimes as a percentage), others prefer to dilute it and then use it as a "percentage". We keep 10 ml bottle of VG into which we've added 2 drops of AP and use that in the low percentages. (I believe you'll find that recommendation earlier in this thread, but we may have seen it elsewhere).
'Hope that helps along your DIY pathways!
Yes I believe it's by TFA and it's susposed to meld predoment flavors with the rest of the flavors in effect smoothing out the over all mix. FA makes the same thing called vape wizard.
FA - MTS Vape Wizard - MyFreedomSmokes.com
http://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/p-7430-smooth-flavor.aspx
Here is a good description of it from the previous poster
VW (Vape Wizard) MM (Magic Mask) by FA, and Smooth (by TFA) are not true "flavors" (even though VW & Smooth have some type of flavor added). They are chemical blends that are used by flavor chemists to artificially alter the action of our taste buds & taste receptors, temporarily causing us to perceive that something tastes different than it actually does. (Yes, we did confirm this directly with TFA). We prefer to alter our juice recipes rather than chemically alter our taste buds...but we're all free to prefer whatever they'd like.
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I've been using TFA Sweet Cream to smooth out sharp notes in my fruit vapes
I use a 8% mix and add about 5 to 10% to the Fruit mix.
It seems necessary with Lychee (3 to 5%) plus some sweetener (tfa cotton candy).
Sweet Cream will taste almost "cafe.like" at high percentages so be careful
I use a 8% mix and add about 5 to 10% to the Fruit mix.
It seems necessary with Lychee (3 to 5%) plus some sweetener (tfa cotton candy).
Sweet Cream will taste almost "cafe.like" at high percentages so be careful
Ok I am still a bit confused? How much % wise of total mix should I add of the saline and distilled water? Looking to make 70vg/30pg mix.
3-4 % should be good. I use 3% for 65vg/35pg and it work for me.
I got a few packets of SInus Wash that said to mix one with 8 oz of water…
i'll use filtered or distilled, but should I use hot water?
its 2300mg sodium chloride, and 700mg of sodium bicarbonate… (3 gram) once i get that 8 oz of liquid, what % saline will that make?
i'll use filtered or distilled, but should I use hot water?
its 2300mg sodium chloride, and 700mg of sodium bicarbonate… (3 gram) once i get that 8 oz of liquid, what % saline will that make?
Salt will NOT truly vaporize, period. It is an ionic compound, and to get it hot enough to even start liquifying you are in a volcano.
What comes out of an e-cig however is not exactly pure vapor either. It is a complex mixture of vapor and tiny entrained droplets which could in fact lead to a salt flavor - not because the salt vaporized, it never has and never well in an e-cig atty, but it could be entrained as dissolved salt in the vapor stream which would result in salt taste.
Salt will dissolve and that can affect the both solubility and vapor pressure of other components that will vaporize and therefore affect taste. At these levels I am rather skeptical, and tend to lean towards a mode of action based mostly if not entirely on the water you are adding via saline solution rather than the salt itself.
Also many people keep referring to sodium chloride /sodium bicarbonate blends. Sodium bicarbonate can affect the pH and this can have a profound effect of flavor. If you are using a mix that includes bicarb you can no longer make any statement about the effects arising from the presence of the saline, because the effect of modifying the pH will "confound" any conclusions you draw about adding salt.
IMO this thread has a mismatch of too many variations, too many variables to make any kind of conclusions or even consider the merits of adding saline.
OTOH, adding:
water
Experimenting with pH by:
sodium bicarbonate (alkaline)
ACV, citrates, malic acid (acidic)
are all areas where I could see a real potential for affecting flavors.
But to draw any conclusions you absolutely must control variables - i.e. change only one thing at a time, do a lot of experimenting in a carefully documented, systematic, disciplined fashion - to ever hope to even have the possibility of getting some kind of working knowledge of controlling flavors via these modifications.
That takes a lot of time, effort, discipline, and methodical, copious record keeping.
As far as just tossing in some 0.9% saline, if you think it does something, go for it. But I remain skeptical that the salt itself is doing much if anything.
What comes out of an e-cig however is not exactly pure vapor either. It is a complex mixture of vapor and tiny entrained droplets which could in fact lead to a salt flavor - not because the salt vaporized, it never has and never well in an e-cig atty, but it could be entrained as dissolved salt in the vapor stream which would result in salt taste.
Salt will dissolve and that can affect the both solubility and vapor pressure of other components that will vaporize and therefore affect taste. At these levels I am rather skeptical, and tend to lean towards a mode of action based mostly if not entirely on the water you are adding via saline solution rather than the salt itself.
Also many people keep referring to sodium chloride /sodium bicarbonate blends. Sodium bicarbonate can affect the pH and this can have a profound effect of flavor. If you are using a mix that includes bicarb you can no longer make any statement about the effects arising from the presence of the saline, because the effect of modifying the pH will "confound" any conclusions you draw about adding salt.
IMO this thread has a mismatch of too many variations, too many variables to make any kind of conclusions or even consider the merits of adding saline.
OTOH, adding:
water
Experimenting with pH by:
sodium bicarbonate (alkaline)
ACV, citrates, malic acid (acidic)
are all areas where I could see a real potential for affecting flavors.
But to draw any conclusions you absolutely must control variables - i.e. change only one thing at a time, do a lot of experimenting in a carefully documented, systematic, disciplined fashion - to ever hope to even have the possibility of getting some kind of working knowledge of controlling flavors via these modifications.
That takes a lot of time, effort, discipline, and methodical, copious record keeping.
As far as just tossing in some 0.9% saline, if you think it does something, go for it. But I remain skeptical that the salt itself is doing much if anything.
You can use cool water and it should make a 1.6% solution. How much you use depends on your pg/vg ratio.
Wow this was a great read. Took a few hours but well worth it. I think that I will be trying the saline, mostly to combat the drying effects of vaping, any flavor enhancing would be a bonus, but not the objective. Thanks everyone who took the time to do research and testing and thanks for sharing.
Very good information here....thanks. I'm tending to agree with you on this. I've noticed changes in flavor over the short term and have began to wonder if just adding water will help throat irritation by introducing more moisture and if the salt or bicarb is really nessessary. I haven't experimented enough to draw any conclusions. but the saline/bicarb solution seems to be doing it for me for now but as I mentioned earlier flavor does take a hit.
I've gone back and forth with adding the Sodium Chloride (No Sodium Bicarbonate) versus just Distilled Water and I can't tell the difference.
I've read a few recipes where they use DW to get that effect I think i'll try that first
One recipe called for .5ml DW in a 30ml recipe
Hello all, great thread here. I have been making DIY for a while now, and have started vaping max VG. I've noticed it's really drying me out - slight throat soreness and irritation, dry nasal passages. The DW/saline thing looks like the direction I need to take, my question is how integral is PGA when all I am really after is something to 'soften' my juices a bit?
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