I responded to you indirectly through my response to
@IDJoel above, so I won't hit those points again, much...
To clear some things up you guys where wondering. My hardware is as one said the standard kanthal coils for the Nautilius 2. At 1.7 ohms if im not correct. I vape at around 20-23 watts with those coils. I have not adjusted the airflow that much so I’ll give that a try.
Which coil is this again? I might be wrong but I didn't think there was a 1.7 for the Nautilus mini family. I'm guessing you are using the 0.7, but.. well, it makes a difference though I doubt it is your problem.
To the main subject. So I should invest in some sort of sweetener for my fruity recipes as many of you suggested.
It's hard to say why you don't like the juice you're mixing. Using a couple of good bright fruits with some sweetener is one thing you can try (though saying "a couple of good bright fruits" is a bit vague.) It might be that that's what your palate is looking for. It might not be though. And if not, you'll have to try something else, until you find what works for you (and what works for you might change significantly over time.)
The thing is, 99% of commercial juice makers are using exactly the same ingredients that are available to you (a very small number might be using some secret ingredients of their own, but that's not the norm.) So if you keep experimenting until you find what works for you, you will find things that you like _at least_ as much as commercial juice, and probably a lot better, since you'll be able to tailor recipes for your tastes.
It might take a fair bit of experimenting and research, and some initial expense. I didn't like the first things I mixed very much myself (partially due to some unpleasant nic, but also because I started with some highly rated recipes that didn't suit my tastes or equipment.) And that was very discouraging.
But I kept going, and honestly some of the juice I mix for myself now just _blows all commercial juice I've tried out of the water_, at least for my tastes and palate. And it would cost _very_ little if I were better at restraining my greed for new flavors... even so it costs a lot less than buying premium juice (let alone cigarettes) would, over time.
I can't magically give you the answer here. If I could mix a few small batches of things for you to try I could probably narrow your problem down pretty quickly, because how to do that sort of narrowing is part of what you learn over time when you mix for yourself. But, since the Internet is not yet capable of transmitting actual juice, you're going to have to do the narrowing yourself. The good news is that you'll learn how to do that by doing it. The bad news is that it's going to involve some trial and error, and possibly more failure than success at first.
But I want to go back a couple of paragraphs and re-iterate what I said there. You have access to all the tools you need to make juice that is better, for you, than any commercial juice. This is why people are telling you not to give up. A lot of us had a bad time when we started mixing. We all pushed through it, and I think we're all happy that we did. So we know that you can too, and that you'll be happy you did so. We've been there. Our palates and equipment might differ, but I'm going to guess that we had a lot of the same ups and downs. And that you will have similar ones.
At any rate, I'd be happy to suggest some trials that might help narrow things down for you, and I'm sure others will be as well- shipping costs of flavors are a pain in this regard, but maybe we can figure out a couple of batched orders that will be most efficient in this regard.
I should stop trying to speed up the steeping process and just let nature do it’s thing. One thing is tho, how often should I shake my bottles when they are steeping? And how much sweetener is a good reference point? As I’ve never used that before.
At least while you're trying to track down why you don't like the juice you mix, I'd stay away from all methods of speeding up steeping aside from a good shake. They are extra variables you don't want to have to account for. Once you are mixing juice you like you can experiment with them if you want. I generally disapprove of them, but many swear by their magnetic stirrers, hot water baths, and ultrasonic cleaners.
Shaking is like saving for retirement- its yields compound over time, so ideally you'd do it all at once, at the very beginning. But you might not have the resources to do that, at that time (in this case your arm might fall off.) So go ahead and shake regularly. But it's the initial shake that kicks the steeping process off, so make it a good one.
How much sweetener to use depends on your tastes and the sweetener (for instance CAP super sweet seems to have at least 4 times as much Sucralose as TFA sweetener,) so you'll just have to play with it till you get it right. As
@zoiDman points out Sucralose does not seem to need a steep, so play with that to your heart's content. FLV Sweetness, OTOH, seems to develop over long periods- it's a Stevia-based sweetener, but they claim to have formulated it so that it has less aftertaste than Stevia normally would in a vape. I'm not sure if Stevia in general needs to steep. I don't use it.
I don't usually add things specifically labelled as sweeteners to my juice (aside from mixing other people's recipes, 'cause I tend to follow them religiously, the first time.) But I do use flavors that _should_ be labelled as sweeteners, because they mainly consist of some combination of ethyl maltol, methyl maltol, vanillin, or ethyl vanillin, in varying ratios. Examples include TFA Marshmallow, FA Marshmallow, and my favorite, FA Meringue. FA is not as transparent as TFA about their components, but if I had to guess I'd guess that FA Meringue is mainly a maltol and a vanillin. I prefer the mild sweetness of vanillin, maltol, and VG to Sucralose, but YMMV. So many flavors already include some maltol/vanillin that I often find mixes sweet enough without adding more, but again, YMMV.
And to reply to some others, no I dont smoke anymore. I can take one from time to time but that is very seldom as I dont like cigarettes anymore My sense of smell I would say is about as avarage as it can get. So no special snowflake here.
I didn't mean to offend by asking, but... smoking just kills your sense of smell. And commercial juice is formulated to appeal to dual-users, so it's _strongly_ flavored, and highly sweetened. This can lead to a situation where you haven't smoked recently, but the commercial juice you've been vaping has killed your sense of smell almost as effectively as smoking would.
So thank you all for your tips! Really appreciated. One last thing I would like to ask before you go heywild again with awesome replys, what is you favourite flavour brand? And your favourite flavor of that brand? Need suggestions for my collection
I'd be really interested to hear what you thought of just FA Fuji at 2 and 4 and 6 percent, the same with 1% FA Meringue, and then the same with 0.25-1% Cap Super Sweet (all after about 3 days, cause Fuji has a bit of an alcohol taste that steeps out.) If I were trying to figure out your palate that's where I'd start. There are a lot of similar experiments you could try with bakeries, creams, custards, etc., but they would take longer because of steep times.
