I have been doing DIY for about a year now. I keep my pg, vg, and flavorings in the refrigerator. I'm wondering, if kept in this condition, is there an expiration on them? I haven't had any bad taste or anything just wondering more than anything else. ..
Do vg, pg, and flavorings go bad?
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PG and VG will last a long time. The flavoring will go bad after just a few months with some lasting longer than others. Most flavor manufactures will advise to keep them in a cool, dry & dark place but not refrigerated.
I keep flavorings in a cool/dark place (i.e. cabinet)... Broke out some recently that I had stored like that for 4-ish years... was exactly the same as the new bottles I had just bought. I'm not saying that some won't turn, but I've never seen it or heard of it.
I have flavoring that is over a year old which I store in a cool dark place. They still taste great. So I would imagine extracted natural flavoring may go bad in a few months but synthetic flavoring should stay good a long while.
Here is what Linda over at TFA has on her web site.
THE FLAVOR APPRENTICE
SHELF LIFE FLAVOR INFORMATION
Concentrated flavors do not spoil, or go rancid, like fruit juices can.
But under certain conditions they can change.
In other words, you will notice that a "fresh" bottle might seem different from an older bottle.
Basically, what my flavor manufacturer tells me is
that the flavors have a shelf life of at
least three to six months and often much longer, when they are not continuously opened
and are stored in glass. It is not necessary to store them in the refrigerator, but I don't
think that this would hurt them. But sometimes refrigeration can cause re-crystallization
of flavors that have a lot of the crystals like ethyl maltol in them.
Here's some background.
Every concentrated flavor is a mixture of raw materials, and every flavor blend can act
differently. For example flavors that have a vanilla characteristic are going to have
slightly different storage capabilities than fruitflavors. Here's the reason.
Vanilla and caramel flavors are mostly made of large molecules like vanillin, ethyl
vanillin , etc.
These molecules are not very volatile, and tend notto escape the bottle when you open it.
They will be fairly stable. Fruit flavors, on the other hand, are made of much smaller
molecules in general. Whenever you open a bottle, it's the lightest and smallest molecules
that escape and reach your nose quickly. Over time
when you open a bottle over and over
again more and more proportion of these lighter mol
ecules leave the bottle and eventually
the character of the flavor will be changed. This d
oesn't mean the flavors spoiled, it's just
different. So this is one piece of advice, if you a
re going to store a flavor for a long period
of time, transfer the flavor to smaller bottles that will you will not have to open over and
over again.
also, when a flavor is warm, like if it's a hot day, when you open the bottle even more of
the volatile molecules will escape, much more will
escape than if the flavor was cool.
This is true for all liquids, when liquids are heated the molecules are much more easily
converted to their gaseous state. So in general it
is a good idea to keep the flavor cool
though I don't think refrigeration is necessary.
Also, in general, it is best not to store these flavors long-term in plastic.
The plastic that we ship our larger sizes in ( 4 ounces and above), is HDPE plastic, which
is very resistant to interaction with the flavors.
but even with HDPE plastic, I really wouldn't recom
mend storing them for longer than a
month or so.. It's much better to store things long
-term in glass.
also, it is not a good idea at all to store the flavors with the plastic eyedropper caps on the
bottles. The rubber that's used with the eyedropper
's is extremely soft and interacts
with a great many materials. If you try to store y
our flavors with these rubber dropper
caps attached you will most likely ruin both the caps and the flavors.
i hope this helps, linda
THE FLAVOR APPRENTICE
SHELF LIFE FLAVOR INFORMATION
Concentrated flavors do not spoil, or go rancid, like fruit juices can.
But under certain conditions they can change.
In other words, you will notice that a "fresh" bottle might seem different from an older bottle.
Basically, what my flavor manufacturer tells me is
that the flavors have a shelf life of at
least three to six months and often much longer, when they are not continuously opened
and are stored in glass. It is not necessary to store them in the refrigerator, but I don't
think that this would hurt them. But sometimes refrigeration can cause re-crystallization
of flavors that have a lot of the crystals like ethyl maltol in them.
Here's some background.
Every concentrated flavor is a mixture of raw materials, and every flavor blend can act
differently. For example flavors that have a vanilla characteristic are going to have
slightly different storage capabilities than fruitflavors. Here's the reason.
Vanilla and caramel flavors are mostly made of large molecules like vanillin, ethyl
vanillin , etc.
These molecules are not very volatile, and tend notto escape the bottle when you open it.
They will be fairly stable. Fruit flavors, on the other hand, are made of much smaller
molecules in general. Whenever you open a bottle, it's the lightest and smallest molecules
that escape and reach your nose quickly. Over time
when you open a bottle over and over
again more and more proportion of these lighter mol
ecules leave the bottle and eventually
the character of the flavor will be changed. This d
oesn't mean the flavors spoiled, it's just
different. So this is one piece of advice, if you a
re going to store a flavor for a long period
of time, transfer the flavor to smaller bottles that will you will not have to open over and
over again.
also, when a flavor is warm, like if it's a hot day, when you open the bottle even more of
the volatile molecules will escape, much more will
escape than if the flavor was cool.
This is true for all liquids, when liquids are heated the molecules are much more easily
converted to their gaseous state. So in general it
is a good idea to keep the flavor cool
though I don't think refrigeration is necessary.
Also, in general, it is best not to store these flavors long-term in plastic.
The plastic that we ship our larger sizes in ( 4 ounces and above), is HDPE plastic, which
is very resistant to interaction with the flavors.
but even with HDPE plastic, I really wouldn't recom
mend storing them for longer than a
month or so.. It's much better to store things long
-term in glass.
also, it is not a good idea at all to store the flavors with the plastic eyedropper caps on the
bottles. The rubber that's used with the eyedropper
's is extremely soft and interacts
with a great many materials. If you try to store y
our flavors with these rubber dropper
caps attached you will most likely ruin both the caps and the flavors.
i hope this helps, linda
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