Hello everyone! + homebrew vape juice
- Thread starter Beelzeboobs
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Welcome to ECF. Tons of information in the DIY forum to get you started, and you can always pose any questions you have (here, or on the DIY forum). Lots of friendly folks, willing to help out and get you started in the DIY direction. DIY is a ton of fun, but it can be a bit overwhelming starting out.
One piece of advice I have, is to taste as many flavors as you can at a Brick and mortar, to get a sense of what you like/don't like. When starting DIY, it can be good to get a few one shot flavors, which are designed specifically for shake and vape, without the need to add other flavors (although you can if you wish) and pretty much shake and vape, and have a good outcome. It can help with the impatience about waiting for your other flavors to steep.
Also, keep good notes along the way, nothing so frustrating as coming upon a mix you love, without enough information to figure out how you got there. Steeping is important, and needs to not be rushed, and you should taste your mixes along the way to determine ideal steeping times and etc.
Best of luck, I hope you enjoy DIY! It is one of my very favorite things about vaping
Anna
One piece of advice I have, is to taste as many flavors as you can at a Brick and mortar, to get a sense of what you like/don't like. When starting DIY, it can be good to get a few one shot flavors, which are designed specifically for shake and vape, without the need to add other flavors (although you can if you wish) and pretty much shake and vape, and have a good outcome. It can help with the impatience about waiting for your other flavors to steep.
Also, keep good notes along the way, nothing so frustrating as coming upon a mix you love, without enough information to figure out how you got there. Steeping is important, and needs to not be rushed, and you should taste your mixes along the way to determine ideal steeping times and etc.
Best of luck, I hope you enjoy DIY! It is one of my very favorite things about vaping
Anna
The more you read about DIY, the more enjoyable vaping will become. One tip: Before you place your first DIY flavor order, you might want to order only those flavors you will need to make 3 or more recipes. Order all the flavors for those recipes. Very few (2-3 flavors out of a 50 or more can be satisfying as single one flavor mix) flavors can standalone.
Most start with using syringes to measure out then go into using a scale. I've been using a cheap fasttech digital scale (this one) for a few years now and it does the job. Scaling is much cleaner and consistent than using syringes but each to their own. Word of caution about buying DIY kit is you overspend and once you realize the DIY I awesome...I haven't come across anyone who started DIY then ended up reverting back to commercial juices.... your going to respend the money on glycubes and liters of nic so buying smaller size 100mg nic(if thats your choice) and liter of each base is a good start. What flavorings are your issues but think K.I.S.S makes DIY is much easier at the beginning. Standalones of your first flavor order at 4 or 5% with a couple weeks steep to get familiar with what to expect rather than shooting the moon on your first mix then disappointment cause its not the vendor juice.
Pick then get familiar with a ejuice calculator and your on your way.
Its much easier IMO like I do is to cut your nic into 48 then use that as my nic for mixes. (freeze the rest of the nic in 50ml shots so I can thaw and serve then make 100ml 48nic at my desk)Much easier to dial into the preferred nic if you didn't buy a kit that gives you a specific nic strength base.
DIY juice being super cheap compared to commercial juice is only the perk...The are so many pro's with DIY, so many ways to go you'll realize how many cons with commercial there really was....starting with not needing to rely on the postal system anymore for your juice, making sure you have in hand all the time. Even unflavored juice with nic isn't really all that bad if it comes down to that.
I don't know if your rebuild yet but it too is something that factory coils just don't cut it. Some 28 gauge wire can make great simple building that produces great vaping.
Have a great journey...it just gets better and better
edit...been DIY for 3 years now and never looking back..still kicking myself for not starting sooner.
Pick then get familiar with a ejuice calculator and your on your way.
Its much easier IMO like I do is to cut your nic into 48 then use that as my nic for mixes. (freeze the rest of the nic in 50ml shots so I can thaw and serve then make 100ml 48nic at my desk)Much easier to dial into the preferred nic if you didn't buy a kit that gives you a specific nic strength base.
DIY juice being super cheap compared to commercial juice is only the perk...The are so many pro's with DIY, so many ways to go you'll realize how many cons with commercial there really was....starting with not needing to rely on the postal system anymore for your juice, making sure you have in hand all the time. Even unflavored juice with nic isn't really all that bad if it comes down to that.
I don't know if your rebuild yet but it too is something that factory coils just don't cut it. Some 28 gauge wire can make great simple building that produces great vaping.
Have a great journey...it just gets better and better
edit...been DIY for 3 years now and never looking back..still kicking myself for not starting sooner.
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Wow, thanks for your extensive reply and all the tips!
I'm really excited to get started. I will definitely look further into building coils I've seen some posts about it on other forums but never really thought about it too hard. Thanks so much!!
This is important. It's not that one method is truly any "better," any more or less "accurate" than the other, but imagine it like keeping time with a digital vs. analog clock. Only, you don't have one analog clock, you have three. One with an hour hand, one with a minute hand, and one with a second hand. And the clocks have to be cleaned and put away each time you look at one. They both tell time just as "well," but one kind is a lot easier to use than the other, especially if you use them a lot.
If you use glass bottles or make larger batches, 200g might start to feel a little "cramped" (the weight of the container does count towards the maximum, even if you "tare" it to zero before adding ingredients.) Most people will recommend a 500g x 0.01g scale like this one from seller "anyvolume" on eBay, or this one from Amazon. I have the eBay one, it comes with batteries and a wall adapter, and does not have auto-shutoff, although it does have the auto-zeroing "feautre" ("not a bug" they say) that you have to be aware of when adding very small amounts: it won't register a single drop, sometimes even two, when it's on zero. So then it stays on zero and won't recognize the next drop, and will still stay on zero, so it won't recognize the next one, etc. The solution is to add the first three or four drops quickly, or just start pouring, so that a weight is registered before it "settles," and then individual drops will be counted as normal. If you absolutely must weigh just a very few drops, put something small on the scale to register a weight, and then subtract that amount from the total.
I went a different route. I bought 100mg/ml nicotine in a PG base, then some 100ml bottles. With some oral syringes I got from the pharmacy (they give those out free at the local grocery store pharmacy), I measured exactly where 100ml is. From there on, mixing is made super easy. I think of recipes as percentages of flavorings. one of my recipes is simple... Guava/vanilla custard mix at 6mg/ml nic strength. using the 100ml bottle, %1 flavoring is 1ml . With my nic base, each mg/ml is 1ml of nicotine. So, I add 10-15ml of flavoring (depends on the recipe, 6ml of nicotine, and the rest I fill with VG up to the 100ml mark.. no need to weigh, and after my flavoring and nicotine, I just pour the rest as VG. I could make it a 50/50 mix simply by adding some PG until I have 50ml in the bottle, then fill the rest with VG. It usually takes me about 5 minutes to make a batch of 100ml of juice.7 minutes to make 2 100ml of the same flavor juices. Super easy, super quick, and almost no math or weighing involved.
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