Hello! Intro and questions

[Artizahn]

To all ejuice lovers and vapers. I wanted to introduce myself! I have been vaping as of the last two years. Thanks to ........... and many other sites I have not mentioned yet. I was able to quit a pack a day habit of 10 years. I am grateful for this site and forum. I aspire to have my own little site with recipes, blogging and juices for sale. For now, I am learning and reading as much as I can. A few things. I noticed that the TPA/TFA forum has not been updated in a while. I wanted to know if anyone out there is a big fan of the DIY e-juice and if you buy from TPA formerly known as TFA. If so, can anyone help me to getting the appropriate information on ratios and perhaps even an average mean of what is best for measuring drops to ml's. In other words, what is the mean or average drops per 1 ml for a glass dropper or a pipette for instance or does anyone have a chart they use for each purveyor such as TPA/TFA, Flavor West, etc....??

 

[bacc.vap]

Hello, those questions probably be best answered in the DIY E-Liquid forum. Get your 5 posts in here, then you can ask over there, that is, if you don't get a good answer here.

 

[prairie guy]

My wife and I used a small beaker that reads in ml's and did our own little testing of how many drops = ml with the various boottles and droppers we use.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[dice57]

No problem Art. Wizard Labs is my one stop DIY juice stop for all ingredients and supplies. Get a couple glass flasks for mixing, glass rods for stirring, different size plastic syringes for measuring, a selection of blunt tip needlse, then get you bases, extracts, and what ever you need or tickles your fancy.

Then download the eJuice me up calculator to get your recipe batch measurements. Be mixing up in no time. I personally prefer my nic to be in a PG carrier base, easier to draw through a needle for measuring than VG is.

You'll be mixing like a pro in no time. Hopefully you've already found your VG/PG ratio's and nic level. I personally mix at 70% VG 12 mg nic and 9-18% flavor extract, depending on the recipe and strength of the flavors used.

Start off with small 10 ml test batches, so make sure to get a 1 ml syringe for accurate recipe development, a 10, 20, 50 ml syringes also, ebay has the big ones 60 ml, which are great for large batch measuring.

Don't need a lot of stuff to begin with, heck can use mason jars for mixing, get the 100 mg nic base, will make a lot of juice, a VG by the gallon, since my nic base and most flavor extacts are PG based, I only get PG in 500 ml bottles, usually only have to ad a small amount for the ratios I mix at.

If you've saved all your old juice bottles, well then, wash them out bub, no need to buy more, unless needed. I use mason or kerr jars to store my large batches of juice, then use the 50 ml syringe to fill my 50 ml juice bottles. I tend to mix 2 or 3 large 400 ml batches of juice at a time, that way when I'm getting low on one house select recipe, I have lots of back up flavors, and only have to mix every couple months or so.

Haven't bought premixed juice for 8 months now, love DIY juice.

 

[Artizahn]

Dear Dice 57,

I can not begin to tell you how helpful you are and have been. Thank you for your replies everyone! You are all awesome people. Thank you so much for taking your time to drop me a line. When I first started mixing. I bought from the wrong vendor. Or at least I was not aware of the other vendors catering to the e-cigarette family..I initially got all my nicotine from China when it was still legal to do. Now, there are so many places here in the USA that I get my nicotine only from US made vendors. In addition, I bought bulk VG and PG back then and did not realize what hygroscopic meant. Now, I feel very comfortable mixing batches with TFA's professional flavors. I use a 50/50 blend and I use the same blend for my nicotine to ensure consistency and to make it easier and quicker on me. I use either pipettes for flavor to bottle transferring or I use syringes. I found that 1 ml syringes with a 14-18 gauge needle works well for me.

In addition, I sometimes will either add a little aqueous glycerin to the mix to give myself a nice rounded feel as well as tremendous vapor production. I drop lemon juice on some of my flavors. Talk about getting a rounded chocolate mouth feel with this! Yummy.. With tobacco flavors I use a little vinegar incumbent on the type of tobacco mixed of course. Yes, vinegar helps with tobacco flavors I have found as well as the concentrated lime juice you get int those plastic green lemon/lime's at your local grocery.

In fact, I have found that lemon works in just about anything non-tobacco like. While, cider vinegar works wonderful with tobacco flavors. I am talking about no more than 2 drops per every 10 -15ml's on both additives. There is a lot out there. I ordered some dram size droppers and hope to fit them in all my sampler flavors for an across the board type of consistency.

I have been making my own juice for about a year. I feel comfortable enough that I can even start my own line. Which I am planning on doing. For now, I am just having a great time getting into the whole DIY. It has really changed for me in the last 6 months. I started to go to Wizard Labs for my flavors, Nude nicotine for my nicotine or Vices E-cigarette store which contains FDA approved nicotine bases! Probably the best price on the net you will find including hardware. Same goes for their PG and VG. If I want bulk, I go to Bulk apothecary. One gallon = 8lbs of PG and 5lbs of VG. I like buying directly from the vendors sometimes because WL will not have something I want in stock, a lot of the times.

For a long time I thought that steeping meant actually steeping the PG + VG + Flavor together in glass using warm water underneath. I guess to each one of us everything means something else. I come from the culinary world, so it was an honest mistake. I know about heating nicotine being a double no no..so long as you do not reach a boiling point. But I have done steeping both this way and the way you are supposed to in a dark cool place for long periods of time. Both have availed me some great juices. I do not add my nicotine untill I plan on vaping my juice so I make the flavor profile I want. Let it steep, then I add nicotine. Or sometimes I just make it as I mentioned above and added the nicotine after it cooled a little. The aging process seems to work better after this method and I ensure my 18 mg of nicotine are there. Sometimes I drop to 14-12 mg on stuff I can not get enough of such as my Caramel Mocha or Sugar Cookie flavors..

I agree with you. I think DIY is where it is at for your vaping needs. I look forward to learning more about making juice and keeping up with the latest trends.

Thank you all for your kind responses. I wanted to add I did go ahead and get some glass beakers and volumetric measuring cylinders for my BIG mixing projects.
I am comfortable enough to have at least 8 great flavors I made starting with 6 ml's going up to 12 ml's. Now I have been making all my juices at 20 ml's because my room mate will vape anything I make, so far, he has said that some take longer to achieve their peak than others. However, is it not normal? I found that the M-Type Tobacco flavor that TFA has for instance really starts to pop after 10 days..

Cheers!

Artiziahn

 

[Warpigs]

Welcome to ECF!