HELP, Mixing/Cutting percentages?

[Airwizard24]

I use the ego-c by joyetech and LOVE IT! But I am still not quite sure if I am using the ratio's properly. I found an awesome e-liquid calculator for my i-phone called Liquix. I have reviewed you tube videos for countless hours and most of them are either promoting a product or,"Winging it". I have everything I need. right now I am pre-mixing a 60/40 PG/VG blend and using 100 mg PG based nicotine. I calculate for a 24 mg nic outcome and I have been shooting for a 46% flavor based on a guy named,"Phee", on you tube. I hate this winging it stuff. When or if I ever figure out a successful and specific science for the best vape, I will post and probably do a first you tube video just to try and help the more detail oriented individuals out there that like specific parameters and have no where to turn to start their own successful and personnel e-liquid lab. Can anyone provide some guidelines in percentages for mixing. And how does water enter into the equation? Should it be used and why? Some flavors have water and alcohol in the blend primarily consisting of PG, but they do not list the ratios so that I can calculate it into my mix...FRUSTRATING! And I don't know if I should with the water and alcohol being in it. I've heard that you need no more than 20% VG for good smoke. Some use no more than 10 to 20 percent flavor and I can understand the difference in flavor ratios depending on the intensity of the flavor. Any Vets out there...Please Help!!!

 

[classwife]

Welcome to ECF Airwizard24

After you get your post count to 5 and the system refreshes you can participate in the DIY forum...I think you are gonna have a lot of fun there !

DIY E-Liquid

 

[Airwizard24]

I'll check it out. Thanks.

 

[classwife]

So...what flavors are you going to be working on ?

 

[sailorman]

You might want to take a look at the juice calculator called ejuicemeup. I've used Liquix and I found ejuicemeup to be a lot better and more accurate and flexible. It's free for the downloading and also contains a database of recipes.

I use 15-20% flavoring in my juices. I have a limited tolerance to PG, so I use 70%VG, and with 15-20% flavoring it's still pretty strong. I think 46% with 70% PG might be a bit too much, but it depends a lot on where your flavorings come from. I use TPA, Decadent Vapours, Loranns and Capelas.

Water is used for thinning. Alcohol adds throat hit and helps dissolve some oil based flavors, like citrus. Either of them are usually used at a rate of less than 10% combined. Ejuicemeup has a section to include the % of PG in the flavorings. I generally assume 100%PG unless I know otherwise, which I rarely do since almost no one lists it.

Like Classwife says, you can get a lot more info in the DIY section.

 

[Airwizard24]

Classwife: thanks for the guidance...who knows how long it would have taken me to get there to notice allot of great topics of discussion. To answer your question, after reading sailormans response I tried something new. I just got some Raspberry from TFA last week and I mixed 10% cheesecake from loranns with 5% Raspberry that are both pg based then about 10% vanilla clear that is water based which I didn't know until it came in the mail. I call it Rasberry Vanilla Cheesecake. I assumed by what Sailorman said about water being used as a thinner and figured it must be for when your vg content is high and too thick. My flavor was only 25% the lowest ive ever mixed. Then I used 70% vg and the rest pg and it is the best mix I've made yet!!! The hit was shall I say...cleaner if that makes sense and the taste was more vivid. It could be just my taste changing since my last analog cig pack and a half smoking on the 9th. I have had 1 or two cigs a day from the remaining packs I had left over just to remind me how much like crap they taste! I need to get this mix technique down soon before I revert cause even though I got a better mix this last time... Something is still just a little off from being fulfilling and I don't know what it is. By the way...thanks for the tips Sailorman. I you have any more tips with specifics I'm all eyes and ears!!! I'll try reducing my flavoring to 15% like you've suggested. Are TFA, and lorann both high strength? I'm assuming or hoping TFA is 100% pg cause that's whatvim calculating but it doesn't say! And loranns has pg, alcohol and water but not the ratios so I can't account for the water and alcohol with lorann.bit searched the FDA site to see if I could find the ratios. No luck! I guess people who use loranns for mostly cooking don't need those specifics, just good flavor. Sincerely... Thank you for taking the time to give me your input.

 

[Airwizard24]

Sailorman: by the way...ejuicemap is not available on the I-phone. I was excited to see that! Thanks though. Maybe I can pull it up on my desktop?

 

[Caridwen]

I don't know what percentage most people use, but 46% strikes me as pretty high. I use about 10%, sometimes less. Not saying that's whats right or what you should do, but that's more than enough flavoring for me. Too much flavoring has the same taste as not enough- it sort of cancels the flavoring out. You just have to experiment with that one.

Personally, I buy a base very close to what I vape, then just mix in a small amount of PG or VG & flavoring in. I happen to prefer high PG so I buy a PG base nicotine and just add a small amount of VG and flavoring. Much easier for me that way. I make up my batch of base as soon as I get it, put it in small bottles and add whatever flavoring I want to vape.

 

[Airwizard24]

Yeah...my last batch at 20% flavor has by far been the best flavor experience thus far. Thanks for your advice.

 

[Caridwen]

Just a basic- if you wanted 20% flavoring- 100mg nic PG- target is 24mg 60 pg/40vg, making 20 ml-

2.4 ml nic
7.6 ml pg
6 ml vg
4 ml flavoring

That's rough because I don't know what kind of flavoring you have. You can always add more flavoring.

40% flavoring

2.4 nic, pg 5.6, vg 4, flavoring 8 ml

 

[sailorman]

Sailorman: by the way...ejuicemap is not available on the I-phone. I was excited to see that! Thanks though. Maybe I can pull it up on my desktop?

Yeah, you can run it on pretty much any Windows desktop.
As for PG in the flavorings, the TPA website lists the contents, but not the exact percentages. It's not that critical really, if they use high alcohol, they'll mention they can't ship by air. If they don't say that, I assume up to 10% alcohol. As a rule of thumb, I assume 100% PG and deduct 5 to 10% for the other ingredients like water or alcohol. It's close enough really.

The TPA site will let you know if one of the flavoring is unusually strong. They'll tell you to start at 5%. Most of the others fall into the 10-20% range, if used alone. I don't remember what Loranns does. They're about the same strength, but most of them taste a little candyish to me. It's really a trial and error thing. Keep notes and save recipes that work, or don't work, because you can pull them up later to tweak them. That's another good thing about ejuicmeup. It has a pretty detailed ingredients screen, so you can keep track of everything. You can also print out recipes or make recipe cards.

 

[Warren D. Lockaby]

Hi & Welcome to ECF! Personally I experiment in small amounts, like usually 5 - 6 ml at a time, and record it with the ejuicemeup! calculator. Then as I make little tweaks and adjustments it recalculates them, so when I get it the way I *think* I want it if it's a keeper it can be saved or printed & replicated in larger quantities later on. Got a couple of juices I'm playing with now, trying to get right for standard resistance cartos on a 3.7 volt PV just to see if it can be done. I'm not yet sure, but in the process I've discovered a couple interesting new (to me) juice flavors!

AFAIK most if not all of these flavorings began life as food flavorings or fragrances; vaping came along later and provides a new market for the flavoring producers. OTOH, some substances in certain food flavorings are not safe to vape. I believe this information is available on The Flavor Apprentice site, and/or here on ECF's DIY Forum. Anyway some care needs to be taken, and a number of safety precautions should be observed by anyone getting into DIY e-liquid making. I'd suggest reading everything available to promote safe & careful handling of all these products, especially the nicotine base.

Best of luck, & Happy (& Safe) Vaping!

 

[bilos2511]

try a eliquid calculator!

PS: Get a look at: ejuice me up!

 

[Airwizard24]

Thanks for the words of wisdom. I have a gallon of food grade PG from Natures Flavors and it works great but recently discovered I should be looking for Pharmaceutical grade stuff. At least I didn't go to a Hardware store to get it like allot of vapors are doing. I hope food grade isn't harmful so I can get my moneys worth out of it, which I wouldn't think it would be with processes in place during manufacturing to qualify it as a consumable. Above all else I want to know what i'm doing and try not to over complicate it at the same time. But I am a attention to detail person, (Created by Uncle Sam).

 

[Airwizard24]

I am definitely going to do this since everyone who seems to know what they are doing keeps referring to it. I have used other calculators on my desktop in the past but they were not specific enough for me. Thanks for you advice.

 

[Airwizard24]

try a eliquid calculator!

PS: Get a look at: ejuice me up!

I am definitely going to do this since everyone who seems to know what they are doing keeps referring to it. I have used other calculators on my desktop in the past but they were not specific enough for me. Thanks for you advice.

 

[Airwizard24]

Hi & Welcome to ECF! Personally I experiment in small amounts, like usually 5 - 6 ml at a time, and record it with the ejuicemeup! calculator. Then as I make little tweaks and adjustments it recalculates them, so when I get it the way I *think* I want it if it's a keeper it can be saved or printed & replicated in larger quantities later on. Got a couple of juices I'm playing with now, trying to get right for standard resistance cartos on a 3.7 volt PV just to see if it can be done. I'm not yet sure, but in the process I've discovered a couple interesting new (to me) juice flavors!

AFAIK most if not all of these flavorings began life as food flavorings or fragrances; vaping came along later and provides a new market for the flavoring producers. OTOH, some substances in certain food flavorings are not safe to vape. I believe this information is available on The Flavor Apprentice site, and/or here on ECF's DIY Forum. Anyway some care needs to be taken, and a number of safety precautions should be observed by anyone getting into DIY e-liquid making. I'd suggest reading everything available to promote safe & careful handling of all these products, especially the nicotine base.

Best of luck, & Happy (& Safe) Vaping!

Thanks for the words of wisdom. I have a gallon of food grade PG from Natures Flavors and it works great but recently discovered I should be looking for Pharmaceutical grade stuff. At least I didn't go to a Hardware store to get it like allot of vapors are doing. I hope food grade isn't harmful so I can get my moneys worth out of it, which I wouldn't think it would be with processes in place during manufacturing to qualify it as a consumable. Above all else I want to know what i'm doing and try not to over complicate it at the same time. But I am a attention to detail person, (Created by Uncle Sam).

 

[Airwizard24]

Yeah, you can run it on pretty much any Windows desktop.
As for PG in the flavorings, the TPA website lists the contents, but not the exact percentages. It's not that critical really, if they use high alcohol, they'll mention they can't ship by air. If they don't say that, I assume up to 10% alcohol. As a rule of thumb, I assume 100% PG and deduct 5 to 10% for the other ingredients like water or alcohol. It's close enough really.

The TPA site will let you know if one of the flavoring is unusually strong. They'll tell you to start at 5%. Most of the others fall into the 10-20% range, if used alone. I don't remember what Loranns does. They're about the same strength, but most of them taste a little candyish to me. It's really a trial and error thing. Keep notes and save recipes that work, or don't work, because you can pull them up later to tweak them. That's another good thing about ejuicmeup. It has a pretty detailed ingredients screen, so you can keep track of everything. You can also print out recipes or make recipe cards.

Your input is very helpful and I appreciate it. I mix in 2 ml quantity's in my trial phase but my understanding of the ideal quantity's has been off so the results have not been as good thus far as they could. I am still searching for it, (the answers), and its there, I just have to find it and what my individual tastes prefer which I understand makes the answer more complicated. Thanks always for your input! Hopefully Ill be the Vape Vet helping others in the near future.
Happy Vaping!

 

[Warren D. Lockaby]

Thanks for the words of wisdom. I have a gallon of food grade PG from Natures Flavors and it works great but recently discovered I should be looking for Pharmaceutical grade stuff. At least I didn't go to a Hardware store to get it like allot of vapors are doing. I hope food grade isn't harmful so I can get my moneys worth out of it, which I wouldn't think it would be with processes in place during manufacturing to qualify it as a consumable. Above all else I want to know what i'm doing and try not to over complicate it at the same time. But I am a attention to detail person, (Created by Uncle Sam).

I'm not certain but I expect food grade should be fine. Out of curiosity you might check & see if the letters "USP" appear anywhere on the container, and/or check the % & identity of ingredients. Anyhow the safety (or danger) of using such ingredients should (I think) be mentioned in the DIY Stickies somewhere (sorry, not much help was I?).

Best of luck, & Safe Mixing!

 

[sailorman]

I could be wrong, but it's my understanding that food grade PG starts out as USP grade and becomes food grade when it is broken down for distribution or otherwise processed by a facility that is not certified to manufacture USP grade products. IOW, if I bought a 55 gallon drum of USP (pharmaceutical grade) PG and broke it down into gallon jugs in my food processing plant, I couldn't sell a gallon of it to you with a USP label. As a distributor or wholesaler, if I sold you the whole sealed 55 gallon drum, I could leave the USP label on it.

Either way, I wouldn't worry about it. As long as it's not agricultural or industrial grade PG, it's not going to hurt you. If you can eat it, it's pure enough to vape. There are no USP flavorings either, but they're food grade.