Help with Lorann Blackberry

[SysEx]

I'm relatively new to DIY from scratch, but I have mixed other liquids, cut them, and enhanced them as well with moderate success.

I recently picked up some 50mg Flavorless and a few bottles of Loranns.
blackberry, coffee, vanilla, and banana creme. (after reading the boards it seems coffee and vanilla may have been bad choices)

Mix: 1
3ml | 26mg
30 drops 50mg flavorless
18 drops VG
12 drops Lorann Blackberry (20%)

Mix: 2
3ml | 26mg
32 drops 50mg flavorless
10 drops VG
18 drops Lorann Blackberry (30%)

While both have nice TH and good Vapor (#2 having a nice kick to the TH as well as tastier berry flavor) they also had a noticeable chemical taste to them. I noticed the same thing with when mixing a small batch of Banana Creme as well.

I do enjoy the flavor apart from the slight chemical taste on exhale. Is there something I'm doing wrong with my mixes or an additive that will curb the chemical taste?

 

[Kurt]

I'm relatively new to DIY from scratch, but I have mixed other liquids, cut them, and enhanced them as well with moderate success.

I recently picked up some 50mg Flavorless and a few bottles of Loranns.
blackberry, coffee, vanilla, and banana creme. (after reading the boards it seems coffee and vanilla may have been bad choices)

Mix: 1
3ml | 26mg
30 drops 50mg flavorless
18 drops VG
12 drops Lorann Blackberry (20%)

Mix: 2
3ml | 26mg
32 drops 50mg flavorless
10 drops VG
18 drops Lorann Blackberry (30%)

While both have nice TH and good Vapor (#2 having a nice kick to the TH as well as tastier berry flavor) they also had a noticeable chemical taste to them. I noticed the same thing with when mixing a small batch of Banana Creme as well.

I do enjoy the flavor apart from the slight chemical taste on exhale. Is there something I'm doing wrong with my mixes or an additive that will curb the chemical taste?

It is probably not you. Lorann fruit flavors do have for many here a rather chemical taste. The flavors are afterall not natural extracts, but chemicals meant to mimic the flavor of the fruits, and tend towards tasting more like candy rather than the actual fruits. I found this with Lorann Blackberry myself, as well as other Lorann fruit flavors. I have found, however, that while it is a different direction than you may wish, Lorann Cheesecake is quite good, and mixes with most of the fruit flavors very nicely.

Fruits are difficult to get accurate in flavor form. I am finding that Perfumers Apprentice fruit flavors tend to be much more realistic, at least the ones I've tried. Some really love the candy taste of Lorann's fruits, but I find them too sharp and too much like hard candy. Mixng them with other creamy flavors does help though: Bavarian Cream, Cheesecake, and even Caramel.

Good luck!

 

[zoiDman]

Many people who mix adhere to the 10% rule for flavoring.

Meaning that they do not exceed 10% of the total mix in flavor concetrate. The reason being is that over 10% doesn't give much more flavor. I know for the mixes I do that I don't get much more flavor past 10%. You might try doing a mix and trying 10% flavor and seeing if it tastes better.

But before I did anything I would mix a batch WITHOUT any flavoring. I bought a bottle of unflavored 36mg one time that tasted like battery acid filtered thru old socks. I had to throw it out because no amount of flavor masked the horrible taste of that juice.

One other thing to note is that some Lorann flavors are Oil based and some are Water based. I try to stay with Water based flavor concentrates in that I can't seem to get much info to the health risks of vaping oil based flavoring.

 

[zoiDman]

BTW - I have used about 15 flavors from LorAnn and have never had any issues what so ever with them.

 

[geeker]

A marshmallow base seems to cut the harshness of other flavors IMO. I use marshmallow in tandem with almost everything.

 

[mskitty]

I regularly use LorAnn's and I have found that with the stronger flavors (blackberry being one) I don't ever use more than 8-10% or they will taste really strange. I use the blackberry,peach, keoke coffee and mango weekly. Try cutting your amount of flavoring on a small batch and see if it works better for you. First ones I made I used way toooo mucchhhh flavoring and they were quite frankly nasty. Hope this helps.

 

[Switched]

Too much flavour will send your mix the other way. IMHO 20% is excessive when 10-15% being the norm and 15% still being considered high.

I normally stick to 10% and seldom up to a total 15-18% on complex mixes. My straight tobacco mixes OTOH are between 12-13%. For a tobacco taste in a mix 5% maybe as high as 8% but no more. Keeping the backy ratio down also permits keeping the other flavours down.

Black Cherry, black current and black berry are all extremely "strong" flavours to start with.

In my Cuban Cherry recipe:

• 80/20 PG/VG 30 mg base containing 8% Cuban Supreme Flavouring
• 5% black cherry
• 3% black current
• 5dr marshmallow/10ml of liquid (takes the dryness away)

 

[SysEx]

@Kurt: I have several other Lorann flavors coming in, including cheesecake and caramel. Looking forward to those. I've read good things about Perfumers Apprentice, spose it couldn't hurt to have a couple different to compare. Would be nice to have a chart of users experience comparing the similar flavors between Brands.

@zoiDman: 10% sounds like a good idea. at least for an initial starting point? I had read a thread that listed blackberry as a relatively weak flavor and to start ~15%+. I'm gonna do the taste-less test to rule that out and a 10% mix and go from there.

@geeker: i have some marshmallow incoming too! =)

@mskitty & Switched: i must definately be over doing it with 20% and 30%. it IS quite strong and tough to get the taste of my atomizer. heh

thank you all so much for replies, they've given me lots to think about as a seek the blackberry that suits me. =)

 

[DWTaylor]

I would have to say make a batch with no flavoring to rule out your base juice.
I have used the blackberry, all berries and never ran into that issue.

 

[msqun]

When we first started mixing we were using Perfumers Apprentice flavors and I ALMOST reviewed them in a negative way...after some trial and error I found that the reason for our chemical flavor/perfume flavor almost was the overkill of flavor added of 20%. I agree with most everyone else that's already responded, 10% flavor on most everything and the occasional bump on a few flavors for us to 11-12%. We mixed 1ml at a time until we got our mixes "right" for us. We use Dans ejuice calculator. 26mg PG base with 10% flavor and the rest VG with our end result at 16mg Good luck finding your personal mix taste!

 

[IsaacHomer]

...
Would be nice to have a chart of users experience comparing the similar flavors between Brands.
...

There are several flavors rated in this thread:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/74109-guide-diy-flavoring.html