Houston, we have a problem...BE nic titration results

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It is the fact that it is an indicator method that gives much of the uncertainty. But yes, titrating more will increase the accuracy somewhat. Regardless, the kit will give, if done properly, a very good indication of nic level, as long as the liquid is not pH-adjusted by the vendor. BE evidently does not, but I know others do. In those situations, there will be a very large error, giving results much lower than actual nic content. So it MUST be a freebase nic liquid for the kit to be at all accurate, and unless the vendor reveals this info, you won't know.

Those liquids that would not be measured accurately are those with acids added, such as citric acid, ascorbic acid, ... Most likely flavors like lemon, melon etc. Unflavored and tobacco flavored will probably not be acidified.
 
Supplements are not FDA regulated for amounts labeled. We must trust vitamin companies' word.

With the exception of vitamin A (as vitamin A, rather than carotenoids) vitamins don't pose significant danger if the dose it out and are an essential part of our diet after all; very different from drugs. Besides, general trading standards still apply.

Amounts to avoid gross deficiency diseases are one thing; amounts for optimum health are something else. There are still limits to what is good, but way above what are found in, say, a multi-vit.

Over the past 27 years in the US :

Deaths attributed to prescription drugs : ~3,000,000
Deaths attributed to vitamins : 0

So why the big push to regulate vitamins? Because healthy people dent drug company profits?

+++

A case in point re drugs and FDA oversight :

http://www.forbes.com/2006/04/05/cz_rl_advair_magp80.html

With 4,000 deaths a year, asthma drugs could well be killing more people than the disease.

Then there's drugs for the side-effects of drugs, drugs for loosely defined conditions, drugs as pre-emptives, ...

Ritalin, Gardasil, Statins, and on and on; overprescription is rife with many being mandated by government.
 
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Kurt

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Those liquids that would not be measured accurately are those with acids added, such as citric acid, ascorbic acid, ... Most likely flavors like lemon, melon etc. Unflavored and tobacco flavored will probably not be acidified.

I would actually be rather skeptical of the accuracy of almost any flavored liquid. I brought this up on VapeTeam last night. There are 1000s of flavor notes out there, and of varying acidities. Way too much uncertainty. Many tobacco flavors are compounds similar in functional groups as nicotine, and yes, citruses are acidic. I cannot speak to anything other than unflavored freebase nic liquid for the kit test.
 
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Kurt

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carpedebass

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The nic level here is 128 mg (12.8%), not 100 mg. Am I missing something? Or did they just say that their 100 mg could actually be the level I measured for one sample (121 mg)? Anyone?

I really cannot figure out what they're saying...other than the nic level is 12.8% on the sample they submitted for GC/MS analysis. Other than that it sounds to me like they're saying a lot of stuff...often times conflicting.
 

Hoosier

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The nic level here is 128 mg (12.8%), not 100 mg. Am I missing something? Or did they just say that their 100 mg could actually be the level I measured for one sample (121 mg)? Anyone?

Well, besides a batch code for the supplied sample, no, you have the same information we have been going off of. This is the main reason that the emails and words from BE and the little evidence I have seen add up to something not right in my head.

(There is no batch code on the test report. There are nicotine levels that were stated to be impossible.)
 

Spazmelda

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The nic level here is 128 mg (12.8%), not 100 mg. Am I missing something? Or did they just say that their 100 mg could actually be the level I measured for one sample (121 mg)? Anyone?

I think he mentioned somewhere that they dilute their nicotine to a little above 100 mg/ml so that they could fine tune it later (because it's harder to add mgs of nicotine than to dilute it out). iirc he said that the highest they had brought into their distribution facility was 14%. Maybe this is a quantitiation from that step?

Of course, this is just one batch. It says nothing about every other batch that's come through their pipeline and nothing about the accuracy of their final dilution except that it would be expected to be 12.8% or lower (assuming things were mixed well at the time they took their aliquot for this analysis).
 
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Hoosier

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I think he mentioned somewhere that they dilute their nicotine to a little above 100 mg/ml so that they could fine tune it later (because it's harder to add mgs of nicotine than to dilute it out). iirc he said that the highest they had brought into their distribution facility was 14%. Maybe this is a quantitiation from that step?

Yes, the first mass email after the first thread stated 100mg was the maximum that entered the distribution building.

Later communications changed to it entering in the 120-140mg range and adjusted to 100mg and lower.
 

Iffy

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To those that have offered to contribute to defray Kurt's expenses:

Please PM me for his PayPal addy.

I contacted Kurt to obtain his permission to post this and he reluctantly agreed.

Get some rest, Kurt!
thumbsup.gif
 

markfm

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I also took the 12.8% reading as being done on the incoming to their distribution center, too, the stuff they then adjust downwards, final tweak.

The lack of any production lot information makes it a bit of a shrug, wonder how they match paperwork. Does "Lot 256" represent one big container that comes into the distribution center for final downmixing, or does "Lot 256" come in as multiple separate containers, XX gallons each? To me, it would be nice if each container that comes in is sampled, would give a check to see if the mixing that occurred previously had indeed created a more or less homogenous product. (and if it comes in as one really big container, multiple samples would be good).

Spazmelda -- same as you, I'm looking forward to try one of the kits, it might be at home today. The nic base I get I'm quite confident is good, consistent, I've used the same supplier all year, would have noticed if there were significant deviations.
 
I would actually be rather skeptical of the accuracy of almost any flavored liquid. I brought this up on VapeTV last night. There are 1000s of flavor notes out there, and of varying acidities. Way too much uncertainty. Many tobacco flavors are compounds similar in functional groups as nicotine, and yes, citruses are acidic. I cannot speak to anything other than unflavored freebase nic liquid for the kit test.

Good point.

Hopefullt the kit is still useful for getting a ballpark figure; but it might not in the case of flavored liquids, so use with care.

If you have time one day it would be interesting to discover how much difference there might be by comparing unflavored to a few common tobacco flavored liquids of the same strength. I would guess that the difference will be small except where acids are present, as, say, tobacco absolut as I understand it contains no alkaloids and would be things like flavones and ketones. Would be nice to know.
 
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I also took the 12.8% reading as being done on the incoming to their distribution center, too, the stuff they then adjust downwards, final tweak.

The lack of any production lot information makes it a bit of a shrug, wonder how they match paperwork. Does "Lot 256" represent one big container that comes into the distribution center for final downmixing, or does "Lot 256" come in as multiple separate containers, XX gallons each? To me, it would be nice if each container that comes in is sampled, would give a check to see if the mixing that occurred previously had indeed created a more or less homogenous product. (and if it comes in as one really big container, multiple samples would be good).

It the lot number does not match a single mix,the point is defeated. Several mixes should each have their own lot number.
 

markfm

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No disagreement, I just don't know what a Lot size is for them, what it constitutes.

If, say, they do a 50 gallon batch at a time, "Lot256", and decant that into 10 5 gallon containers for use, I wouldn't want just one sample off of the 50 gallons, unless they are really, really, confident in the quality of their mixing. Given that Kurt's test results show a large variance (not just that things were too high, but they were too high by different % compared to nominal), it would appear that they weren't getting a homogenous mixture; take one sample and maybe it tests at 121 mg/ml, take a second sample from elsewhere in the 50 gallons and it may read 140, etc.

Another possibility would be that the incoming was homogenous, albeit too high (since 121 is too far off from 100 to be what I would call good), but that then the final cutting (to 36 or 48) was messed up, which would be two sets of mixing errors, both initial cut and final. At that point it becomes looney tunes land. I believe we have heard that they have at least some bad labeling (wrong volume and mg shown on at least some labels, for example a label showing 250048 should have been 500100), two mixing errors aren't beyond the realm of reason, just sad.
 

mostlyclassics

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Said Kurt, in response to my question about doubling the test quantity (plus the other chemicals) to give a more accurate reading from the eBay kit,

It is the fact that [the eBay kit] is an indicator method that gives much of the uncertainty. But yes, titrating more will increase the accuracy somewhat. Regardless, the kit will give, if done properly, a very good indication of nic level, as long as the liquid is not pH-adjusted by the vendor. BE evidently does not, but I know others do. In those situations, there will be a very large error, giving results much lower than actual nic content. So it MUST be a freebase nic liquid for the kit to be at all accurate, and unless the vendor reveals this info, you won't know.

Said kinabaloo,

Those liquids that would not be measured accurately are those with acids added, such as citric acid, ascorbic acid, ... Most likely flavors like lemon, melon etc. Unflavored and tobacco flavored will probably not be acidified.
(Italics added.)

Excellent points! And thanks for your responses. I would add that probably almost all fruit flavors would give inaccurate results, since so many of them have organic acids in them, even if they don't taste tart.
 
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