How do I calculate the flavors?

[PatriciaA]

I'll be making a VG base with no nicotine and use several flavors at a time. I've read where a rule of thumb would be 80/20 (VG/water) and 20% flavoring as a good starting point. I understand some flavors are stronger or weaker. If I'm using 3 or 4 flavors, does this mean the 20% is the total amount of all the flavors combined? I am assuming so but want to be sure.

Also I ordered some flavors from TPA/TFA and most of the flavors have PG in them. I don't know if the bottles show the ratio of PG/VG and the website doesn't state the amount. If I use an ejuice calculator and it asks for the amount of PG I'm using and I'm not sure how much is in a bottle of flavoring, will it matter with the final outcome of the juice if I use 0 as the PG amount?

I'm hoping to find recipes but I ordered certain flavors and I'll be trying to make something good with what I've got. Hope these questions aren't too ridiculous.

 

[realsis]

Go online and grab a Free E juice calculator. You will plug in your vital information and it will tell you exactly how much flavor you need.

 

[Hoosier]

I'll be making a VG base with no nicotine and use several flavors at a time. I've read where a rule of thumb would be 80/20 (VG/water) and 20% flavoring as a good starting point.

I've only been mixing for 5 years or so, so it COULD be that I've not seen this rule of thumb because of my short time mixing my own, but I've never heard of such a thing. I have heard of Kurt's Rule of Thumb that flavoring + water = 20-22%. Yours seems to be twice of the one I know of. And I cannot think of a single flavoring out of the...hundreds??...of flavorings I have that 20% is a good starting point.

I understand some flavors are stronger or weaker. If I'm using 3 or 4 flavors, does this mean the 20% is the total amount of all the flavors combined? I am assuming so but want to be sure.

Flavoring % could mean the % of a single flavoring or the total amount of flavoring. In Kurt's Rule of Thumb it is the total flavoring + water that equals 20-22% Also remember you are working with %'s. So if you have a 10ml bottle of just flavoring X at 10% and a 10ml bottle of just flavoring Y at 10%, if you mix both in another bottle, you have a 20ml bottle of XY at 10% total flavoring.

Also I ordered some flavors from TPA/TFA and most of the flavors have PG in them. I don't know if the bottles show the ratio of PG/VG and the website doesn't state the amount. If I use an ejuice calculator and it asks for the amount of PG I'm using and I'm not sure how much is in a bottle of flavoring, will it matter with the final outcome of the juice if I use 0 as the PG amount?

Unless you know otherwise, assume the flavoring is 100% PG for PG/VG calculations. The calculator I use doesn't give a flying fig about PG/VG ratios because I don't give too much concern to it. The juice works or it doesn't. I find chasing certain PG/VG ratios is in the realm of silly unless the vaper has sensitivities to either PG or VG, or they have some odd hardware that only works worth a bean at a certain viscosity. (I have all kinds of hardware from cheap to high end and nothing I have needs a certain viscosity to work great.)

I'm hoping to find recipes but I ordered certain flavors and I'll be trying to make something good with what I've got. Hope these questions aren't too ridiculous.

Questions aren't ridiculous. Answers can be. I've been known to have some pretty ridiculous answers.

 

[PatriciaA]

I've only been mixing for 5 years or so, so it COULD be that I've not seen this rule of thumb because of my short time mixing my own, but I've never heard of such a thing. I have heard of Kurt's Rule of Thumb that flavoring + water = 20-22%. Yours seems to be twice of the one I know of. And I cannot think of a single flavoring out of the...hundreds??...of flavorings I have that 20% is a good starting point.

This is why it's so confusing to us Noobs. I want to make a nicotine free, all VG (with the exception of PG that's in some flavorings) and flavoring and there are so much confusing information. If I had a recipe then I can work it out but I'm ordering flavors and have to work with those. As an example, here's a How To from Novo Cig on a "baseline" for making nicotine free juice:
"If you are making e liquid without nicotine,a starting point for the proportions of you mix is:
- 15% Water
- 15% Flavoring
- 70% Propylene Glycol or Vegetable Glycerin or PG400"

Other How To's have suggested 70%vg/20%water/10%flavor.

I guess I need to find a place where recipes with no nicotine and "how to" is discussed. There have been blogs that I've read that gets into so much detail about PG and Nicotine that it's confusing to me since I'm not interested in PG nor Nicotine. I'm sure I'll look back at my posts at some point and tell myself how stupid I was but for now I need something to help me understand this better. Yes I know about the calculator but it doesn't help me if I'm not sure what percentages to put for flavorings. (head-bang to wall - I'm stoopid stooopid stoopid )

 

[Dave_in_OK]

I would say lets just take it easy- find a recipe you have the flavors for and input the flavors at the recommend percentage in the recipe into the calculator.
Then put the amount of juice to make at say 5ml.
Then input what level of Nicotine you want say 3mg.
Now don't worry about water or PG just VG if you add the percentages up of the flavors and nic subtract that from 100% and what is left is the max VG%.
The only reason to add water is to thin the VG But if your flavorings are PG based that should thin it out enough.
The main reason to add PG is to increase throat hit.


Just my

 

[nclay]

I really like using this site because you can save & share recipes.

http://.......................

 

[PatriciaA]

I would say lets just take it easy- find a recipe you have the flavors for and input the flavors at the recommend percentage in the recipe into the calculator.
Then put the amount of juice to make at say 5ml.
Then input what level of Nicotine you want say 3mg.
Now don't worry about water or PG just VG if you add the percentages up of the flavors and nic subtract that from 100% and what is left is the max VG%.
The only reason to add water is to thin the VG But if your flavorings are PG based that should thin it out enough.
The main reason to add PG is to increase throat hit.


Just my

Would something like this work? Rather than percentages, I want the measurements in ml. I used a recipe that came with this calculator as an example and zeroed out the nicotine since I won't be using any. I made the Target PG/VG 50/50. After calculating, I would add PG (2.5) plus VG (5) and come up with 7.5 ml of max VG. Am I going in the right direction?

 

[amoret]

I would also suggest that you try each of your flavors separately at first, starting at a low percentage (5%? I don't use TFA so I'm not sure) and working up or down to where you like it. That way you get an idea of how each one tastes and what amount of flavor is best for each one. Different flavors, even from the same manufacturer, are better at different percentages. This is easier for you since you're not using nicotine.

Then you can worry about recipes/combinations. And a good way to try the combinations is to mix together some of those single flavor samples. You may find that you want way less or more of one flavor compared to another. I worked out a Cranapple, using already mixed cranberry and apple samples, and found that I wanted a much higher proportion of cranberry to apple than I thought I would.

Good luck -- this can be a lot of fun.

 

[Dave_in_OK]

Would something like this work? Rather than percentages, I want the measurements in ml. I used a recipe that came with this calculator as an example and zeroed out the nicotine since I won't be using any. I made the Target PG/VG 50/50. After calculating, I would add PG (2.5) plus VG (5) and come up with 7.5 ml of max VG. Am I going in the right direction?

That's a good calculator and it will work. But I think you would be better off thinking about the total volume and percentages. Something like this: say you want to test a flavoring so you know that it's needs to be a small batch say 3-5ml.
So the first thing you do is input that into total volume. 5ml
Then you decide where to start on the flavoring (you can find normal starting points for most flavors) but lets say 5%. you put that into the flavor percentage.
Then think about do you want more vapor - High VG%
Or more Throat Hit high PG%
Seeing as your not using nic in this example you could go all the way to 95% VG
Now that may be to high so you may want to add a little PG or water to thin it out.
Now the calculator will tell how much of each to put in the bottle to give you the 5ml total.

Hope that helps.

 

[PatriciaA]

That's a good calculator and it will work. But I think you would be better off thinking about the total volume and percentages. Something like this: say you want to test a flavoring so you know that it's needs to be a small batch say 3-5ml.
So the first thing you do is input that into total volume. 5ml
Then you decide where to start on the flavoring (you can find normal starting points for most flavors) but lets say 5%. you put that into the flavor percentage.
Then think about do you want more vapor - High VG%
Or more Throat Hit high PG%
Seeing as your not using nic in this example you could go all the way to 95% VG
Now that may be to high so you may want to add a little PG or water to thin it out.
Now the calculator will tell how much of each to put in the bottle to give you the 5ml total.

Hope that helps.

Yes it does and thank you Dave. My flavors should arrive sometime this week and hopefully I can make something good.... well, at least decent....maybe even tolerable.

 

[Dave_in_OK]

Yes it does and thank you Dave. My flavors should arrive sometime this week and hopefully I can make something good.... well, at least decent....maybe even tolerable.

Oh you will it's easier than it sometimes sounds just have fun and vape.

 

[thefleck]

Then you can worry about recipes/combinations. And a good way to try the combinations is to mix together some of those single flavor samples. You may find that you want way less or more of one flavor compared to another. I worked out a Cranapple, using already mixed cranberry and apple samples, and found that I wanted a much higher proportion of cranberry to apple than I thought I would.

I totally agree.

I think I will eventually start a blog or something on this because it doesn't seem to be recommended enough. In chemistry you always have stock solutions, and work from there. It's very rare to start by mixing the bases directly, and then diluting them. What I mean is, it's much simpler method to individually mix all your flavors, finding the best % for each. Then you have a bottle of tobacco, a bottle of strawberry, etc. You then mix these "stock solutions" at different ratios, and pow, you have the right combination...30% strawberry, 70% tobacco. With 2 syringes and 15 bottles you could experiment with 15 different ratios in a couple of minutes.

Then, after finding the right combo, you can reverse-engineer the mix so that you've got the right % of each (ie, build your 20% base using the 30%/70% ratio), if you want to create the mixture using base flavor combinations. In other words, the "100DT" I've read about on these forums seems entirely backward in terms of labor and error potential, in my humblest of opinions.

 

[thefleck]

Would something like this work? Rather than percentages, I want the measurements in ml. I used a recipe that came with this calculator as an example and zeroed out the nicotine since I won't be using any. I made the Target PG/VG 50/50. After calculating, I would add PG (2.5) plus VG (5) and come up with 7.5 ml of max VG. Am I going in the right direction?

View attachment 414412

There's a very good calculator on ecigexpress's website. It will give you ml's, drops, and % for each flavor. I highly recommend for anyone who wants to keep it simple.
eJuice Calculator 4.0 | EcigExpress Archive Cookbook