How Does Your Local Store Mix e-Juice?

[Coastal Cowboy]

I often wonder if it is even possible to "contaminate" e-liquid that contains propylene glycol.
That stuff kills bacteria, fungus, viruses, and other assorted microbes.

That's exactly what I was thinking after reading the OP. Not only will PG stop the propagation of a pathogen, but I don't think a pathogen would survive very long in a liquid solution containing nicotine. Even if one does somehow hang on and make it into a tank full of juice on your setup, how is going to do when it hits a glowing coil?

 

[mattiem]

Sometimes, IMHO, people go overboard with the whole sanitation thing. I think we are preventing ourselves form developing resistance or immunity to some things and, creating antibiotic and anti bacterial resistant strains of things by being too sanitary. I grew up as a farm kid, out tending or playing with animals, then grab lunch and never wash up, just eat my sandwich dirty hands and all. I rarely get sick, haven't had more than the flu in years, had bronchitis once in my early 20's and, pneumonia at 28. That's it my entire life. I don't catch the cold the grand kids have when they come over, rarely take the flu, even when most of my friends and family do and, are around me. I think it's because my world was never over sanitized and, my immune system is strong enough to handle those minor things and keep me from getting sick.

No truer words were ever spoken. I 100% agree.

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

My local shop mixes the nic+PG/VG base into the pre measured flavorings form bottles similar to those used for oil in cooking or, juices in a bar. No gloves, masks or anything and, for me that's fine. First the employee mixing never touches the liquid or the capping area of the bottle I'm buying second, though hexylene glycol is better, propylene glycol dose have decent anti bacterial and anti fungal properties.

Sometimes, IMHO, people go overboard with the whole sanitation thing. I think we are preventing ourselves form developing resistance or immunity to some things and, creating antibiotic and anti bacterial resistant strains of things by being too sanitary. I grew up as a farm kid, out tending or playing with animals, then grab lunch and never wash up, just eat my sandwich dirty hands and all. I rarely get sick, haven't had more than the flu in years, had bronchitis once in my early 20's and, pneumonia at 28. That's it my entire life. I don't catch the cold the grand kids have when they come over, rarely take the flu, even when most of my friends and family do and, are around me. I think it's because my world was never over sanitized and, my immune system is strong enough to handle those minor things and keep me from getting sick.

Spot on. I grew up running around barefoot, riding my bike with naught but a T-shirt and cutoff jeans, drank from the hose and ate fruit right off of the tree. I swam in the warm, muddy waters of Mobile Bay, ate raw oysters and used sand clams cracked open on the spot for fishbait.

Never got sick and rarely do now.

They didn't have pink medicine when I was a kid and I don't take my kids to the doctor when they get a sniffle.

 

[BostonJim]

That's exactly what I was thinking after reading the OP. Not only will PG stop the propagation of a pathogen, but I don't think a pathogen would survive very long in a liquid solution containing nicotine. Even if one does somehow hang on and make it into a tank full of juice on your setup, how is going to do when it hits a glowing coil?

Thats a good point, never thought about that. And I would be more worried about whats on the door handle of a public building than what could be in my e-juice.

 

[Butters78]

Even though Papi doesn't wash his hands I still love his ry4!

Can I get a witness?

 

[BlueMoods]

Sure regulations force sanitation on a lot of industries. Food service - even if you aren't sick, don't have any diseases or anything, in most states, you have to wear hair nets and gloves, have to use sanitizing solutions to clean equipment and such well beyond what the vast majority of home cooks do as far as cleanliness goes.

But does your pharmacist wear cloves, a fave mask and all to fill your prescriptions? Mine doesn't, never actually touches the medicines, but doesn't wear any protection either.

Dose the mini mart employee wear gloves to hand you that sandwich out of the hot food case? Never toches the food, just the wrapper but, no gloves either.

Now if the vape shop employees actually had to dip their fingers in the juice, sure I'd want gloves on them but, they don't so, where is the problem?

Do you wear gloves and a face mask when you refill you tanks, cartos or whatever? Would you if you were filling for a friend? Probably not so relax. I figure I'm more likely to catch something from the guy sitting next to me at the coffee shop than form the juice from my local shop.

 

[txgtr]

There's one shop in town that mixes it right then and there when you pick your flavor. They just put a couple drops of flavoring in the base fluid and shake it up. No gloves, hairnets or precautions of any kind. I've never been too concerned about it. The juice itself, however, wasn't very good so I've not been back.

Seems that all my germ-a-phobic friends are always sick. I very rarely get sick.

 

[StormFinch]

My local shop mixes the nic+PG/VG base into the pre measured flavorings form bottles similar to those used for oil in cooking or, juices in a bar. No gloves, masks or anything and, for me that's fine. First the employee mixing never touches the liquid or the capping area of the bottle I'm buying second, though hexylene glycol is better, propylene glycol dose have decent anti bacterial and anti fungal properties.

Sometimes, IMHO, people go overboard with the whole sanitation thing. I think we are preventing ourselves form developing resistance or immunity to some things and, creating antibiotic and anti bacterial resistant strains of things by being too sanitary. I grew up as a farm kid, out tending or playing with animals, then grab lunch and never wash up, just eat my sandwich dirty hands and all. I rarely get sick, haven't had more than the flu in years, had bronchitis once in my early 20's and, pneumonia at 28. That's it my entire life. I don't catch the cold the grand kids have when they come over, rarely take the flu, even when most of my friends and family do and, are around me. I think it's because my world was never over sanitized and, my immune system is strong enough to handle those minor things and keep me from getting sick.

Oh, don't even get me started on people that haphazardly try to disinfect their world with antibacterial consumer products and the companies that insist on producing said products. Triclosan may well be the death of us all. Nothing marketed as antibacterial even enters my home. I clean with old fashioned soap and water, vinegar, baking soda etc. and if something actually needs disinfecting I break out the 10% bleach solution.

It was actually pretty funny. My mother was a nut when it came to kids and germs. She didn't allow my brother and I to play in the mud, and tried her best to bleach everything after my oldest son was born, despite my best protests. As she was rounding up toys for a bleach bath, my husband (remember, scrub/central sterile tech) informed her that if she kept insisting on bleaching everything the kid came in contact with he was going to grow up without any kind of immunity. She stopped after that. There are definite advantages to having a hospital employee on your side.

 

[zoiDman]

There's one shop in town that mixes it right then and there when you pick your flavor. They just put a couple drops of flavoring in the base fluid and shake it up. No gloves, hairnets or precautions of any kind. ...

I bet somewhere there is a State Health Inspector Wringing his Hands right Now reading this Thread.

LOL

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

I'm a homebrewer. When I'm working on a new batch of SNPA clone or IPA, I pay pretty close attention to sanitation because five gallons of sweet, unfermented wort is food for all sorts of bugs that could turn my expected masterpiece into two cases of meat marinade.

Same with transferring from pot to primary fermenter, which is topped with bubbling airlock that allows CO2 to escape but nothing to enter. Same with transferring from primary to secondary for clarifying, and the same when bottling. Everything gets disinfected with a 5% bleach solution, rinsed and air dried. Bottles get sanitized in the dishwasher using heat dry.

The only thing that contaminated one of my batches was a yeast culture I obtained from my local brewery!

PG and VG are both alcohols. They make it very difficult for microorganisms other than those who don't require oxygen and sugar to propagate. Those stink to the high heavens and are immediately noticeable. There's no excess O2 in e-liquid and the sanitary effects of the bases, plus the presence of nicotine make it hard for something bad to grow. Even if it did, there's still that red hot coil to get past.

I'm not worried about my e-liquid, but that batch of IPA I'm mashing tonight is gonna be well cared for.

 

[Visus]

If you have mixed your own e juice you can understand whats going on there in that mixing station.
I know for a fact its not rocket science
I know for a fact e juice will pick up off smells and vape flavor exactly like it.

customer service likes it his or her way and a standard of cleanliness is just a few bucks away
the dollar store sells 50 pair of gloves 1 buck..

I mix my own juice so fast there's no need to put on gloves or wash hands it never touches nothin' but the bottle its going in

so personally I wouldn't mind that mixologist scene if was dexterous
when steeping airborne bacteria would grow a colony in there and it doesn't so all in all, all good

I do agree about gloves as just a good practice

 

[Visus]

I'm a homebrewer. When I'm working on a new batch of SNPA clone or IPA, I pay pretty close attention to sanitation because five gallons of sweet, unfermented wort is food for all sorts of bugs that could turn my expected masterpiece into two cases of meat marinade.

Same with transferring from pot to primary fermenter, which is topped with bubbling airlock that allows CO2 to escape but nothing to enter. Same with transferring from primary to secondary for clarifying, and the same when bottling. Everything gets disinfected with a 5% bleach solution, rinsed and air dried. Bottles get sanitized in the dishwasher using heat dry.

The only thing that contaminated one of my batches was a yeast culture I obtained from my local brewery!

PG and VG are both alcohols. They make it very difficult for microorganisms other than those who don't require oxygen and sugar to propagate. Those stink to the high heavens and are immediately noticeable. There's no excess O2 in e-liquid and the sanitary effects of the bases, plus the presence of nicotine make it hard for something bad to grow. Even if it did, there's still that red hot coil to get past.

I'm not worried about my e-liquid, but that batch of IPA I'm mashing tonight is gonna be well cared for.

Sir,
sir--what do you know about 183-187F and heads and tails.
----------------
There, thats a huge other issue that salts the pickle

In the uk they have a machine just add sugar and yeast pack wait 7 days and you have diluted filtered, add extract and smile..

I wanted to make some but my wine is rocket fuel @17% so never was a need

 

[Tatsel_Morte]

I'm a homebrewer. When I'm working on a new batch of SNPA clone or IPA, I pay pretty close attention to sanitation because five gallons of sweet, unfermented wort is food for all sorts of bugs that could turn my expected masterpiece into two cases of meat marinade.

Same with transferring from pot to primary fermenter, which is topped with bubbling airlock that allows CO2 to escape but nothing to enter. Same with transferring from primary to secondary for clarifying, and the same when bottling. Everything gets disinfected with a 5% bleach solution, rinsed and air dried. Bottles get sanitized in the dishwasher using heat dry.

The only thing that contaminated one of my batches was a yeast culture I obtained from my local brewery!

PG and VG are both alcohols. They make it very difficult for microorganisms other than those who don't require oxygen and sugar to propagate. Those stink to the high heavens and are immediately noticeable. There's no excess O2 in e-liquid and the sanitary effects of the bases, plus the presence of nicotine make it hard for something bad to grow. Even if it did, there's still that red hot coil to get past.

I'm not worried about my e-liquid, but that batch of IPA I'm mashing tonight is gonna be well cared for.

I'm right there with you! Let the kids eat the dirt. They'll be sick today, but not 20 years from now when it really matters. I grew up in the same manner as you, just on the MS coast and not the Mobile area, and in my whole life I've had 1 hernia at 5 yrs, 2 cases of flu as a teen, some tonsil issues (likely from smoking a ppd+ since I was 12), and a one week bug last summer. Other than that, I've never been sick. I don't even catch colds most years, just severe smokers cough in the colder months.

As the hooch goes, I love home-brewing! I really miss my buddy Josh. We used to brew up as much as we could through the summer and autumn and then come Xmas and New Years, man did we party! But I'm kinda sad now. You guys don't know him but I gotta say it, R.I.P. Josh. I miss the hell outta that guy.

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

Sir,
sir--what do you know about 183-187F and heads and tails.
----------------
There, thats a huge other issue that salts the pickle

In the uk they have a machine just add sugar and yeast pack wait 7 days and you have diluted filtered, add extract and smile..

I wanted to make some but my wine is rocket fuel @17% so never was a need

Heh... I'm getting too old to do full mashes so I just do a partial mash now. And no filtering. If there's not a fine layer of sediment on the bottom of each bottle, it's not a proper ale and I have failed miserably.

To the topic, I do wash my clearos after nearly every use, in piping hot water. But it's more for cleanliness, coil life and accurate flavor representation than it is sanitation which, for the reasons already explained, isn't necessary.

 

[BlueMoods]

I make my own wine (what the heck else am I going to do with 200+ pounds of home grown grapes?) and I make mead and brandy. Now I'm lucky here, the natural yeast in the air is perfect for a medium to dry wine, and a nice brandy too but, I do like other yeasts so, then it's me in a fight to keep the natural stuff around here out as much as I can, and I learned not to use champagne yeast here - even at twice the sugar ir should need, it comes out so dry it's good for nothing but making vinegar out of.

Of course that is good too since vinegar is my preferred atty soak, now if I can just grow enough tobacco and extract my own nic and, figure out how to get VG out of those garden plants, well, I'll be good to go for the zombie apocalypse.

 

[DC2]

The effect is only mild, it's hardly in the same league as antibiotics

I wouldn't use the word "mild" to describe it's anti-microbial properties...
THE BACTERICIDAL ACTION OF PROPYLENE GLYCOL VAPOR ON MICROORGANISMS SUSPENDED IN AIR. I

It has been found that propylene glycol vapor dispersed into the air of an enclosed space produces a marked and rapid bactericidal effect on microorganisms introduced into such an atmosphere in droplet form. Concentrations of 1 gm. of propylene glycol vapor in two to four million cc. of air produced immediate and complete sterilization of air into which pneumococci, streptococci, staphylococci, H. influenzae, and other microorganisms as well as influenza virus had been sprayed. With lesser concentrations of propylene glycol, rapid and marked reduction in the number of air-borne bacteria occurred, but complete sterilization of the air required a certain interval of time. Pronounced effects on both pneumococci and hemolytic streptococci were observed when concentrations as low as 1 gm. of glycol to fifty million cc. of air were employed. Numerous control tests showed that failure of the glycol-treated microorganisms to grow on the agar plates was due to actual death of the bacteria.

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

BlueMoods, those crazy Belgian Trappists didn't care what stray, wild yeasts entered their brew. They opened the windows, gave it time and prayed over it.

I do that sometimes when I'm trying a new flavor or setup combo.

 

[DC2]

I think I'll pick up some zero nicotine juice to disinfect my counter tops.
Not only will they be germ-free, but they'll smell like butter rum.

 

[Visus]

I make my own wine (what the heck else am I going to do with 200+ pounds of home grown grapes?) and I make mead and brandy. Now I'm lucky here, the natural yeast in the air is perfect for a medium to dry wine, and a nice brandy too but, I do like other yeasts so, then it's me in a fight to keep the natural stuff around here out as much as I can, and I learned not to use champagne yeast here - even at twice the sugar ir should need, it comes out so dry it's good for nothing but making vinegar out of.

Of course that is good too since vinegar is my preferred atty soak, now if I can just grow enough tobacco and extract my own nic and, figure out how to get VG out of those garden plants, well, I'll be good to go for the zombie apocalypse.

I use lavlin 1118 or cuvee both have high tolerance and are exceptional champagne yeasts. Jealous of your nature yeast captures lol.. The best 5gal blueberry pomegranate out the shed was made with natural yeasts, was amazing, too scared to try it again... Sulfite, toss, ahhh, predictable lol.. When my funds are better I will naturalize the carboy with skins no sulfite and wish for the best.. I use concentrate..

glycerin is easy, its the bulk of materials and filtering that isnt.. well i guess you could just cook the zombies (fight club)

 

[Interpim]

My local shop goes in the back to mix, but I am fairly certain they don't wear gloves... almost every time I get anything from them they come back out wiping the drips from their hands... I have to admit though, I haven't had a bad batch from them, and everything is fairly tasty.