Looking at making my own e-liquid

[alexfeetham]

So as of recent with my new RDA i'm going through e-liquid at an ungodly rate.... I think it's time I started making my own. I love 100% VG e-liquids so this is tailored towards that, although I will get a bottle of PG due to one of my parents looking at vaping now.

From the research I've done so far the stuff I need is:

Nicotine (in VG)

VG (Aparantly I can get this at boots XD)

PG

Flavour Concentrates, TPA/TFA I see a lot on here but I've also seen cloud 9, flavour art and totally wicked (yeah yeah but a few of their flavours I do really really like) all do flavour concentrates.

Bottles (Started saving these, got around 4 plastic and 3 glass pipette bottles)

Syringes for measuring

Nitrate Gloves

Anything I'm missing here? Looking forward to making my own flavours =P

 

[440BB]

Looks like a good start! The one thing that might help in mixing would be a small beaker or two, in the 30ml - 100ml range. Once you find a few recipes you enjoy, you may start mixing larger batches, and those beakers come in handy. Good luck!

 

[wheelie]

Looks pretty good to start. I assume you looked and played around with a Juice Calculator.

 

[alexfeetham]

Yeah steam engine works pretty well as well as some other websites' tools.

 

[englishmick]

Anything I'm missing here? Looking forward to making my own flavours =P

I'm still collecting stuff too, haven't started mixing yet. But here's what I would add to your list. Beakers for mixing. Funnels for filling bottles. Some kind of eye protection. I have a plexi face shield that I got for when I'm using a grinder. Less likely to fog up than goggles. Good luck with it.

 

[alexfeetham]

Already have tonnes of eye protection due to gardening/pressure washing etc XD

 

[CampbellMC]

As a base I would say you might want to have:
10 glass droppers (For doing 100 drop taste tests)
10 1mL syringe
2 3 mL syringe
2 5 mL syringe
1 10mL syringe
2 14G blunt needle tips (for VG)
10 18G blunt needle tips (for PG)
50 mL glass beaker (great for mixing up small batches and drop tests)
Nitrile Gloves
A notebook (Write down every batch you do, could come in handy down the road)

Also recommend checking out the blogs in my signature if you haven't already, they have advice on every part of DIY e-juice from supplies, to safety, to flavors and mixing.

 

[readeuler]

I could use more hardware, but syringes (1, 3, and 10ml), needles (at most 16ga for VG, anything for PG/flavors), and bottles have been enough for me for several months. I've never mixed more than 30ml at a time, as things have changed a lot (flavor preferences, nicotine strength, etc), so big batches have been off my radar.

Bottles are my biggest hold up, as it's hard to finish up a liquid waiting to mix something new

 

[blademansw]

Have a look at justvape247.com KH range of concentrates, they do VG versions if you are aiming for 100% VG rather than just max VG.

Plus if you decide you want to put some of your mix through an RTA you will need distilled water to thin the boots VG as its very thick although this doesn't matter in an RBA.

 

[dannyv45]

Here's a good place to start.

My blogs will give insight into all aspects of DYI, from steeping to what supplies to have on hand to a basic walk through mixing your first E-juice.

E-Cigarette Forum - dannyv45 - Blogs

Then read hoosier's blogs. These blogs concentrate on fine tuning your mix and give insight on additives.

E-Cigarette Forum - Hoosier - Blogs

Then read Boletus's blog's. These blogs concentrate on formulation of nicotine bases regarding proper calculations methods for figuring Nicotine concentration as well as safety.

E-Cigarette Forum - Boletus - Blogs

Then read Ginger's book "E-Cigarettes 102: DIY E-Liquid". It is a book which I've contributed to that delivers an in depth easy to follow guide in the art of DYI.

E-Cigarettes 102: DIY E-Liquid

I recommend viewing VPLive Vape Team Episode #82: DIY Safety and bookmark it for future reference. It explains safety in all aspects of DYI.

VPLive Vape Team Episode #82: DIY Safety

then read the stickies at the top of the page.

this will explain a lot of the how's and why's.

 

[alexfeetham]

Right, gonna order this stuff on Monday. Looking to buy from justvape247, seems like a good site. Not gonna go with the kits gonna order 100ml of 72MG nicotine base, 100ML of VG, 100ML of PG arond 3-5 flavours, gloves, a few 10ml syringes, 5ml syringes and a few 3ml syringes. Got 2x 10ml bottles, 3x 15ml and 2x 30ml bottles so I think I should be fine for now in that department. If I decide theres a mixture that I love I'll grab a beaker or two.

 

[sparkky1]

Your gonna need way more LDPE bottles, the 10ml are for testing the 30ml are the ones you will need.You will want at least 3-4 recipes steeping at any given week when you find the rockstar recipe's or wish you had.Stick with the 100mg nic for ease of mix.Write down notes till you master a recipe cause every drop or two may make a difference in creating a masterpiece, don't get to caught up in the steeping / devises process most master blenders just let theirs sit in the dark for weeks.

 

[alexfeetham]

Alrighty, so I did a rough calculation. I see mostly that people use 10-20% flavour in their DIY e-liquid. Put this into steam engines calc using PG as flavour (in reality as you said every drop or two makes the difference, this is just for theoretical purposes) and the total cost per bottle of e-liquid would be less than £1 (10ml bottle that is). I'm either calculating this wrong or that is insanely cheap. VG Is cheap as chips, I use a low nicotine amount so nicotine is fairly cheap and flavour isn't super expensive, hell even if I used a full 10ml bottle of flavour concentrate in 1 mix it would still be cheaper by a mile than buying from a store.

I guess i'm going to feel much less guilty when I vape through a 10ml bottle in a night on my RDA XD

 

[440BB]

You are correct sir! Once you come up with a liquid or two that you enjoy, it will be very hard to pay the going rate for premixed liquids.

 

[alexfeetham]

I'm definately going to tell a few people that I know vape. They'll be glad to hear they can do this on the super cheap side.

 

[sparkky1]

Download : eJuice Me Up - Best eJuice Calculator

 

[alexfeetham]

Downloaded that calc, pretty nice. Gonna start a google drive doc for tracking that liquids i've tried.

 

[Eliterep]

Those are the basics! I would get enough syringes so you have one for each flavor and definitely get beakers to measure. Sucking vg into a syringe is hard!!!

 

[DenaInWyo]

It's not hard if you just don't put a blunt tip/needle on the end..just suck it up with the syringe itself. I usually just mix straight into the bottle, myself. I don't make giant amounts of any one flavor usually though anyway. If you do, might be easier to use a beaker or something.

 

[alexfeetham]

Yeah as others have said if I decide on a flavour that I love and want to make a large quantity of it i'll grab a beaker to do so, otherwise i'll be mixing into bottles to start with.