Make your own flavorings?

[aguitarjam]

So I was wondering if it is possible to make your own flavorings from nturl ingriedients such as homegrown strawberries or grapes and so forth. I would imagine something like steeping a bunch of strawberries in either AGA or VG or distilled water. Any ideas or thoughts?

 

[MattBott]

There have been posts about steeping coffee grounds in PG / VG.

I believe it was 30ml bottle filled half way with your grounds, then fill with base. Microwave for 10 sec (watching closely that it doesn't make a mess in the microwave. Top off with base (it will soak into the ground). Steep for x amount of time. The longer, the stronger the flavoring. Let gravity strain through a coffee filter.

I was wondering earlier if you could do this with anything. It would make sense that dried items (fruits, spices, etc) would work the same. Fresh fruits though? I'm not sure.

 

[rondasherrill]

The problem I think with making flavorings from fruits, is that they would need to be concentrated, alot.

 

[LucentShadow]

I've done simple hot VG flavor extractions with coffee, a couple of tobacco products, ground ginger, and ground cinnamon. I've considered doing cocoa and a few other things, as well.

All of these are dried and ground or shredded, which is probably what I'd do to any homegrown thing that I wanted to try. Not saying that it's the best way, just what seems easiest for the means that I have.

I've since dumped all but the cinnamon and ginger, which I use sparingly, and only occasionally.

The coffee was good, at first, but very dark with a fair amount of particulate. It was pretty hard on atomizers. I didn't like it much after it had set for a month or so, as the taste seemed to get kind of musky. I honestly can't imagine why that would happen, though.

The tobacco was also pretty good, and had less solid matter in it, but suffered the same fate as the coffee extract. I won't try either of these again with the same Humco Glycerin that I used before. I plan on revisiting them with a different source for VG.

The cinnamon and ginger flavors came out well, and plenty potent, but aren't very good on their own. Besides being slightly caustic because of what they are, they both seem to give a slightly chalky or smoky feel when vaped at low concentrations.

That brings me to my major concern with these: How much oil are they pulling out of the base material, and is the very small particulate matter actually burning on the coil? Inhaling oils is generally recognized as a bad idea, as is combusted organic matter. I have no idea if either of these is a real issue here, but I do remain wary of them. I would also be wary of sugars from fruits.

In any case, I do occasionally add a few drops of the two extracts that I still have to 10ml mixes for a hint of extra flavor, and a slight bite.

If you haven't seen it, a well-respected member here, who happens to be a chemist, has an interesting thread on tobacco flavor extraction that is an interesting read.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/liquid-extraction-tobacco/99774-vg-pipe-tobacco-essense.html

I've picked up quite a few things from reading the entire thing.

 

[Hoosier]

...That brings me to my major concern with these: How much oil are they pulling out of the base material, and is the very small particulate matter actually burning on the coil? Inhaling oils is generally recognized as a bad idea, as is combusted organic matter. I have no idea if either of these is a real issue here, but I do remain wary of them. I would also be wary of sugars from fruits....

Right, the oil is the flavor, so that is what you're trying to get when you DIY extractions. And, yep, those particulates are one of the things that crust up a coil. Not as bad as fats (another oil) and sugars, but still part of the crusting. Some folks have done fairly well with extracting the oil out of tea and coffee, but it does involve filtering.

That's all well and fine for coffee, tea, spices, and mints, but I'm not real sure how a DIY'er can get the flavoring out of fruits without getting all the other stuff like fats, sugars, and other assorted large molecules that make for atty killing yucky vapes.

I'm not really sure where the often repeated warning against oils comes from myself. Maybe folks get confused between fat type oils and flavor type oils so they have to lump them all together?

 

[LucentShadow]

... I'm not really sure where the often repeated warning against oils comes from myself. Maybe folks get confused between fat type oils and flavor type oils so they have to lump them all together?

It's most likely so. Personally, I don't know how the different molecules would affect human lungs. I hated chemistry in school, and I have never had much reason, until vaping, to care much about it.

As a machinist, I'm regularly exposed to various aerosolized oils, but mostly vegetable oil. OSHA doesn't seem to be too concerned about it:

Occupational Safety and Health Guideline for Vegetable Oil Mist

There have been a couple of scattered reports that I've seen of some vaper dying of Lipid pneumonia because of oily flavorings that he used. I don't have, and wouldn't post, the link. I would lump it into the 'don't have enough information to call it credible' pile.

I should have pointed out that I'm wary of any percieved ill effects from any flavoring that I use, as I have no idea of what's in any of them, since they are trade secrets.

There are companies that specialize in all-natural flavorings (Ahlusion comes to mind,) and there are many different ways to extract flavors, so I'm sure that there are many things that can be successfully extracted, but most of those who are good at it probably won't give the information away.