Sundry items I have in my toolbox or shelf.
-3, 6, 10 mL plastic dropper bottles...lots of them (USPlastics...cheap and great). they should be clear or translucent to see liquid levels.
-100 proof vodka (buy cheap) or pure grain alcohol (PGA)
a glass jar with lid for soaking/cleaning/sterilizing alcohol
-large pipe cleaners
-a hemostat
-3 and 10 mL syringes with luer-lock 18 G blunt needles
-30 and 50 mL amber glass bottles with Eurodropper insert (won't spill, and I get the liquid inside through the insert hole with a syringe)
-A plastic compartmentalized electrician's caddy for lorann and capella flavors
- a good toolbox with multilevels and space for hardware.
-flavors (the best I've had so far).
-small ziplock baggies
-hydrogen peroxide
- coffee stirring straws for cart straw mod
- clean disposable facial sponges for cart filler (my current fave filler material...this week.)
-scissors
- alcohol wipes
***LOTS of paper towels.***
I do not use glass droppers, as they drip and spill too much. I use syringes almost 100% of the time. High-nic unflavored juice, vodka and VG are in 50 mL amber bottles with euros for syringe-dispensing.
Unflavored juice stored dry, cool, and dark will last many months if not years. Flavors and flavored juices, depending on the flavor last maybe 8 months if you are lucky, including unopened juices. I store unflavored in glass bottles in the basement, and make up flavored juices as I need them.
Important and not easy: everything should be CLEAN, as in sterilized with alcohol. DIY is messy and sticky. Easy to get little drops everywhere. A jar of vodka or PGA handy allows fast cleaning of syringes.
Scubabatdan's e-juice calculator spreadsheet is almost always open on my computer. I mix in mL, not drops (thickness of liquid affects size of drops).
The syringes are graduated with volume markings. After getting vol of each component for a particular juice with some nic level, %flavor and %vodka I
1. Syringe into vodka, pull/push into vodka to wash syringe. repeat pushing plunger to get vodka out completely (a few droplets is ok).
2. Clean dry syringe goes into high-nic unflavored juice, through eurodropper hole, take desired volume into syringe. Remove syringe, put down and replace cap on unflav juice bottle.
3. Syringe into VG/PG bottle, take desired amount. Do same with vodka if thinning is needed.
4. Syringe into flavor, take desired flavor amount. Put syringe down.
5. Label plastic bottle (not so easy! stickers that wrap all the way around the bottle are best. Sharpie ink will come off. Stickers that dont wrap around all the way will not stick...sticker needs to stick to itself instead, thus needs to wrap around)
6. Remove dropper inset of plastic bottle, inject liquid from syringe. Replace dropper insert and cap and shake to mix.
7. Enjoy your very own recipe!!
When I make juice I never actually touch liquid, the syringe does. Making good juice is like gourmet cooking, or rather baking, as it is VERY relative amount dependent. I use the 3 mL bottles for "trial runs" and 6 or 10 mL for established recipes. Easy to waste juices by making a lot of something really bad. Don't assume the flavors will taste like you imagine. Most of the time they don't. DIY is not hard, but not easy either, mostly because it takes time to understand flavors. 10% flavor with one may be too strong, and 25% with another is not strong enough.
Have fun and let us know how you do!! Best to post in the DIY forum on these things.
Enjoy the down-home vapage!
