Natural Tobaccos - Part Deux

[Avi8tor]

Thank you for the advice.

I'll steep and shake and try weekly.

I did order patriot and it should be here tomorrow.

Just need some time

I would be interested in how your analog has aged.

R/Avi

 

[Mazinny]

Anthony,
you are correct sir. Should have seen me tearing into the packages. Christmas all over again.
I've had a chance to try a few and here my initial impressions:

Big Spirit (NET): I couldn't get much flavor out of it. Maybe I need to request additional? It went into the cupboard to rest for awhile. I could not detect any tobacco flavor at all.

Legend (HHV): A little perfumy but a nice light flavor. Into the cupboard it went. I know that flavor from a synthetic I've had before - just cant remember where or what it was.

Analog (GeJ): Different but not quite an analog. I think its a little too sweet for an analog

Paris (W2V): YES YES YES. Bold flavor. I love it.

On a side note, I'm trying spaced coils for the first time. Still have lots of flavor so it will be interesting to see how they stand up to the gunk.

This is half of it. I'm going to play for awhile

View attachment 416731

I would leave the cap off the Legend for at least 24 hours, maybe 48 to get rid of the perfumey taste.

 

[Mazinny]

I would suspect your juices need steeping. Once Big Spirit steeps it is an absolute treat for someone looking for a cigarette simulation. The taste is a dead ringer for a cigarette. My bottle is 12 months old and it tastes as good, if not better than when it was fresh. My experience with NET.com liquids has been that a steep of about 6 weeks is optimal.

I am finding that NET.com liquids just continue to get better and better over time, right up to a year old. I am revisiting NET.com juices I purchased in July 2013 and they are stellar right now, like a good fine wine.

Legend from HHV definitely needs steeping based on your description of the flavour. HHV liquids also are optimal after about a 2-3 week steep. Put it in a cool dark place and shake occasionally.

I will be honest - I didn't like the Analog from GEJ. I tried it when it was less than a week old and didn't like it at all. It was sweet and leafy but not in a good way. It didn't taste natural to me at all. It didn't even taste like a NET to me. However, my bottle is now aged 2 months and I think it is time I tried it again. Perhaps it has transformed. GEJ has many great NETS that hold their own in a very competitive market but Analog is my least favourite of them right alongside Godfather.

I hope you got a bottle of Patriot from GEJ. It is the single most popular NET on the market and has been for a long time. There is nothing quite like it.

Want2Vape needs no introduction and I am not surprised you like the Paris

Yup, just about the only two GeJ juices that i can't vape. Analog has this sweet thing going on the exhale that makes it unvapeable for me.

 

[Avi8tor]

Spaced micros go noticeably longer for me too. Rayon + spaced coils is pretty impressive with moderately gunky NETs.

Tried the spaced coils last night and definitely works better. Now on my second tank whereas I could only get about 2 mils through without getting the off flavors with compressed.

R/Avi

 

[Jerms]

Tried the spaced coils last night and definitely works better. Now on my second tank whereas I could only get about 2 mils through without getting the off flavors with compressed.

R/Avi

Yeah the improvement is really noticeable for us NET vapers who indulge in gunkier vapes. When i first tried it, I thought the flavor wasn't as good so I dismissed them. Second time I gave them an honest try, and realised that though they do seem to alter the vape slightly compared to contact coils, it's more just different than better or worse.

Seeing how much longer they run before cleaning I decided I'll just get used to that difference, which happened pretty quickly. Now if I run a contact coil the vape seems 'off' in the same way spaced coils initially felt.

 

[billherbst]

Yeah the improvement is really noticeable for us NET vapers who indulge in gunkier vapes. When i first tried it, I thought the flavor wasn't as good so I dismissed them. Second time I gave them an honest try, and realised that though they do seem to alter the vape slightly compared to contact coils, it's more just different than better or worse.

Seeing how much longer they run before cleaning I decided I'll just get used to that difference, which happened pretty quickly. Now if I run a contact coil the vape seems 'off' in the same way spaced coils initially felt.

As with so many comparisons between differing types of vaping hardware, the differences I experience between spaced coils and compressed coils are subtle rather than night-and-day, enough so that it's difficult for me to declare an obvious winner. I agree wholeheartedly with Jerms central point: spaced coils allow a longer viable (i.e., enjoyable) vape time before dry-burning when using gunkier NETs. I haven't personally noticed any significant flavor differences, but almost every variable has some impact on flavor, so it makes sense to me that spaced coils might produce a slightly different flavor profile with NETs than compressed coils do.

"Flavor" is a word that often gets tossed around on ECF as if it were a single monolithic quality. People routinely post about how much better or worse the flavor of their juices is with different hardware, as if that were a simple and revelatory experience to be described in absolutes (which it may be for the person posting). I'm now of the opinion that flavor in vaping is not only "subjective" (to reference the popular "taste is subjective" meme), but also incredibly complex. I don't possess even the beginnings of a vocabulary that adequately addresses this. With flavor, I'm still languishing in the unsophisticated realm of "I may not know much about art, but I know what I like." Perhaps such a technical language exists in the flavoring industry, but, if it does, that language hasn't yet trickled down to the level of the average vaper on ECF. My guess is that reaching agreement about flavors such as strawberry or vanilla is probably easier achieving consensus about natural tobacco flavors, but even fruits and bakery/candy flavors vary dramatically in their profiles.

In general, I make spaced coils more these days than compressed coils, but I continue to use both kinds. All the coils I make continue to be simple, mostly single coils mounted horizontally, although I have dabbled in dual coils and vertical mounting. The more "advanced" techniques---quad coils, ribbon wire, twisted wire coils and the like remain far beyond my simple skills. A halfway decent single coil wicked with KGD cotton or rayon is the limit of my expertise.Yes, I have numerous spools of Kanthal A-1 from 32 down to 26 gauge, but I also have a stock of dirt-cheap pre-made nichrome coils from fasttech in various gauges/resistances/diameters that I use often for quick rebuilds. I guess that shows what a philistine I am. LOL.

 

[Avi8tor]

I'm lucky if I don't tangle myself up in Kanthal let alone attempt to build something advanced. Look at me ma..I'm a 6'5" wick!

 

[Jerms]

Well said Bill.

I know that I want to experience the most flavor notes possible that I can in a set-up. Sometimes is easy to tell when a set-up is offering more flavor complexity than another. More often though, things get complicated with subtleties that are felt more than concrete, such as fullness, smoothness, and a host of other things. It can be really hard to distinguish which is a 'better' or more enjoyable vape when the experience is obviously different but in a hard to define way.

In those cases, the longer I vape the more my decisions are based on convenience and ease of use. It can be really hard racking my brain trying to figure out if a small change in set-up is better one way or the other. Figuring out it's convenience is usually more obvious. If I'm truly struggling with which is the better taste experience, it probably doesn't matter in the end which I choose; I'll be fine with either.

I've also started leaving it to the other, often newer vapers to discover the improved methods and techniques. After they get all the details figures out I'll copy their methods lol.

 

[Vicman]

I'm finding that my builds are more about convenience than anything else. For too long I struggled trying to follow what everyone else does with limited success. My sausage fingers and lousy eyesight make precise builds more of a wish. That led me to spending time finding what works for me which I then refined to what gives me the most satisfying vape.

For instance, I began building my Origens with horizontal coils which worked for a while. However, I kept getting hot spots and the coils never really lasted for more than the first gunk up as a dry burn would kill em (this was after I upgraded from a MVP to a Istick 20). That led me to tinker with vertical builds which work far better for me. The most difficult part was wicking the coil. That led me to find a larger screwdriver to wrap around. Now I have a larger hole to wick through and use something I believe Jerms suggested once; I cut the ends of the kgd like a funnel which goes through the coil much nicer and provide for me, a much better vape; both taste and vapor production wise. Right now, this gives me the best vape since I started vaping.

I guess this way will work for a while until I get bored one night and decide to tinker a little more. Oh, I also found that using spaced coils works best for me as whenever I use them compressed, I screw the coil up where something just aint right. Right now I get about a day out of my coil before dry burn depending on how gunky the NET I am using is at the time. I could probably burn it sooner but I'm lazy and tend to switch to a different dripper if it gets to gunky. LOL

 

[boomerdude]

When I first tried True Leaf's Midnite I found it flavorless. A month later the 30 ml bottle lasted 5 days. So give 'em a good steep Anthony.

I still use 510 and Cisco HH357's for testing. Had all of them for at least a year, some two years.

Absolutely. I've got some VKS (German attys) and Cisco Spec attys that produce flavour as good as anything on the market today.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[67Tele]

(snip)
"Flavor" is a word that often gets tossed around on ECF as if it were a single monolithic quality. People routinely post about how much better or worse the flavor of their juices is with different hardware, as if that were a simple and revelatory experience to be described in absolutes (which it may be for the person posting). I'm now of the opinion that flavor in vaping is not only "subjective" (to reference the popular "taste is subjective" meme), but also incredibly complex. I don't possess even the beginnings of a vocabulary that adequately addresses this. With flavor, I'm still languishing in the unsophisticated realm of "I may not know much about art, but I know what I like." Perhaps such a technical language exists in the flavoring industry, but, if it does, that language hasn't yet trickled down to the level of the average vaper on ECF. My guess is that reaching agreement about flavors such as strawberry or vanilla is probably easier achieving consensus about natural tobacco flavors, but even fruits and bakery/candy flavors vary dramatically in their profiles.(snip) LOL.

This touches on something I've been thinking about lately. While trying to educate myself as to individual tobaccos I was trying some of Clay's "Single Varietals" to try and establish a beginning point. That led to the question What is Right and What Tastes Good i.e. "This is true Perique." When y'all first started did you rely on past experience with tobaccos to establish that an extract is "right" or was it a consensus of opinions that lead you to that conclusion?

Was it trial and error when you began to do your extraction or was it leaning more towards This Tastes Good? I fully agree with Bill's use of the Art Analogy and tend to go for the agreeable taste.

Thanks!

 

[Jerms]

This touches on something I've been thinking about lately. While trying to educate myself as to individual tobaccos I was trying some of Clay's "Single Varietals" to try and establish a beginning point. That led to the question What is Right and What Tastes Good i.e. "This is true Perique." When y'all first started did you rely on past experience with tobaccos to establish that an extract is "right" or was it a consensus of opinions that lead you to that conclusion?

Was it trial and error when you began to do your extraction or was it leaning more towards This Tastes Good? I fully agree with Bill's use of the Art Analogy and tend to go for the agreeable taste.

Thanks!

The ranking of different NET vendors and juices in this group is much more consensus of opinions than anything else. Most here have little to no experience with smoking pipe and cigar tobacco on a regular basis. The opinions on the quality and success of a NET expressed by the few connoisseurs have been in line with those who weren't as experienced though.

Another grouping of people separate from this group may very well conclude a totally different ranking. Since we're talking a consensus of opinion though, neither list could be called right or wrong in an absolute way. The list here does have legitimacy if you consider that many have participated, many participates have made NETs a big part of their hobby and have sampled and discussed most available offerings, and has been around exactly 3 years to the day! I haven't heard of any other NET group with our credentials.

 

[Jerms]

Thinking about the 3 year anniversary of this thread today...

Vapers are a fringe group of nicotine users. Vaping hobbyists are a fringe group of vapers. Focusing on the juice flavors is a fringe part of the vape hobby. Tobacco vapers are a fringe group of juice connoisseurs. Finally, NET vapers are a fringe group of tobacco vapers. So what, we make up 1% of 1% of 1% of all people? Yet we're together here by the mighty force called internet.

 

[clnire]

Thinking about the 3 year anniversary of this thread today...

Vapers are a fringe group of nicotine users. Vaping hobbyists are a fringe group of vapers. Focusing on the juice flavors is a fringe part of the vape hobby. Tobacco vapers are a fringe group of juice connoisseurs. Finally, NET vapers are a fringe group of tobacco vapers. So what, we make up 1% of 1% of 1% of all people? Yet we're together here by the mighty force called internet.

And the friends we have found in spite of age, race, creed, religion, location, etc - priceless

 

[AnthonyB]

As with so many comparisons between differing types of vaping hardware, the differences I experience between spaced coils and compressed coils are subtle rather than night-and-day, enough so that it's difficult for me to declare an obvious winner. I agree wholeheartedly with Jerms central point: spaced coils allow a longer viable (i.e., enjoyable) vape time before dry-burning when using gunkier NETs. I haven't personally noticed any significant flavor differences, but almost every variable has some impact on flavor, so it makes sense to me that spaced coils might produce a slightly different flavor profile with NETs than compressed coils do.

"Flavor" is a word that often gets tossed around on ECF as if it were a single monolithic quality. People routinely post about how much better or worse the flavor of their juices is with different hardware, as if that were a simple and revelatory experience to be described in absolutes (which it may be for the person posting). I'm now of the opinion that flavor in vaping is not only "subjective" (to reference the popular "taste is subjective" meme), but also incredibly complex. I don't possess even the beginnings of a vocabulary that adequately addresses this. With flavor, I'm still languishing in the unsophisticated realm of "I may not know much about art, but I know what I like." Perhaps such a technical language exists in the flavoring industry, but, if it does, that language hasn't yet trickled down to the level of the average vaper on ECF. My guess is that reaching agreement about flavors such as strawberry or vanilla is probably easier achieving consensus about natural tobacco flavors, but even fruits and bakery/candy flavors vary dramatically in their profiles.

In general, I make spaced coils more these days than compressed coils, but I continue to use both kinds. All the coils I make continue to be simple, mostly single coils mounted horizontally, although I have dabbled in dual coils and vertical mounting. The more "advanced" techniques---quad coils, ribbon wire, twisted wire coils and the like remain far beyond my simple skills. A halfway decent single coil wicked with KGD cotton or rayon is the limit of my expertise.Yes, I have numerous spools of Kanthal A-1 from 32 down to 26 gauge, but I also have a stock of dirt-cheap pre-made nichrome coils from fasttech in various gauges/resistances/diameters that I use often for quick rebuilds. I guess that shows what a philistine I am. LOL.

Great post Bill.

Now that I am dappling with sub ohming I am realizing how important air flow is to the intensity of flavor.

Tighter air flow = more intense flavor.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[67Tele]

The ranking of different NET vendors and juices in this group is much more consensus of opinions than anything else. Most here have little to no experience with smoking pipe and cigar tobacco on a regular basis. The opinions on the quality and success of a NET expressed by the few connoisseurs have been in line with those who weren't as experienced though.

Another grouping of people separate from this group may very well conclude a totally different ranking. Since we're talking a consensus of opinion though, neither list could be called right or wrong in an absolute way. The list here does have legitimacy if you consider that many have participated, many participates have made NETs a big part of their hobby and have sampled and discussed most available offerings, and has been around exactly 3 years to the day! I haven't heard of any other NET group with our credentials.

And fine credentials they are! Completely agree about the wisdom of a large consensus since it involves interest, curiosity, testing and analysis. It's a good method.

Thanks Jerms!

 

[checkum]

I always feared, in the back of my mind, the day may come when some town or city may impose the "no smoking" of analogs, etc. on vapors
Well that day is here as a city near me will soon vote on just such an ordinance!

 

[penguiness]

I always feared, in the back of my mind, the day may come when some town or city may impose the "no smoking" of analogs, etc. on vapors
Well that day is here as a city near me will soon vote on just such an ordinance!

Might be worth gathering people in your city to stand against it. "It will curtail our trips to your city to spend money" sometimes makes a difference.

 

[Mazinny]

I always feared, in the back of my mind, the day may come when some town or city may impose the "no smoking" of analogs, etc. on vapors
Well that day is here as a city near me will soon vote on just such an ordinance!

We have had that ordinance in place in NYC for almost a year now ! Technically you aren't allowed to vape in city parks and beaches, let alone bars and restaurants. Thankfully it isn't really enforced by the police as i haven't heard of a single ticket being written for vaping yet.

 

[93gc40]

Might be worth gathering people in your city to stand against it. "It will curtail our trips to your city to spend money" sometimes makes a difference.

So you want to punish the business owners and citizens for the actions of politicians..... Thank GOD for socialists.