New diyers -are you inclined to jump right in to the more sophiticated but challenging approach to pursue many component trace amounts of many components seeking complex but probably finer flavored or do you go for the simpler but mor logical strategy of the probably less final objective but maybe easier to evaluate approach of a few basic flavors with a major overall taste.but little.nuance or subtle overtones. I am kind of doing a little of both
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I have stuck with the more straightforward mixes of just a few flavors so far. I plan to make more complex flavors once I've played around with the components a little more. Right now I am limited in how long I can play with the mixes because my husband has problems with strong scents and I have to stop before he gets home. If I can come up with some really good blends I will probably start to sell them or maybe open up a local shop. I haven't been able to find a shop anywhere within 50 miles of my house, and I think there is definitely a market for it here.
i started off with pretty simple flavors consisting of mostly one flavor then added sweeter and tart and sometimes tobacco flavors,
it kind of gave me an idea of how strong each flavoring i was working with was, some flavoring are very very powerful (tobacco for instance) while others are pretty week (like most grape and blueberry i have tried)
if i were just starting again i would do the same thing again.
it kind of gave me an idea of how strong each flavoring i was working with was, some flavoring are very very powerful (tobacco for instance) while others are pretty week (like most grape and blueberry i have tried)
if i were just starting again i would do the same thing again.
Much like with learning how to cook, I think that starting out with simple flavors in DIY is the best way to go. Start simple, and do that until you REALLY understand how the different components act and react with each other.
Once you master that, then you can move on to complex flavors. But until you understand how individual flavors work, and how they work with varying levels of nic and different PG/VG ratios, it's probably better to stick to simple "recipes".
Just my opinion, as a home-brewer, baker and incurable "foodie" with over 30 years experience in my kitchen...
Once you master that, then you can move on to complex flavors. But until you understand how individual flavors work, and how they work with varying levels of nic and different PG/VG ratios, it's probably better to stick to simple "recipes".
Just my opinion, as a home-brewer, baker and incurable "foodie" with over 30 years experience in my kitchen...
Write everything down and date time stamp. I really messed up a few times until I realized what was happerning. I had so many formula's in my juice calculator I didn't know which one's I was using.
I started out with Johnson Creek ver in Oct 2012 have three of them. Everthing was going good, then in Dec I bought a vamo drip tips. I was mixing two basic flavors amaretto and menthol and started to add to that. I had to learn that useing a drip tip gave bigger draw/vapor/juice tasted different and. Then I started with voltages and wattages never writing down my settting I liked. I started to change my mixes because my juice did not taste same anymore to me. Also made a couple home made tanks and loved them. Will be getting Vivi nova in mail this week. Now I
I started out with Johnson Creek ver in Oct 2012 have three of them. Everthing was going good, then in Dec I bought a vamo drip tips. I was mixing two basic flavors amaretto and menthol and started to add to that. I had to learn that useing a drip tip gave bigger draw/vapor/juice tasted different and. Then I started with voltages and wattages never writing down my settting I liked. I started to change my mixes because my juice did not taste same anymore to me. Also made a couple home made tanks and loved them. Will be getting Vivi nova in mail this week. Now I
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Sorry for my incomprehensible initial post. I had just finished an ordeal that involved 48 hours with no sleep to get to the family YuleTime fest, during which I got about 5 hours sleep, followed by another 24 hours awake straight spent trying to get back home but only finally making it to Chicago, at which point we said f this and got on the L and went into town drinking all night to kill time until our 6 am departure. So finally, relaxing in my bed surrounded by furballs and enjoying a final cognac in celebration of mission accomplished, I got on the internet, but not very coherently. ;-)
I agree that simple mixes is the best way to start. I think you have to get a feel for the individual components first, then how they may interact within simple blends. This is an empirical activity - we cannot propose an exact taste that a certain mixture will have from some mathematical equation, perform an experiment, and confirm the hypothesis that we indeed obtain the taste. Flavorings don't work that way. What is "vanilla flavor", describe for me exactly how it tastes? Good luck with that, and it may not even taste the same at all to me as you anyway.
And yet, an empirical study is not just random chaos. If you order a vanilla shake and I order a chocolate shake, and the waitress puts the cups down wrong, almost all of us can instantly recognize "Dude, I got your shake" even though realistically none of us could say "Describe exactly how chocolate and vanilla taste and smell." So we can use references points as an effective tool even for things we cannot describe or even perceive the same as another person.
I think these are some important elements for beginners IMO:
1) Mightymen nails the most critical element: Keep accurate and painstaking notes about everything you do and keep everything labelled and dated. This is how you study your "reference points" to familiarize yourself with your individual working components, and is where you can keep at least notes on some possible interactions of mixes, even though these are prone to a lot of ambiguity and vagueness. But a detailed record, even if your hypotheses about "too much EM" may prove ultimately invalid is how you refine your working knowledge.
2) Control every variable you can control. I use a single type of battery and cart for all my juice experiments. Sure, if you have tons of hardware around you can play around and find that a hotter or cooler system improves or ruins a mix, but for the beginning DIYer I think that is becoming a complicated and subjective additional parameter that is likely to lead to mostly chaos. I advise leave that for your DIY intermediate science days, and start off sticking to the juice study with a standardized evaluation config. But whatever you do - prodigious notes on all of it.
3) This is just a corollary of Item 1 - Don't cheat, and actually I kind of feel you might want to quickly abandon juice calculators as something you really need to have. They are handy mainly for getting your nic level in the right neighborhood. I can tell you in no uncertain terms, if you think a drop of PG-VG and a drop of Tobacco Extract and a drop of just about any flavoring or something like Acetyl Pyrazine are the "same" and add up to give you anything close to those nice 2 to 3 decimal precision numbers you get from a j-calc, you are badly mistaken. But I digress. I just use a spreadsheet, let my actual nic levels vary around a 18-22 range, and I simply record drops that I add into usually something I keep constant like 0.6 mL 100 mg/ML Nic into 1.4 mL pg-VG base.
But whatever you do, don't cheat. If you set up a calc to add 4 drops of Dingleberry Juice extract and you got excited and added 6 drops, don't cave to the common human nature we all share and leave it and say "Well, it is close" or feel like you made a "mistake". There are no mistakes, the j calc is not God Judge Jury or Executioner. The ONLY important thing is knowing what you put in the bottle, and the only mistake is NOT keeping accurate and detailed notes about exactly what you did. Many of the greatest scientific achievements have come from mistakes. But only after a lot of hard work, often months and even years of investigating why the "mistake" led to the unexpected observation. In science it is called "Serendipity" because it may involve a factor of luck or just a plain f-up, but we accord it this special term that is given the highest regards, because while the breakthrough might have been sheer luck or a brain fart, but the discovery process that follows is the hallmark of an esteemed and dedicated scientist and deserves the greatest recognition. A lesser man would have simply poured it all down the sink.
4) Work on your technique. That means a neat, organized systematic approach. You will get nowhere if you constantly cross contaminate your extracts, "think" you already put something in but are not really sure, etc. And a drop is already an ambiguous amount, but that does not mean it cannot be reproduced to an acceptable consistency. A drop should be "free-falling". Learn to let one form, then if needed, fall with no more than just a love touch of a squeeze on the bottle. Through air, into the vial. I guarantee you if you are touching a dropper bottle tip against a vial, you are not getting anything even close to a reproducible free falling drop.
5) Don't be a prisoner of final conclusions. If you try caramel and don't like caramel, don't be limited by that. The reference point of "I know what caramel" adds is certainly useful, but not the total answer. Mixtures change components, and when you go from say a 3% caramel to adding just a trace of caramel the characteristics of most flavors can not only change, but many can change radically. In other words when you go from basic, usually higher % mixes to trying more complex mixes with still some major flavors, but some additions of trace flavors to try to tweak some nuance, keep your options open and be willing to visit anything. This is really where technique and of course prodigious notes become absolutely essential.
6) Don't expect it to be easy. Perserverence, observation, careful documentation, try try again. But that is the fun part right?!
Well that is whta I think is important anyway ....
I agree that simple mixes is the best way to start. I think you have to get a feel for the individual components first, then how they may interact within simple blends. This is an empirical activity - we cannot propose an exact taste that a certain mixture will have from some mathematical equation, perform an experiment, and confirm the hypothesis that we indeed obtain the taste. Flavorings don't work that way. What is "vanilla flavor", describe for me exactly how it tastes? Good luck with that, and it may not even taste the same at all to me as you anyway.
And yet, an empirical study is not just random chaos. If you order a vanilla shake and I order a chocolate shake, and the waitress puts the cups down wrong, almost all of us can instantly recognize "Dude, I got your shake" even though realistically none of us could say "Describe exactly how chocolate and vanilla taste and smell." So we can use references points as an effective tool even for things we cannot describe or even perceive the same as another person.
I think these are some important elements for beginners IMO:
1) Mightymen nails the most critical element: Keep accurate and painstaking notes about everything you do and keep everything labelled and dated. This is how you study your "reference points" to familiarize yourself with your individual working components, and is where you can keep at least notes on some possible interactions of mixes, even though these are prone to a lot of ambiguity and vagueness. But a detailed record, even if your hypotheses about "too much EM" may prove ultimately invalid is how you refine your working knowledge.
2) Control every variable you can control. I use a single type of battery and cart for all my juice experiments. Sure, if you have tons of hardware around you can play around and find that a hotter or cooler system improves or ruins a mix, but for the beginning DIYer I think that is becoming a complicated and subjective additional parameter that is likely to lead to mostly chaos. I advise leave that for your DIY intermediate science days, and start off sticking to the juice study with a standardized evaluation config. But whatever you do - prodigious notes on all of it.
3) This is just a corollary of Item 1 - Don't cheat, and actually I kind of feel you might want to quickly abandon juice calculators as something you really need to have. They are handy mainly for getting your nic level in the right neighborhood. I can tell you in no uncertain terms, if you think a drop of PG-VG and a drop of Tobacco Extract and a drop of just about any flavoring or something like Acetyl Pyrazine are the "same" and add up to give you anything close to those nice 2 to 3 decimal precision numbers you get from a j-calc, you are badly mistaken. But I digress. I just use a spreadsheet, let my actual nic levels vary around a 18-22 range, and I simply record drops that I add into usually something I keep constant like 0.6 mL 100 mg/ML Nic into 1.4 mL pg-VG base.
But whatever you do, don't cheat. If you set up a calc to add 4 drops of Dingleberry Juice extract and you got excited and added 6 drops, don't cave to the common human nature we all share and leave it and say "Well, it is close" or feel like you made a "mistake". There are no mistakes, the j calc is not God Judge Jury or Executioner. The ONLY important thing is knowing what you put in the bottle, and the only mistake is NOT keeping accurate and detailed notes about exactly what you did. Many of the greatest scientific achievements have come from mistakes. But only after a lot of hard work, often months and even years of investigating why the "mistake" led to the unexpected observation. In science it is called "Serendipity" because it may involve a factor of luck or just a plain f-up, but we accord it this special term that is given the highest regards, because while the breakthrough might have been sheer luck or a brain fart, but the discovery process that follows is the hallmark of an esteemed and dedicated scientist and deserves the greatest recognition. A lesser man would have simply poured it all down the sink.
4) Work on your technique. That means a neat, organized systematic approach. You will get nowhere if you constantly cross contaminate your extracts, "think" you already put something in but are not really sure, etc. And a drop is already an ambiguous amount, but that does not mean it cannot be reproduced to an acceptable consistency. A drop should be "free-falling". Learn to let one form, then if needed, fall with no more than just a love touch of a squeeze on the bottle. Through air, into the vial. I guarantee you if you are touching a dropper bottle tip against a vial, you are not getting anything even close to a reproducible free falling drop.
5) Don't be a prisoner of final conclusions. If you try caramel and don't like caramel, don't be limited by that. The reference point of "I know what caramel" adds is certainly useful, but not the total answer. Mixtures change components, and when you go from say a 3% caramel to adding just a trace of caramel the characteristics of most flavors can not only change, but many can change radically. In other words when you go from basic, usually higher % mixes to trying more complex mixes with still some major flavors, but some additions of trace flavors to try to tweak some nuance, keep your options open and be willing to visit anything. This is really where technique and of course prodigious notes become absolutely essential.
6) Don't expect it to be easy. Perserverence, observation, careful documentation, try try again. But that is the fun part right?!
Well that is whta I think is important anyway ....
usually i prefer sweet flavors ie caramel/vanila/cacao/
the first experiment i done is after getting a plaiin nicotine from the US at 75mg strength i bought a plain glycerin usp grade from the pharmacy instead of getting the ready one from the onlie shops at the triple price
my foundings was that i am getting reacher flavor out of it but when my genesis gets hot from constant vaping the juice starts changing color and becoming more darker and juice, imagine that when i place the fresh juice inside the tank with 90% VG juice is more think tham the oil but after i rich at the half of the tank and the attty is worm the juice is like water and more dark, conclusion is the ready base VG from online shops is better
regarding the mixing of the flavors because personally i dont like different flavors at once i never tried it but for sure after this thread i will give a shot and hope no explosions will come out.
the first experiment i done is after getting a plaiin nicotine from the US at 75mg strength i bought a plain glycerin usp grade from the pharmacy instead of getting the ready one from the onlie shops at the triple price
my foundings was that i am getting reacher flavor out of it but when my genesis gets hot from constant vaping the juice starts changing color and becoming more darker and juice, imagine that when i place the fresh juice inside the tank with 90% VG juice is more think tham the oil but after i rich at the half of the tank and the attty is worm the juice is like water and more dark, conclusion is the ready base VG from online shops is better
regarding the mixing of the flavors because personally i dont like different flavors at once i never tried it but for sure after this thread i will give a shot and hope no explosions will come out.
I found a new way to add new flavor to mix list. I Love my Amaretto, RY4 mix and my other juice I'm in love with RY4, Monthol with a little vanilla ice cream. So what I tryed to day was put a 2 mi of each in a bottle and vape not bad pretty good I call it my ZESTY MENTHOL. I've been vaping it for hours with my new vivi nova V3 I got it today.
Got to get a couple of them.
NOW i have a 3rd juice I love. Easy way to ne flavor's to my list.
Got to get a couple of them.
NOW i have a 3rd juice I love. Easy way to ne flavor's to my list.
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When I started DIY'ing I would start with 1 flavor mixes.
Now that I'm more experienced I still mostly do 1-2 flavor mixes. But sometimes on a whim- after testing out all the flavors on their own to gauge their strengths-I make a complex 5+ flavor mix. Sometimes they come out good but most of the time they are just okay.
I find it is best to start new recipes with less than 2 flavors, not including ethyl maltol.
Now that I'm more experienced I still mostly do 1-2 flavor mixes. But sometimes on a whim- after testing out all the flavors on their own to gauge their strengths-I make a complex 5+ flavor mix. Sometimes they come out good but most of the time they are just okay.
I find it is best to start new recipes with less than 2 flavors, not including ethyl maltol.
I do all of my diy as standalone flavors. after nearly a year I have maybe a dozen or so that are true keepers. I take my single flavor grogs and combine them in small amounts....sometimes 2 flavors, sometimes as many as 8 flavors.
Simple approach but I know my single flavor mixes are exactly what I like and combining them in varying amounts is a very simple way to layer flavors while searching for more complex flavors.
Simple approach but I know my single flavor mixes are exactly what I like and combining them in varying amounts is a very simple way to layer flavors while searching for more complex flavors.
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