New to DIY. help?

[mfraz25]

I ordered some DIY supplies from HealthCabin and also purchased some LorAnn oils.

I get everything set up; 10ml bottle, syringe, 36mg no flavor VG, and PG cutter

I add 4mL of my nic juice, 6mL of my base and about 6(roughly) drops of my flavor. Shook and let sit.

Well now that I am using them they don't taste anything like the juices I have purchased premade.

Help?! what am I doing wrong?

 

[jwquantrell]

Greetings,

If I am understanding your math correctly, you are making 10ml of juice and you used only 6 drops of flavoring. Most lorann flavors work best at the 10% to 20% range. My dropper bottles are about 100 drops per ml. 10% of 10ml is 1ml or about 100 drops. Try adding flavor a little at a time until you get the taste that you enjoy. If 10% was to work in your case it would have been 4ml nic juice, 5ml of PG or VG and 1ml of flavor.

Hope this helps
Jim

 

[sophie_lapin]

What is your flavor and what Nic level would you like?

 

[mfraz25]

Thanks, I tried that on a bottle of my mint blend.

and Sophie, I have all kinds of flavor, from sweet to savory. 24mg.

 

[Iluvthearmy]

give this calculator a try, you just punch in your desired percentages and hit calculate..there's even a bunch of recipes that come with it. It was a huge step up when I started DIY and I still use it 3 months later. eJuice Me Up - e-Juice e-Liquid Recipe Calculator

 

[mfraz25]

I will look into that. thanks

love your avatar

 

[donnah]

Also remember that these juices that you've bought premade are most likely different flavors blended together. I mix different flavors at different percentages.. for the most part I've been very happy with the stuff I've made.

 

[Iluvthearmy]

I will look into that. thanks

love your avatar

hah,that's me and my little brother after we got back from our first tour...little side not, alot of vendors add sweetener or that cotton candy crap to almost everything to make things consistant,also try using a little vodka to cut it (I do mean a little) it helps kill that nic juice taste. one last thing voidmist.com: e-liquids & more is having a 40% off sale, he does it about every 2 weeks and it makes it cheap enough to screw up a few batches without a huge cost.. code is MAR22_40%OFF‏
good till tuesday night.

 

[oldsoldier]

Good advice here about using a calculator and upping the percentages. 6 drops isnt nearly enough for 10ml.

But wow 100 drops per ml? Those must be really stranger dropper bottles that jw uses! The "normal" average is 20 -40 depending on the viscosity of the liquid you are dropping. Personally I don't advocate using drops as a measure. Use a syringe or a graduated cylinder and you will get more accurate and repeatable results.

If you are interested, ECF Live Chat has a DIY channel, its not super active but there are a few folks that hang out there and we could always use some more company If you've never been there you can join it by clicking the live chat link at the top of every forum page, or if you already have an IRC client click on my sig and it should take you there.

Cheers,
/sarge

 

[pixiedust]

oldsoldier is correct 20 drops = 1 ml. For 10ml juice you might start with 10% flavor or 20 drops. Use the calculator that was linked, it's a thing of beauty. Makes DIY a no-brainer even for a dummy like me. I print the 'recipe card' for each batch of juice I make and mark the bottle with a unique number then I write the number on the recipe card. that way I can adjust my next recipe accordingly, or re-create something I really like.

 

[jwquantrell]

Yes, you are entirely correct oldsoldier. I guess that i wasn't as clear as I should have been, but I have bottles that range anywhere from 20 to 100 drops and I was trying to convey what you did about drops not being good for measuring.

I actually use a 3ml syringe for all my mixing with the exception being when I use some of the flavor molecules available at TPA, in which case I have my special droppers that make extremely small drops.

If you were to use the same dropper for all your mixing you could use Dan's calculater and set up custom drops per mil.

Regards
Jim

 

[mfraz25]

thanks a bunch.
Made my mint mix and used about 30 drops total and wow! so much more flavor!
the TH is more like a burn.
Thinking maybe some sweetener would help.
any suggestions on what to use and where to buy from?

 

[Zal42]

If you were to use the same dropper for all your mixing you could use Dan's calculater and set up custom drops per mil.

The # of drops per ml also varies depending on the liquid, not just the dropper. I've found that the drop size can vary significantly for different flavors. (also by temperature, although if you don't use your flavorings anywhere with wide temperature fluctuations you can probably ignore this.) In any case, if you're going to measure by drops, then you want to use the same dropper for a given flavoring each time (same dropper for them all is fine), and count the drops/ml for each of your flavorings separately.

Like jwquantrell, all in all I prefer to use a 1 or 3 ml syringe. Drops are approximations, the syringe is much more exact and repeatable.

 

[pixiedust]

thanks a bunch.
Made my mint mix and used about 30 drops total and wow! so much more flavor!
the TH is more like a burn.
Thinking maybe some sweetener would help.
any suggestions on what to use and where to buy from?

I use perfumer's apprentice cotton candy in all the juice I make, usually 1% unless I'm really looking to sweeten it up in which case I might go as high as 3%. Here's a place eliquidstore that has small bottles of flavoring really cheap but I think they are out of most everything until next week. 3ml bottles are $1, 7.5 ml are $2.50. Shipping is $1.49. It's a great way to try a number of different flavors without getting stuck with big bottles of stuff that you end up hating.

 

[mfraz25]

I use perfumer's apprentice cotton candy in all the juice I make, usually 1% unless I'm really looking to sweeten it up in which case I might go as high as 3%. Here's a place eliquidstore that has small bottles of flavoring really cheap but I think they are out of most everything until next week. 3ml bottles are $1, 7.5 ml are $2.50. Shipping is $1.49. It's a great way to try a number of different flavors without getting stuck with big bottles of stuff that you end up hating.

Thanks for that.
So just a bottle of pre-made cotton candy juice or just the flavoring?

 

[pixiedust]

Thanks for that.
So just a bottle of pre-made cotton candy juice or just the flavoring?

Just the flavoring, if you were to use cotton candy flavored juice it would be diluted and the % you would have to use would increase. It smooths out harsh DIY mixes and if you experiment a bit you will be able to find the right amount to use without even noticing a sweet flavor (unless sweet is what you are after) There are other sweetening flavors you can use as well, but I'm familiar with cotton candy now and know how much to use