New to DIY - TFA flavour Tests

[Caterpiller]

My first few batches included a Cherry Ginger:

60/40 12mg
30ml Bottle
1ml Black Cherry
1ml Ginger Bread
0.5ml Honey Suckle
0.5ml Belgium Waffle
10% Total flavour

The Ginger Bread completely overpowered everything else, 0/10.

So I tried this today:

60/40 12mg
30ml Bottle
2.5ml Black Cherry
0.5ml Honey Suckle
4 drops Ginger Bread
Total 10.1% Flavour

You guessed it, nothing but an overpowering Ginger Bread flavour!

It's not a good vape.

I'm hoping it might be better after steeping for a bit, but I'm not holding my breath.

My Strawberry / Spearmint is completely dominated by the Spearmint as well, but a strong Spearmint is much more vaperble

Looks like I'm not going to be a Master Blender overnight after all. Lol.

 

[KattMamma]

I have always been a good cook - natural talent, or maybe because my mom made me start cooking when I was 7, dunno. Anyway, I thought it would translate well to mixing, so I made up my own recipes at first. 2 of the first 3 were a disaster. Got lucky on the third.

Then I started just using other people's recipes and tweaking. I'm a little over 4 months in now, and gave another go at "mixing from scratch" about 3 weeks ago - a vanilla cream I've been dreaming of. Finally tasted it yesterday and it's good!!! Needs a tad more tweaking to get what I was aiming for, but I was pleasantly surprised I got so close!

So my advice - use tried and true recipes, tweak them, and you'll get a better feel for the flavors and how to use them.

 

[dc99]

Any spice or mint (ginger, cinnamon, spearmint, peppermint so on) I start really low. A lot of times they are less than 1% of the total. A flavor that is totally over powering can be thinned with PG to make it less powerful. I mean thin the flavoring before you use it

 

[Caterpiller]

Thanks Kat,

I'm sure that's good advise.

I've just been over in the recipe sub forum, reading the TFA Recipe thread.

As you said, I'm getting some good idea's.

One thing that concerns me though, I've been aiming or 10% total flavourings in my recipes, but see that 20-30% flavourings is quite common in other people's recipes.

I really don't feel comfortable vaping 30% flavourings, at that point the flavourings would be the main ingredient, above PG, VG, or NIC, in the juice!

I might try other people recipes, but bring them down to 10% total flavouring, while keeping their flavours at the same ratio.

 

[Sir2fyablyNutz]

My first few batches included a Cherry Ginger:

60/40 12mg
30ml Bottle
1ml Black Cherry
1ml Ginger Bread
0.5ml Honey Suckle
0.5ml Belgium Waffle
10% Total flavour

The Ginger Bread completely overpowered everything else, 0/10.

So I tried this today:

60/40 12mg
30ml Bottle
2.5ml Black Cherry
0.5ml Honey Suckle
4 drops Ginger Bread
Total 10.1% Flavour

You guessed it, nothing but an overpowering Ginger Bread flavour!

It's not a good vape.

I'm hoping it might be better after steeping for a bit, but I'm not holding my breath.

My Strawberry / Spearmint is completely dominated by the Spearmint as well, but a strong Spearmint is much more vaperble

Looks like I'm not going to be a Master Blender overnight after all. Lol.

The first time I poured my diy down the kitchen drain I was angry and disappointed at myself. The last time I did it it was to say "just get rid of this crap."

This site might help you with tfa flavors :Flavor Percentage Recommendations

 

[KattMamma]

One thing that concerns me though, I've been aiming or 10% total flavourings in my recipes, but see that 20-30% flavourings is quite common in other people's recipes.

I really don't feel comfortable vaping 30% flavourings, at that point the flavourings would be the main ingredient, above PG, VG, or NIC, in the juice!

Yes, that's common with shake and vape recipes - less flavoring sometimes requires steeping to bring out the flavor.

If it makes you feel any better, most of what's in that bottle of flavor is actually PG (or in a few cases VG) although I can't put an actual percentage to it.

You could half the ingredients by either halving the amounts (might be difficult with small batches and tiny measurements) or mix your flavors with PG at 1:1 ratio then you could follow the recipe exactly but get only half the flavor.

After thinking about that... do you use ejuice me up or another calculator? You could enter the recipe exactly like you found it, but put in half the amount you want to make (enter 10ml if you want to make a 20ml batch for example). Then double the PG, VG and nic when you mix. I think that would work... but I might need more coffee to think it through LOL

 

[Caterpiller]

Thanks Kat,

I use my own calculator, which works well for me. It allows for easy adjustment of the percentages and provide the ml required. So I can simply put other people's recipes in here and then adjust them down to get the 10% flavouring I'm looking for.

https://app.box.com/s/kakykq80s8f3ds1k40lerkd1y5m3pqrf

 

[dannyv45]

Always start with the lowest recommended percent and work your way up. Make 10ml test samples so your not wasting material. Start with inawera or hangsen flavors, TFA flavorings are to hard to work with for the new DIY'er.

Read my blogs for everything related to DIY. They can be found in my sig line at the bottom of this post.

 

[Caterpiller]

Thanks Danny,

I started with only TFA flavourings as I'd read somewhere on here that TFA are leading the way in removing diketones.

I'd like to limit my exposure to these where possible, so thought it best to go with TFA.

 

[satchvai]

You can reduce the percentages in those shake and vapes but add on time for steeping them. I think that is what I recall Bill's Magic Vapor stating more than a few times during his comments about High Flavor Mixes versus Low Flavor Mixes. I'm currently vaping his ADV Cinnamon Danish and after 3 days its pretty incredible. 10% EM/Cotton Candy, 6% Bavarian Cream, 10% Cinnamon Danish. Only change I made was to DX versions and it is still rocking it!