Nic Base Storage: Freezer vs. Room Temp Experiment

[DaveP]

I wonder if some of the nic that has a very noticeable color change in the bottles I've been taking pictures of would still look "water clear" in a dropper due to the dropper having a much smaller cross-section of liquid in it than my clear bottles?

Unfortunately, I would have to open at least one of the bottles to find out, and that would ruin the design of the experiment I'm conducting.

Have you looked down in the bottle using a bright light?

I'm contemplating doing the transfer to 8oz glass today. I've put it off for 9 months. It's time to freeze it. I can't look into it because I only punched the center of the seal to get a dropper in and out. My rationalization was that a tip over would be mostly contained if I left the seal intact on top. So far, that hasn't happened and the hydraulic pressure might break the seal anyway.

ETA: I'm still contemplating the best method for transfer. Getting down into the bottom of a liter bottle with a syringe would require longer 14ga needles than the 4" ones I have. I thought about a pump, but that could be messy.

I may just pour the liters one at a time into a disposable container once the 14ga needle won't reach the lower part of the bottle and go from there. A mason jar would suffice at that point. A 100ml syringe would be simple and easy.

 

[Rossum]

I can't look into it because I only punched the center of the seal to get a dropper in and out.
[...]
I know I'll have to pour once the syringe can't reach the nic. I have beakers for that part of the job. I just don't want to tilt and pour while the bottle is almost full.

Your beakers are presumably clear glass? When you do that, do me (us?) a favor please and snap a pic of that nic in the clear glass beaker on a white background.

 

[Cool_Breeze]

Oxidization may not be so bad.

I know some of you have seen this...others may find it interesting.
...not meaning to go too far afield, but with the tolerance of our op / host...

Electronic cigarettes: The nicotyrine hypothesis.

 

[DaveP]

Your beakers are presumably clear glass? When you do that, do me (us?) a favor please and snap a pic of that nic in the clear glass beaker on a white background.

My beakers are LDPE. When I do the transfer I'll take a picture in a clear glass bottle on a white background.

 

[DaveP]

Your beakers are presumably clear glass? When you do that, do me (us?) a favor please and snap a pic of that nic in the clear glass beaker on a white background.

My beakers are LDPE, but I'll be filling 8oz brown bottles for freezer storage. I'll fill a couple of clear 4oz glass bottles to keep out for DIY, so I can take pictures of those.

I've nixed the idea of the transfer pump. I'm ordering 100ml syringes and I already have several 14ga 4" luer lock needles. I'll just extract what I can get out of the liter bottle with those and then pour what's left into a wide mouth mason jar and finish the liter.

I'm more steady with syringes than pouring into a funnel!

 

[ChelsB]

I don't know if you're looking for any experiences others may have but this nic from MFS that has been in a wooden box, is already changing color! It's been open less than a month. Here's a picture of my working bottle, which is kept in the same wooden box when not being used. All of my nic is 100mg, hence the lack of info on the label. Just thought I'd add my experience as I'm surprised it's changing color so quickly

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[KentA]

I don't know if you're looking for any experiences others may have but this nic from MFS that has been in a wooden box, is already changing color! It's been open less than a month. Here's a picture of my working bottle, which is kept in the same wooden box when not being used. All of my nic is 100mg, hence the lack of info on the label. Just thought I'd add my experience as I'm surprised it's changing color so quickly

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What was the temperature of your wooden box?

 

[ChelsB]

What was the temperature of your wooden box?

I don't know. It's at room temp


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[DaveP]

I'm thinking that oxidation is inevitable with all nic. It may be part of the color change as we mix juice that's clear on day one and slightly golden after a week of shaking to create hundreds of tiny bubbles in the mix. Bubbles = Air, and oxygen oxidizes the nic.

We also shake our nic base thoroughly before we DIY in case separation has occurred. More oxygen is distributed through the nic base each time we do that.

 

[Rossum]

We also shake our nic base thoroughly before we DIY in case separation has occurred.

Personally, I do not. I mix down an entire 120ml bottle of 100mg/ml base at a time. My process is:

• Measure the required amount of VG and put it in the mixing container.
• Dump the entire bottle of nic base in there.
• Measure out the required amount of PG. Use some of that to rinse out the the nic base bottle to ensure I got all the nic (waste not, want not).
• Shake/mix the finished vapable strength unflavored base thoroughly.
• Let it stand until it's totally clear and free of bubbles (usually overnight).
• Pour it into in 120ml bottles and put all but one in the freezer.

That way there is never any shaking, mixing, or aeration of 100mg nic base and my vaping-strength base generally stays completely free of any coloration during the 4 weeks or so that a 120ml bottle of vapable base lasts me.

What I find interesting is that if I add flavorings, then it changes color pretty quickly, and the hue depends on the flavorings used. However, if I mix those same flavorings with just PG and VG (no nic) there's no color either. So I think the colors we see in finished flavored juice are an interaction between the nic and the flavorings.

 

[ChelsB]

Does lower strength nic do better in long term storage?


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[Rossum]

Does lower strength nic do better in long term storage?

At room temperature, it seems to. However, it's hard to be sure. Given that it's much more dilute, I would expect color changes to be proportionally less noticeable.

In the freezer, I've not noticed any difference. On Saturday I mixed down some 3 year old 100mg NN Armor V1 that's been in the freezer since I got it and it was still completely colorless when I dumped it in the VG.

 

[Cool_Breeze]

Are there control samples at work with just pure PG and / or VG going through the same situations? Nobody can say much about pure nic in the same circumstances...

 

[DaveP]

That way there is never any shaking, mixing, or aeration of 100mg nic base and my vaping-strength base generally stays completely free of any coloration during the 4 weeks or so that a 120ml bottle of vapable base lasts me.

Now that I think about it my unflavored 3%/3mg/ml nic/pg/vg bottles stay clear for as long as it takes to use them. I mix unflavored in two 100ml batches in 120ml bottles about once a month.

There are tobacco recipes that stay clear while others turn various shades of gold or pale orange. I always thought the color change was caused by the steeping of flavors as they matured. That's probably right. When we started talking about color change over time I wondered if some of the color was due to the nic, but that would occur immediately if oxidation was the cause.

I'm still not sure that my placing the liter nic bottle in a window and observing a gold/orange tint through the HDPE bottle was the nic. It's possible that refraction play a part coming though two sides of the bottle. We'll know for sure when I pour it into clear glass in a few days.

 

[Rossum]

Are there control samples at work with just pure PG and / or VG going through the same situations?

I've had straight PG and VG sitting on a shelf at room temperature for the better part of 3 years. It remained totally clear and colorless. I've also had mixed PG/VG (generally between 600 and 70% VG) around at room temperature for many months. It remained totally clear and colorless as well.

Nobody can say much about pure nic in the same circumstances...

I'll mention in passing that I have some, but it's in a freezer in a remote location and I'm not at all inclined to do any experiments with it.

 

[David Wolf]

Although it's common knowledge that the optimal way to store nic base is in glass, with minimal head space, in the freezer, a repeated theme in some of the "stocking up" threads has been that some folks either don't have a freezer at all, or aren't willing to keep their nic base in whatever freezer they do have for various reasons. The question that then arises is: How much difference does it temperature really make? Although I have a dedicated freezer for my nic base, I decided it would be interesting to find out. So...

Yesterday, I dug a couple of bottles of nic base out of my freezer. I bought this nic back in April of 2014 (when the Deeming Reg proposal was first published). It came in #1 PET plastic bottles. Since I had not yet started DIY'ing and didn't yet have my own freezer, I stuck them in my wife's big chest freezer "for a rainy day", where they got buried and more-or-less forgotten about. We found them again 2-1/2 years later and they got moved to my freezer with the rest of the nic I'd accumulated in the meanwhile. Given that it was in plastic rather than glass, I was worried that this nic would no longer be any good, so I decided to mix up a batch of my usual unflavored base with it and was pleasantly surprised that the nic was just fine.

Anyway, the nic being used in this experiment is a month shy of 3 years old. WL claims to argon-purge their nic, which probably helps, but the dark brown bottles it was in aren't suitable for repeated evaluation of color changes over time, and besides, most people re-bottle their nic in glass prior to storage, so I decided I would re-bottle this in a couple of clear class bottles with polycone caps. Here it is, fresh from the freezer yesterday:

I let it come to room temperature overnight, and today, I rebottled it in the clear glass bottles:

As you can see, it has just a slight tinge of straw color.

The bottle marked "F" is now back in my freezer, while the bottle marked "RT" is on a shelf, at room temperature, in a tin box (to keep out light) with a bunch of other e-liquid.

I'll be back to update this thread periodically. My intention is to take pics of the two bottles side-by-side every few months to see whether the one being kept at room temperature changes (darkens) more than the one being kept in the freezer.

Awesome test Rossum, abd surprising results thus far.

 

[Rossum]

A while back, I started wondering whether it really makes sense to re-bottle nic that comes in PET plastic bottles. Sure, glass is less permeable. But re-bottling intrinsically exposes the nic to more air & oxygen than just leaving it in the bottle it comes in. Well, I decided to find out and ordered some more "samples". They arrived today:

I rebottled two of them into glass:

One of each is now in the freezer, while one of each is now in the back of a high kitchen cupboard. (I don't have a dedicated metal box for this stuff here in FL).

I'll note that the location of the two pictures is the same, as is the camera I shot them with, but the lighting conditions had changed. It seems to make quite a difference. The natural lighting had brightened quite a bit by the time I took the second pic.

Anyway, now we wait to see what happens.

 

[mikepetro]

Damn, you are starting to compete with my freezer!

 

[Rossum]

Damn, you are starting to compete with my freezer!

Well, I do have nic stashes in three different states.

 

[mikepetro]

Diversification is a good thing!