Nic Base Storage: Freezer vs. Room Temp Experiment

[madstabber]

Color me confused. How does air trapped in the headspace of a bottle produce a change in the volume of the liquid beneath it?

If it was bottled in Denver and opened in Florida, then there will be a partial vacuum in the head space when you open the bottle. If it was bottled in Florida and opened in Denver, then there will be a small excess of air pressure when it's opened. But neither of these will cause liquid to spill, assuming the bottle is upright when opened.

Just a heads up, Santa Fe is the highest elevation of any US capital. So it may make a better example for your high elevation standard. Also it’s a beautiful city with gorgeous weather. If I move, it will be there, or in the vicinity. Anyway I just thought I’d share that tidbit of information with you. Trying to pay you back for the initial answer you gave me that started all this nonsense with me searching for useless high prices equipment for Eeyore to comment on.

 

[Rossum]

Just a heads up, Santa Fe is the highest elevation of any US capital. So it may make a better example for your high elevation standard. Also it’s a beautiful city with gorgeous weather. If I move, it will be there, or in the vicinity. Anyway I just thought I’d share that tidbit of information with you. Trying to pay you back for the initial answer you gave me that started all this nonsense with me searching for useless high prices equipment for Eeyore to comment on.

Sure, but everybody knows that Denver is the "Mile High City", while hardly anyone knows much of anything about Santa Fe.

 

[zoiDman]

Bucket List Entry #67:

buy e-liquid in Leadville Colorado
Open e-liquid in Death Valley California

 

[Letitia]

How entertaining, thanks.

 

[Nermal]

Bucket List Entry #67:

Buy e-Liquid in Leadville Colorado
Open e-Liquid in Death Valley California

Better use plastic bottles. Glass might implode.

 

[coldgin96]

Sure, but everybody knows that Denver is the "Mile High City", while hardly anyone knows much of anything about Santa Fe.

Where is Santa Fe?

 

[Nermal]

On the other side of the Jemez Mountains.

 

[Brewdawg1181]

Where is Santa Fe?

50 years, and you still don't know the way to Santa Fe?

 

[Zazie]

More crucially, what is Santa Fe?

 

[Ceejay0875]

Santa's Iron?

 

[Susaz]

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.

My personal experience is that nic doesn't degrade in time. Yes it needs a dark place. I keep my nic base in dark one liter bottles (double duty, I love that liquor)

I prepare the full liter and leave it to rest in a dark cupboard, somewhat protected from the rest of the house. It's a little cooler there than room temp since it's at the center of the house. I have 2 year bottles that have tinted slightly but not much. I intend to keep doing that since it works fine for me.

 

[Fidola13]

I’ve been hoping these results would enable me to move at least 4 of my 250 ml bottles from the freezer to my very cold basement.

Great information from everyone!

 

[Mowgli]

No confusion here.
Frozen in glass, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was ...

 

[zoiDman]

No confusion here.
Frozen in glass, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was ...

Yeah. Time Isn't Holding Up... Time Isn't After Us.

LOL

 

[Susaz]

No confusion here.
Frozen in glass, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was ...
View attachment 786839

I hear you. But I no longer keep a big freezer due to the rowdy increases in energy. Back for a while I kept it in a vegetable drawer in the fridge and it made no difference. To me, more than heat, light is the culprit of the degradation, the same that happens with oil.

 

[440BB]

The test in this thread suggests it's the temperature. Here's the comparison after one year - Nic Base Storage: Freezer vs. Room Temp Experiment

 

[coldgin96]

50 years, and you still don't know the way to Santa Fe?

I looked it up...

 

[Boogenshizzle]

I'm sure this has been asked before. I apologize if it has been. I also apologize if it's a inappropriate question to ask here but here goes....
I have quite a bit of flavoring that has been unopened for 2 years. It's sitting in glass containers (10ml) in a box on a self. I'm wondering if that's the way to go or if I should put it in the fridge and remove a container when I open it. I know putting it the freezer is not the way to go.
Bottom line, I'm unsure if storing it on a self (dark) or in the fridge until opening it is the way to go?
Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Dark area, in a box or something, keep them cool. What happens to any item you put in the fridge and then pull out? Condensation. No, in the end, I do believe it best, to keep simply in a cool, dry location.

 

[CMD-Ky]

Freezer, brown glass, sub-zero and wrapped in bubble wrap. I use the bubble wrap because Mrs CMD insists on auto-defrost and the bubble wrap serves, in my feeble mind at least, as insulation when the defrost cycle comes on. Like the guy falling off the building says as he passes each floor, "Still doin' fine".

 

[stols001]

I refrigerate my flavors and no harm has come to them. Even if full, etc.

With that said, I live in AZ, the husband has the house open for repairs, I really just wanted to find a cool dark space, so I had to use the fridge. LOL.

Anna