As a non-smoker, I strongly dislike throat hit. I want reasonably fast acting nicotine with minimal irritation.
Best I've found so far is vaping small hits of strong liquid (36mg/ml in 100% unflavored PG) to the mouth and holding for a few seconds. This causes a mild tingling sensation. If I direct lung inhale the same liquid it will cause pain and coughing. Nose hit is somewhere between throat hit and mouth hit. It takes several mouth vapes to reach an effective dose.
Absorbing through the mouth is slow, at least 30 seconds for full effects. This doesn't bother me because it's still fast enough to avoid overdose and slow absorption lowers risk of addiction. Nicotine absorbs faster at high pH, and as sold it's in the base form with high pH. I wonder if adding a weak acid to convert it to salt form will reduce throat hit and still be vapable and effective.
Some unanswered questions:
Does vaping actually boil the nicotine or just boil the PG and carry the nicotine with it by physical adhesion? Nicotine has a higher boiling point than PG so I suspect it may be the latter. In that case salts may be vapable even if they have high boiling points.
Is lung absorption really faster than mouth absorption? I've read some speculation that the limiting factor is the PG/VG holding onto the nicotine and lung absorption is just as slow. In that case, assuming salts are vapable, is there a noticeable difference in absorption speed for salts compared to the base?
What salts are vapable, heat stable, and easy to make? Any experiences with salting nicotine (eg. adding a drop of distilled vinegar to form the acetate)? Stability is a concern, eg. ketene is a possible decomposition product of acetates. I've heard some vendors add citric acid, and apparently that e-liquid is still effective.
Even if salts are less effectively absorbed, they may allow better nicotine effects to irritation ratio. If that's true then they would be useful by allowing bigger hits.
Best I've found so far is vaping small hits of strong liquid (36mg/ml in 100% unflavored PG) to the mouth and holding for a few seconds. This causes a mild tingling sensation. If I direct lung inhale the same liquid it will cause pain and coughing. Nose hit is somewhere between throat hit and mouth hit. It takes several mouth vapes to reach an effective dose.
Absorbing through the mouth is slow, at least 30 seconds for full effects. This doesn't bother me because it's still fast enough to avoid overdose and slow absorption lowers risk of addiction. Nicotine absorbs faster at high pH, and as sold it's in the base form with high pH. I wonder if adding a weak acid to convert it to salt form will reduce throat hit and still be vapable and effective.
Some unanswered questions:
Does vaping actually boil the nicotine or just boil the PG and carry the nicotine with it by physical adhesion? Nicotine has a higher boiling point than PG so I suspect it may be the latter. In that case salts may be vapable even if they have high boiling points.
Is lung absorption really faster than mouth absorption? I've read some speculation that the limiting factor is the PG/VG holding onto the nicotine and lung absorption is just as slow. In that case, assuming salts are vapable, is there a noticeable difference in absorption speed for salts compared to the base?
What salts are vapable, heat stable, and easy to make? Any experiences with salting nicotine (eg. adding a drop of distilled vinegar to form the acetate)? Stability is a concern, eg. ketene is a possible decomposition product of acetates. I've heard some vendors add citric acid, and apparently that e-liquid is still effective.
Even if salts are less effectively absorbed, they may allow better nicotine effects to irritation ratio. If that's true then they would be useful by allowing bigger hits.
