Right, Kurt - I have one additional question - which of those nics suits you better? Could you compare them? You know TH etc.
Which suits ME better? It depends, but I guess after all this investigation, I am leaning towards MFS 100 mg. Since I vape only VG juices, the only thing that gives a TH or NH (nose hit, nose tingle, nose burn, maybe even a sneeze) is nic itself, and how much I thin with water to free that nic up for direct application to nasal passages and the throat. It gave me a second metric, in addition to what my spread sheet said was in the juice, as to nic content. Even at 12 mg, there is a difference to me. BE gives no clue, and with MFS the TH and NH is always right where it should be for that nic level. I carry with me a little 36 mg caramel juice which I add a few drops to my carto occasionally to kick it up. I
want the pepper burn in the nose, and with BE it is hardly there at all, and so I would keep vaping to feel it...and end up getting too much nic. But at 36 mg, the MFS DIY does have a nic taste, and BE does not nearly as much.
Vermont Vapor is more on the peppery side at higher nic levels. And yet it also has less residual taste than MFS. It was the first high-nic unflavored I bought in bulk (Nov. 2009), as it was probably the first VG nic available at an affordable price in bulk. It was, and still is, $100 for 250 mL of 35 mg, so expensive by today's standards, but it is clean, pharm grade nic, pH balanced, and slightly thinned with distilled water, based on what Adm has told me. It does have a smell, somewhat like popcorn, rather than the more pesticide smell of MFS. Its very good, and I still use it, but with flavor I am limited to about 30 mg strength and no further thinning.
So long winded response. Clearly the pepper effect and smell are independent of pH or free-base/salt content, which makes it maddeningly mysterious to this chemist. Given what I look for in a vapor
right now, I would say I like MFS the best and BE the least, with VV in the middle more towards MFS for TH and NH. If I ever decide I am not interested in TH and NH, or don't use it as a metric, and want true flavor with little clue that nic is present at all, other than the usual internal clues, like head rush and ear ringing, then BE will win hands down.
I have plenty in cold storage of all three of these. They will last as long as I want them to, virtually unchanged for many years, most likely. My tastes do change, as everyone's do, and this month I will probably vape MFS. Who knows what I will want next month or next year, but I have the option to change if I want.
To be completely honest, last nights experiments and this hypercritical evaluation of sensations, tastes and smells, reminds me of my audiophile hobby, where one becomes hypercritical of the sound a certain brand of signal capacitor gives, or how well the midrange blooms with Telefunken vacuum tubes, and the simple enjoyment of listening to music sometimes gets lost. I wanted to just get back to my own work, and get back to the days where I just had a cigarette and thought about my own work, not every detail of that cigarette. The cigarette was transparent to what was actually going on with me. Sometimes vaping is too, but not nearly enough, and it seems to require maintenance thinking at every step at times. Perhaps it is the fact that we are still in the baby years of it, and carving out the path for its future. We have too many options and not enough real understanding, especially when a solution that is likely only two components can be so radically different depending on the source. Fun, yes, too time consuming and counterproductive unless you are in the ecig/nic business, also yes.
OC, I'd love to see an english translation of your e-liquid blog!
