Is it possible AND safe to make your own flavorings? I.e. I make my strawberries into a concentrate?
Yes - - - AND - - - Yes.
Safe for vaping if done at home? I'm thinking yes, but it all depends on the method used for extraction.
Medicine Flower uses the Absolute Gold Standard for creating flavor concentrates directly from fruit (and others like chocolates and vanillas).
The equipment they use we can't afford (LOL).
The blurbs below are from
here.
Medicine Flower's proprietary technique delivers flavor potency and realism that is vastly superior to all the other flavor houses. Most of the flavor houses used in DIY create their flavors from off-the-shelf lab ingredients. I can attest to MF's flavors being significantly higher potency versus all other flavor companies. MF's flavor accuracy, or realism, is unmatched in DIY.
FWIW, a strawberry has over 350 individual compounds. The basic flavor houses (TFA, WF, CAP, FA, FLV etc.) create their flavorings based on those compounds.
For at home flavor extraction you have a few options.
One is using an alcohol like Everclear and another
uses glycerin and water. I sincerely doubt either of those will deliver highly concentrated flavors. Flavors made using off-the-shelf lab ingredients can vary the potency.
See
how to extract strawberry flavor AND
how to extract flavor from fruit.
Medicine Flower has three bases for their flavors - a bio-based PG which is derived from vegetable oil; a natural ethyl alcohol base and an MCT Coconut Oil base. We know the last one cannot be used for vaping. I use their flavors in the PG base. Virgin Vapor (of old and per VV's Annette) used MF flavors (and a couple others). Their caramel juice used the alcohol base, wasn't a problem, I was told by Annette to leave the dropper off the bottle for a few days and the alcohol would evaporate (it did).
I have MF's Strawberry flavor and it is hands down the Queen of Strawberries - - - no other company's strawberry comes close in realism. Strangely, MF's strawberry is one of their weakest flavors - yet it is still far more highly concentrated versus any other flavor company. Normally using 0.5% of a MF flavor will deliver full flavor - - - easily the equivalent of up to 10% using any other company's flavor. Their strawberry requires 1.5% - 2% - - - LOLz, yes still significantly less than any other flavor houses strawberry.
Do some proper research and I'm sure you will be fine.
If you extract from your strawberries - - - and you vape it - - - lemme know as I would be interested in trying some.
Long post, but you asked.
ETA: fixed spelling; LOLz
