Sterilization in homemade E-Juice and equipment

[Isaiah Rodriguez]

Recently I came across a video about custom "E-juice" made at home, and how it is probably worse than name brand produced in masses. The video was by a "company" about 1 hour away from my hometown in Souther Illinois, but gladly I live in Central Texas now.

In the beginning on the video he talks about how he bought and sold homemade E-juice from a local guy, and how he researched and found out that it is unsafe unless you produce the juice in a cleanroom. That most companies use a cleanroom that has been completely sanitized and safe to produce juice in the clean air. Basically they are saying E-Juice made in my kitchen or a vape shops back room is unsafe. I kinda want to debunk that and get your opinion.

So first off, a cleanroom can cost thousands of dollars, to millions to make. After some research the average cheap cleanroom is $100 per square foot. That would be $100,000 for 1000sq feet. Not to mention very few if any would be willing to spend that money for a cleanroom. I also have personally seen workers literally make the juice in a room in the back, and mix it. Which I used only custom made juice for my first year vaping. I dont see the hazards. Also upon a lot of research I cannot find much that goes against E-Juice except this video that was terribly made in a probably ....ty vape shop. Honestly if you have a shop, and have time throughout the day to make a rant about E-Juice, you probably dont have a lot of consumers.

LINK :

Watch it, and tell me what you guys think!

 

[Punk In Drublic]

The air is perfect? As you mentioned, it takes a great expense to create a “clean room”. I am willing to bet that many juice manufacturers only follow food grade standards and not a “clean room” like a surgical room or even cleaner, a microchip fabricator. And even if juice was made in the cleanest of clean rooms, just think of the bacteria that resides inside your tank or on your drip tip! You are only as clean as your dirtiest component!

 

[smoked25years]

Didn't watch the video. But I have spent many days in clean rooms.

I'm not sure where you are getting your estimates. Are you trying to rent a facility??!! Haha! Do you just want a professional set up at home?

You could buy a laminar flow hood and an autoclave. Good ones aren't cheap. An autoclave could be used to sterilize glassware and metal atomizers. You will need to look up the heat resistance of your o-rings and peek insulators. You may want to remove them before autoclaving the metal parts. Do your prep inside the hood.

 

[listopencil]

My coil isn't hot enough to sanitize my vapor?

 

[smoked25years]

My coil isn't hot enough to sanitize my vapor?

The temperature of the aerosol is less than the temperature of your coil. You aren't boiling it. It is just an aerosol.

If it was as hot as your coil, you would burn your throat.

 

[sonicbomb]

Meh. Our everyday lives are awash with bacteria, pollen, dust and a hundred other pathogens. While we eat, drink, and breathe. The way our immune system defeats this microbiological onslaught is one of the miracles of our biology.
I wash my hands before I make a batch, and that's good enough for me.

 

[barkfunklerbunk]

Meh. Our everyday lives are awash with bacteria, pollen, dust and a hundred other pathogens. While we eat, drink, and breathe. The way our immune system defeats this microbiological onslaught is one of the miracles of our biology.
I wash my hands before I make a batch, and that's good enough for me.

I agree. Also, consider our bodies typically have an estimated 39 trillion bacterial cells.. many of which are very beneficial and crucial to our health. Our lives are definitely awash in bacteria(the body has an estimated 30 trillion human cells). That said, I wash my hands and keep my equipment and utensils clean. It's just common sense. That goes for anything to do with consumption, but there's no reason we need to go all Howard Hughes on making our own e-juice.

 

[gpjoe]

I have posted this before, but will repeat it here:

I saw everything I ever want to know about e-juice manufacturers in a video posted by the owner of Nicoticket. In a rambling, near incoherent tour of his facility he kicked around an open bucket of "grandma's" vanilla extract on the floor of his shop, with bare feet.

All from a beloved and revered supplier of juice to this community.

I make my own juice now. No clean room or sterilization, but infinitely more appealing.

 

[gpjoe]

Call me a skeptic - I revel in it - but I think the owners of the video you refer to are merely trying to scare you into buying more of their juice vs the "unclean" competition.

 

[DeloresRose]

Call me a skeptic - I revel in it - but I think the owners of the video you refer to are merely trying to scare you into buying more of their juice vs the "unclean" competition.

Exactly.

 

[crayfishx]

Whilst I certainly want my e-juice knocked up in someones basement where their dog sleeps, I don't quite understand the obsession around making sure it's produced in a completely sterile environment. Do advocates of clean rooms also insist the food and drink they consume is prepared entirely in a clean room and one hundred percent sterile until they consume it? Finding a good restaurant must be a drag.

I think @gpjoe has a point that a lot of the furore around this is basically a marketing angle from some vendors but probably also mixed in with misinformation from the vaping fear brigade.

I would be perfectly happy with any juice produced in an environment that conforms to food grade hygiene standards.

 

[gpjoe]

Whilst I certainly want my e-juice knocked up in someones basement where their dog sleeps, I don't quite understand the obsession around making sure it's produced in a completely sterile environment. Do advocates of clean rooms also insist the food and drink they consume is prepared entirely in a clean room and one hundred percent sterile until they consume it? Finding a good restaurant must be a drag.

I think @gpjoe has a point that a lot of the furore around this is basically a marketing angle from some vendors but probably also mixed in with misinformation from the vaping fear brigade.

I would be perfectly happy with any juice produced in an environment that conforms to food grade hygiene standards.

Yup.

Pretty sure the FDA allows a certain amount of bugs and such in your canned tomatoes and corn.

Edit: Out of curiosity, I looked up the FDA guidelines on packaged food and didn't get past the "A" section, specifically apple butter. I quote:

"Rodent filth
(AOAC 945.76)
Average of 4 or more rodent hairs per 100 grams of apple butter"

"Insects
(AOAC 945.76)
Average of 5 or more whole or equivalent insects (not counting mites, aphids, thrips, or scale insects) per 100 grams of apple butter"

Food Defect Levels Handbook

Yum.

There's a LOT more there, but not for the squeamish. You may not consume processed food ever again, though those home-grown fruits and veggies probably carry a lot of stuff to your tummy as well.

 

[DaveP]

I've never been that concerned about germs and bacteria in my ejuice.

Tobacco and its evil cousin nicotine are good as a pesticide - American Chemical Society

 

[smoked25years]

With all the talk on the forum about not cleaning tanks for months or years, hygiene doesn't seem to be a big concern for a lot of people. Haha! I'm a frequent cleaner. I also make my own liquid. I don't have any control over the preparation of the ingredients though.

There was a recent study showing biological contamination of eliquid that was discussed on the forum. ...iirc, it was posted in the general discussion area

 

[Rossum]

"Once again, do you know what you're vaping?"

Yes I do, 'cause I made it myself.

I don't worry about it a whole lot though because PG, VG, and nic are known to be inhospitable to the growth of bacteria and fungi.

 

[Toronnah]

That toothbrush in your bathroom is loaded with e-coli...

 

[Walee]

I don't have the equipment or expertise to debunk this but I will challenge the premise. "Safe", what the hell is that anyway? We don't live in some theoretical "safe" world. And of course, let's put it in context, we vape as an alternative to smoking. Which is "safer"? Case closed in my books.

 

[Eskie]

So, answer honestly. Back on the day, if you accidentally dropped a cigarette on the floor after lighting it, who didn't use the 5 second rule if it's OK to pick up and keep smoking it?

Sure, you're inhaling the vapor into your lungs and not your stomach, where there's lots of acid good for killing any number of bacteria (but certainly not all), and a juice that starts out clean is a good thing, but expecting to meet or even need to meet the standards of an industrial facility isn't realistic, and there's no evidence if you practice good habits like cleaning glassware, keeping ingredients capped and closed so they don't sit around open for weeks exposed to the general environment and all the other common sense practices IMO does not feel necessary.

 

[Mark Spivey]

They really never specify to what clean room standard. Have they ever thought about the air in the environment that people are vaping in? I wonder if they autoclave their atomizers (and tools, coils, etc.) and go in their own personal clean room to coil, install wicking, fill their tank, and vape. Additionally, they didn't even touch on ensuring that the individual components in the e-juice are USP certified and have analytical analysis. SMH

 

[DaveP]

I'd at least want food processing standards to be met when someone is making ejuice in a vape shop. Wash hands with a bacterial soap, wear a paper mask, throwaway gloves, and use common sense in the process. Most/all of the materials and implements used in creating juices need to be cleaned and sterilized, but it's not like they are making pharmaceuticals. Nicotine added to the juice removes a lot of the concerns over bacteria and viruses.

That said, there's testing that reveals nicotine to be a depressant of immunological response in humans. Nicotine also affects development of brain cells in adolescents. We were all warned as children that smoking would stunt our growth! It didn't for me. I've always had to watch my weight. Of course I might have been 6' 2" instead of 5' 11" had I not smoked.

Nicotine and Health Effects on the Body