Suddenly my two ADVs taste awful, way too sweet

[gordian]

My setup:
I've been analog free for 6 months.

My first setup was an eGo VV style battery with first generation Vivi Nova tanks. Those worked ok for a while but they leaked and they were inconsistent. I stuck with those for about 6 months.

Now I'm on to rebuildables, a pair of IGO-Ls and a pair of iTaste MVP 2s. Those have been working well for the last 3-4 weeks.

I've been wrapping my coils using 32GA A1 Kanthal and for wicks I'm using 100% organic cotton. I'm still trying to find the right wick thickness/size but I'm very close–my wicks no longer develop "shoulders" from being choked and no more hot spots from being too thin.

I like my coils around 2.4Ω and keep my MVPs at 8W (so about 4.4V).

Current issue:
About two days ago, my ADV (Vanilla Sky Tobacco from Hurricane Vapor) began to taste very sweet. Overwhelmingly sweet. Disgusting sweet. This was on a coil and wick I'd been using for less than a day. So I tried another of my ADVs and found the same result. I changed both wicks, same results. Changed both coils, same results. I boiled my cotton balls twice and rewicked, same results. I even rewicked with overly thick wicks (like I had been doing initially); I brushed my teeth (more than my usual thrice daily), ate pickles, vaped a few lesser used juices (which tasted somewhat OK), gave my ADV bottles a good shake, all with the same result: when I went back to my beloved Vanilla Sky it tastes way too sweet. Disgustingly sweet to the point where I can't taste any of the notes I enjoyed.

I'm really in love with this juice. I didn't vape it on my old setup but after a few solid days of vaping I would get weird chemically tastes which I blamed on the silica in the wick or other chemicals from the plastic tank or Vivi Nova insulators.

One thing I've noticed since switching to my RDA is that the vape has become much more intense overall. On my old setup I bought juice at around 12mg nicotine. Could this be something I need to dial back on when using my RDA?

I'm really bummed about this and would love any insight or advice from anyone who's experienced or heard of something like this happening.

If you're still reading this far down then I thank you and I look forward to hearing from you!

 

[SharonMM]

Well.. a couple of thoughts. One, your tastes change a lot after you quit smoking. At 6 months, your taste buds are probably functioning much more effectively than the were when you first started vaping. So it makes sense that you preferred sweeter, more intense vapes at first, but now not as much.

Next, RDAs do give a more intense flavor and also the nic. I kinda messed myself up with dripping because in a protank, 12-18 was fine for me.. but on a dripper, it felt really high. Long story short, I forced myself to get used to it.. and now 12-18mg in my protanks feels too light. So.. now I'm kindof in a corner... Either start buying flavors for the protank in 24mg, or get into RBA.. which I really didn't want to do because I despise all the fiddling.

So yes, I think you are right on point in thinking that you should back off the nic for your drippers. You also might find that some flavors are better suited for dripping or tanking. I have a few juices that I love on a dripper, but they all but dissapear in a tank. There's just no "one size fits all" solutions.

 

[arshmuck]

I'm having a similar issue - all my juices which are all 100% vg have started tasting sickeningly sweet over the past day or two. I just vaped the vg I use in my diy straight and got the same sticky sweet taste. Not sure why this has suddenly become unpleasant but I'm finding it quite frustrating as I want my nic but have no juice I can stand to vape. Will try adding some pg to my juices and hopefully that will fix the issue. What pg/vg ratio are your juices?

 

[smitty727]

It's really hard to say since there are so many variables that affect juice taste. My experience has been that the same juice can taste completely different depending on PV used, voltage/watts, wire guage, wick material/thickness, tank or drip etc... Plus add to all that the fact that my personal tastes change regularly makes finding that "sweet spot" a dynamic endeavor. That's why I have spent a small fortune on juices, PV's, RBA's, wick, wire etc. Once in a while I think I have nailed down that sweet spot but it usually changes in about a week or so hahaha.

That's why I now take juice reviews on this forum with a grain of salt (after spending mega $$$ on juices I hate over the years). In reality all a juice review means is that the person did/did not like that particular juice at that particular time on their particular setup. And I might have the same experience if I can duplicate their setup and my particular tastes are the same as theirs. Prolly ain't gonna happen. That's another reason I DIY. Making mistakes is a lot cheaper.

 

[gordian]

What pg/vg ratio are your juices?

I buy all my juices in 50/50 because when I tried 100% VG I had an allergic reaction.

 

[patkin]

VG creates sweetness so I wouldn't dilute with it. PG doesn't but is a flavor carrier so if the flavoring itself is the sweet factor then it will increase it. Having been where you are, I used distilled water up to 30% to bring sweetness/flavor down but that will, of course, decrease nic strength too. I guess its better to vape lower nic than not to be able to vape it at all. With higher VG juices the DW actually helps feed the wick.

 

[firephly]

I was told by the guy at the shop (when he taught me how to build coils on an RDA) that with the RDA there's more vapor so therefore you absorb more nic and you will need to move to lower nic when using the RDA.

 

[gordian]

After almost two days the sweetness is now back to tolerable levels and I can finally vape my ADVs again!

Very strange phenomenon.

 

[charlzrocks]

I think you had a case of "Taste Duds"

 

[gordian]

I think you had a case of "Taste Duds"

Is that a thing?

 

[Kabooma]

I make my own juices. When I first started, I was still doing analogs and weened off. By the time I was totally off analogs, I was making my own juice 100% of the time. I used to mix flavors at 20-25%.. and back then, that tasted just right. However now, I mix at 4-10% depending on the flavor.. When they say taste buds change, they aren't kiddin! My point is that the same thing happened to me- my ADV's started tasting sickeningly sweet- both were naturally sweet flavors, and it eventually dawned on me that it wasn't the sweetness itself that was the cause, but too much flavor, which translated to sweetness overkill.

Usually store bought stuff is well mixed, so maybe it is your build.. I dunno.

 

[gordian]

Usually store bought stuff is well mixed, so maybe it is your build.. I dunno.

But after about two days the tastes seem to have come back to normal, tolerable sweetness and they're back to being delicious!