Syringes & Cleaning + Changing Flavors

[whiteweazel21]

About to embark on my first flavor mix, previously I had recently done a single mix of 6mg/ml unflavored nicotine. It was shockingly sweet!

My questions pertain mostly to the cleaning of syringes:

a. How to clean the syringe used in the 100mg/ml nicotine base? Can I just rinse with hot water, and go through a few push-pull cycles, is that enough? Do I need to use soap? And should I label this specifically for 100mg nicotine only?

b. How about cleaning after vg/pg? Should I label these as well and only use pg syringe for pg, vg syringe for vg?

c. I haven't opened my flavor shipment yet, I assume some manufactures may include a dropper whereas others just caps. I haven't received my scale for weighing DIY juice yet, so I will be using syringes for the flavors for the time being. Can I use 1 syringe, use it with a flavor, clean it, and use with another flavor? Is water enough, or should I use soap, or should I use and label each syringe for each specific flavor? I don't want to contaminate the flavors, but I don't have that many syringes on hand.

Thank you kindly!!!

 

[doctordun]

Although I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, I know that pg and vg are water soluble. I rinse in hot tap water and finish rinse in distilled water. Then I air dry.
I keep three syringes. One for nicotine, one for flavors and one for pg and vg. I just keep them in separate labeled baggies.

 

[nclay]

About to embark on my first flavor mix, previously I had recently done a single mix of 6mg/ml unflavored nicotine. It was shockingly sweet!

My questions pertain mostly to the cleaning of syringes:

a. How to clean the syringe used in the 100mg/ml nicotine base? Can I just rinse with hot water, and go through a few push-pull cycles, is that enough? Do I need to use soap? And should I label this specifically for 100mg nicotine only?

b. How about cleaning after vg/pg? Should I label these as well and only use pg syringe for pg, vg syringe for vg?

c. I haven't opened my flavor shipment yet, I assume some manufactures may include a dropper whereas others just caps. I haven't received my scale for weighing DIY juice yet, so I will be using syringes for the flavors for the time being. Can I use 1 syringe, use it with a flavor, clean it, and use with another flavor? Is water enough, or should I use soap, or should I use and label each syringe for each specific flavor? I don't want to contaminate the flavors, but I don't have that many syringes on hand.

Thank you kindly!!!

Syringes are fairly cheap on amazon. I would dedicate a syringe for each flavor. Also, i would get the biggest syringe you can find for VG, even a 15ga needle sucks pure VG painfully slow.

 

[hooplah101]

Perhaps I am completely reckless, but simply rinse my syringes out with distilled water in between doses. If I kept a different syringe for every flavor and liquid, I would have so many syringes around that I couldn't keep track, would quickly over whelm my brain. I just premix my pg/VG/nic solution, add my flavors. Just the way I do it though. I do take care with extremely potent flavors however.

 

[JohnnyDill]

When I am using a big syringe to mix my 15mg base, I first put in the 100mg nic. Then the vg. then the pg with the same syringe. Then I rinse the syringe with hot water. This way I feel I am not rinsing away any of my precious nicotine, LOL.

 

[Islandguy]

I use a dedicated syringe for each nic/vg/pg. syringes are cheap. I also put a piece of scotch tape over the numbers and graduation marks on the syringe because they do start to wear off. I use seperate for each flavor while im mixing then rinse them with water before moving to the next flavor. Its better than contaminating your flavors in my opinion and it only takes a few minutes to rinse them out before moving on to the next flavor.

To to rinse them i just use water in a short glass. Suck it up in the syringe and squirt it in the sink.

 

[Dixie1954]

Yeah I was picturing 108+ syringes for just my flavorings lol I reuse syringes but only after they have been rinsed and air dried totally. I use different needles also and do the same. I have tossed a syringe because a strong flavor will not be rinsed out however. I tend to do it how JohnnyDill does, then add my flavors - works for me. If I were using glass syringes I would do the same

 

[dannyv45]

I keep a 240ml bottle filled with fresh tap water at my mixing station and pull and plunge from it while mixing. When done mixing I fill it with fresh water and re-clean all my syringes for next use. Simple and it works and I've never had cross contamination. The key is to change out the water regularly and make sure all the water is plunged from the syringe (Air plunge and shake down then plunge again). I do it 2 or 3 times during my mixing session. If you experiment for long periods of time or use boat loads of different flavors you may need to do it more often.

 

[whiteweazel21]

Awesome, thanks for the replies guys. Mixed my first flavored, a recipe from Islandguy -- it came out really great!

On the syringes, I don't have many syringes, but I did buy a lot of tips for them. Perhaps flush with water, and change tips for each flavor would do the trick. That's a good idea to have some water nearby and just use that for flushing while mixing.

And on a side note, I bought some Lorann flavor, but the bottle actually says "Lorann Oils". Is this an oil based flavor, or just the company name? I assume vaping oils would be bad for the lungs.

 

[stateek]

Before I started mixing by weight (which is significantly cleaner and easier to do btw, I highly recommend it) I had a separate syringe for VG, PG, Nic, and flavouring. I would rinse the outsides of the PG, VG, Nic syringes by swishing it around in a cup of water and then drying with a paper towel, and for the flavour I would pull + plunge water a few times to get all remnants of flavour (and then all remnants of water) out of the syringe. I haven't had any issues with cross contamination.

Seriously though if you get a 2 point scale it makes the flavour part SO much easier! For a recipe with 5+ flavours it is a serious pain in the ... to rinse the flavour from the syringe between each one, when you mix by weight it's just a matter of dropping some from the flavour bottle into your DIY bottle. That being said if the bottles your flavours are in aren't dropper bottles you're left with the same problem.

 

[Eliterep]

I think cleaning out a syringe with the push pull and water is sufficient to get rid of most of the flavoring. I like to keep one syringe for each flavor. As for nicotine, I think I am over careful. I specifically use one labeled syringe to measure out nicotine or pour it directly into a beaker.

 

[AndriaD]

About to embark on my first flavor mix, previously I had recently done a single mix of 6mg/ml unflavored nicotine. It was shockingly sweet!

My questions pertain mostly to the cleaning of syringes:

a. How to clean the syringe used in the 100mg/ml nicotine base? Can I just rinse with hot water, and go through a few push-pull cycles, is that enough? Do I need to use soap? And should I label this specifically for 100mg nicotine only?

b. How about cleaning after vg/pg? Should I label these as well and only use pg syringe for pg, vg syringe for vg?

c. I haven't opened my flavor shipment yet, I assume some manufactures may include a dropper whereas others just caps. I haven't received my scale for weighing DIY juice yet, so I will be using syringes for the flavors for the time being. Can I use 1 syringe, use it with a flavor, clean it, and use with another flavor? Is water enough, or should I use soap, or should I use and label each syringe for each specific flavor? I don't want to contaminate the flavors, but I don't have that many syringes on hand.

Thank you kindly!!!

I do keep a few syringes dedicated to a particular substance; I put tape on the marked side anyway to keep from rubbing off the markings, so on the tape I just write with permanent marker: "PG", "vg" or "nic only". I generally always have something soaking in a bowl of half alcohol/half water -- plastic bottles, to get the smell out of them; I rinse the syringes a few times with plain water push/pulls, then draw up some of that half-water alcohol and push it out into the sink, then give it a few more plain water rinses.

I do this also with the syringes I use for flavors; my two main ADVs right now arev a strawberry and a blueberry, so I have 2 syringes just for those -- but for everything else, I keep 2-3 handy; I try to keep vanillas and creams and suchlike to one syringe (though well-rinsed between uses), and another for any fruits or other sweet flavors, and another for coffee/tobacco flavors. I keep tape over the markings so I get a fairly long lifetime out of them, and if you keep the similar flavors/smells together, then any bleed-thru that occurs despite thorough rinsing isn't a huge issue.

Be careful to use very fat needles with VG, because the stuff is so thick, with sufficient force you can literally destroy a plastic syringe, trying to push the stuff out faster than it wants to go, or push even a luer lock needle right off the tip, and make a huge mess.

Andria

 

[bwh79]

I generally always have something soaking in a bowl of half alcohol/half water -- plastic bottles, to get the smell out of them;

How's that work out for ya? Do you use isopropyl/rubbing alcohol, or something else? I've got a few bottles that still smell after a couple shake-and-rinse cycles with some 80-proof vodka. Danny said that it shouldn't affect the flavor so I stopped trying so hard, but if soaking works for you to get the smell out, then I might still give it a shot.

 

[AndriaD]

How's that work out for ya? Do you use isopropyl/rubbing alcohol, or something else? I've got a few bottles that still smell after a couple shake-and-rinse cycles with some 80-proof vodka. Danny said that it shouldn't affect the flavor so I stopped trying so hard, but if soaking works for you to get the smell out, then I might still give it a shot.

It works ok; I just use plain rubbing alcohol, mixed with an equal amount of water, to keep it from destroying plastic. It gets the nicotine smell out of plastic and the flavoring smell out of o-rings. But it's a good idea to not overdo it with o-rings, unless you have some spares; one of my kayfuns was leaking a bit this morning, and I think it's because I've soaked its base in that half-alcohol several times now. Thank goodness it was lying on its side overnight, or my sigelei would have gotten an ejuice bath.

Andria

 

[froginblender]

Looks like you haven't replied to any posts here from other members...hmmm.

If you do, forego syringes alltogether by using digital scale with beaker..and glass funnel from wizardlabs.

you can check out a video i made if you like.

 

[JD1]

Awesome, thanks for the replies guys. Mixed my first flavored, a recipe from Islandguy -- it came out really great!

On the syringes, I don't have many syringes, but I did buy a lot of tips for them. Perhaps flush with water, and change tips for each flavor would do the trick. That's a good idea to have some water nearby and just use that for flushing while mixing.

And on a side note, I bought some Lorann flavor, but the bottle actually says "Lorann Oils". Is this an oil based flavor, or just the company name? I assume vaping oils would be bad for the lungs.

I think you need to research each one. It's my understanding (possibly wrong) that most of them aren't true oils and are water soluble and ok for vaping, but some of them aren't. You might be able to tell if they combine well, but I'd think a google on each one should give you some answers. Best of luck and hope this helps a little.

 

[Mr.Mann]

I keep a 240ml bottle filled with fresh tap water at my mixing station and pull and plunge from it while mixing. When done mixing I fill it with fresh water and re-clean all my syringes for next use. Simple and it works and I've never had cross contamination. The key is to change out the water regularly and make sure all the water is plunged from the syringe (Air plunge and shake down then plunge again). I do it 2 or 3 times during my mixing session. If you experiment for long periods of time or use boat loads of different flavors you may need to do it more often.

This is what I do. Clean after every and any use (a flavor that goes in, I clean directly after), and then clean once I am finished for the night. I used to have three vessels -- first with filtered water, then distilled, then a junk container -- but I moved to just filtered water and a junk container as I was having to buy too much distilled water and it was honestly overkill.

I toss my syringes after 1-2 weeks, depending on how much I've been using a particular one.

 

[dannyv45]

Awesome, thanks for the replies guys. Mixed my first flavored, a recipe from Islandguy -- it came out really great!

On the syringes, I don't have many syringes, but I did buy a lot of tips for them. Perhaps flush with water, and change tips for each flavor would do the trick. That's a good idea to have some water nearby and just use that for flushing while mixing.

And on a side note, I bought some Lorann flavor, but the bottle actually says "Lorann Oils". Is this an oil based flavor, or just the company name? I assume vaping oils would be bad for the lungs.

As a side note put some clear nail polish over the numbers and scale markings. These tend to rub off quickly.

 

[AndriaD]

As a side note put some clear nail polish over the numbers and scale markings. These tend to rub off quickly.

Ugh... I can't stand the smell of nail polish even when it's DRY... I just put tape over mine... no stink.

Andria

 

[whiteweazel21]

Thanks for all the kind comments and help -- will take note of all these suggestions. My scale shipment got pushed back until February 3rd, was supposed to be here today.

I'm doing small 10ml batches as I've just started experimenting with my own flavors, so I'm using the syringes basically for nicotine, vg, and pg. Using a good recipe on the forums, I've used syringes for flavors since I am mixing 30-60ml batches, but for these small 10ml batches I am doing the inaccurate drop method. My flavors are maxing out at about 20 drops, and some only 2-8 drops so I figure this is the easiest way until the scale arrives. Am cleaning all syringes with push/pull water cycles.

Thanks!