Things You Wish You Knew When You Started

[Slipshod Cavalier]

Hi all,

I'd like to make the jump to DIY eventually, but in the meantime, I've been doing a lot of research, messing around with recipe calculators, etc.

I'd like to know what things you wish you knew about DIY when you started--what are your tips and tricks to make the process easier/make your juice better? What are some things that might not be picked up in the course of normal research? What "a-ha" moments have you had?

Thanks for your wisdom!

 

[Joe A]

I just started this weekend, but I'm going to comment and say The Downloaded E juice Calculator. While I'm still feeling my way around it, it was way better then blindly throwing things in a bottle.

 

[glasseye]

1) I wish I'd known about Inawera flavorings sooner.
2) I wish I'd bought a much bigger storage case for all my DIY stuff. MUCH bigger.
3) 3 1ml syringes? Not nearly enough.
4) More bottles. All the bottles. lol

1) I keep PG and VG in clear glass canning jars instead of guessing how much is left if they come in opaque containers.
2) Usually, but there are exceptions, if a flavoring doesn't smell good to me, I'm not going to like it to vape either.
3) Tastes change as do nic levels. I never mix up more than 30ml of any recipe at once, and then only after going through 2 or 3 10ml bottles.
4) Long steeping? Phhhht. Not for me. I have one recipe that's better after 2 weeks but usually it's 3 days max. That's just my opinion, YMMV.
5) Food and drink recipes translate well and can give little a-ha! tips on a flavor that might be missing from your liquid. Drink recipe sites are a wealth of ideas.

 

[thatguy2]

Flavorings - What do you want to make? What does it require in flavorings? Nothing worse than having to pay $5.00 shipping for $4.00 worth of flavor.
If your going to use menthol or koolada, buy the smallest bottle you can.
When I make menthol it uses 2 drops of menthol and 2 drops of koolada in 10ml of base. ABOUT 20 drops = 1ml, so 1ml will make 100ml of juice.

 

[Slipshod Cavalier]

Great advice so far. Keep them coming!

Flavorings - What do you want to make?

Well, right now I like (some) tobacco flavors. C&D by AVE is probably my favorite right now. What made me start looking into DIY in the first place was trying juices and thinking, "I like this, but I wish it had a little more ______."

Really, though, I'm looking forward to experimenting with different flavors too.

 

[EagleTa2]

I wish I had known about steeping in a uc. I set it on low and add hot water. Add my juice bottles and head for bed. When I wake up, my juice is well steeped.

Treat yourself to a couple 10ml syringes...awesome for mixing 30ml batches of 70\30

You can sometimes get samples of diabetic syringes (1ml). The needles come off cleanly leaving a nub to dip into flavors.

Use glass bottles...and you can run them thru the dishwasher to clean them.

1% of raspberry makes watermelon taste much better...1 or 2% of pear will elevate your peach.

Buy EM crystals and dissolve your own.

Use a dripper to sample your creations...your taste buds will thank you!

That's it for now...

Good luck!
Geo

 

[dannyv45]

I wish I started with hangsen flavors instead of buying so many other manufactures flavors. But most importantly read, read, read.

Read my blogs before getting started

E-Cigarette Forum - dannyv45 - Blogs

then read hoosier's blogs.

E-Cigarette Forum - Hoosier - Blogs

then read the stickies at the top of the page.

this will explain a lot of the how's and why's.

 

[Chas F.]

Well I just started DIY but I can tell you that I've already made a couple mistakes.

1) Mixing flavors without knowing how they taste by themselves is a big disadvantage when trying to determine what the final result will be. I've mixed 4 liquids so far, and while they are all good and vapable they aren't on the level of being a craving.

2) I second the above comment about bottles, you can't have too many!

3) I only bought a few flavors I thought I'd like but I didn't research any recipes so I could include some of the mixes that seem to be popular.

4) We use small ulta-sonic units at work and frequently toss them when the controllers go out. I just asked the facilities manager to save the next few for me to use in DIY.

That's about it for now but I'll be checking back for more tips. Thanks all!

 

[Iffy]

Start on da lower side of an anticipated flav %!

Take 'baby steps' from there!

 

[partyannimal]

I'm still fairly new to DIY and I have a LOT to learn apparently. I learn something new here every day.
I can say that using the least amount of flavor is very important. I over-flavored a lot of my first juices and paid the price. I thought I just kept getting bad flavorings, and I wasted a lot!

I also wish I knew then that a second job would be an excellent thing to have when doing DIY even though it is definitely much cheaper lol!!

 

[michaelsil1]

I wish I knew about what Flavors I would like from all the different Flavor Companies.