Took the plunge

[nine44]

Hey folks

New vaper here. Quit analogs and started vaping around Christmas and haven't looked back.

Taking the plunge to start mixing my own juice. I've done some reading but seemingly enough knowing just a little is more dangerous than knowing nothing at all.

I've ordered some 30ml of 48mg pg based nic, 9 different flavors in 10ml sizes, and will be acquiring 500 ml of 99.5 percent usp grade vg at the local apothecary for 70 cents each 100ml

They also have an organic vg imported from India... it's twice the price, worth looking into or even less suitable than food/pharma grade vg?


Now to the mixing. I'm aiming for around 15 percent flavouring from what I've been reading... although the latest tidbit I read said to limit to 5 percent... now I'm questioning that.

I'll be mixing to 3mg nic strength and will be vaping in a subtank mini


Not looking to add pg unless I really need to, at the mixes I've been calculating with around 15 percent flavor I'm in and around 80vg/20pg which most of my juices have been around.

Will be looking to pick up some measuring tools to help me mix. I'll be making 30ml batches at a time and re using previously commercial e juice bottles. Any recommendations for specific tools that have come in handy?


Fwiw on the flavouring, nic and vg I've spent 65 dollars, which translates to about 3 30ml bottles of ejuice up here, and if everything goes well I should have enough supplies to make 15 bottles or so. That's somewhere close to 250 dollars in saving.

Thanks for your time, sorry if I'm rambling. [emoji228]

 

[zoiDman]

Hey folks

New vaper here. Quit analogs and started vaping around Christmas and haven't looked back.

...

Congratulations nine44.

Not Smoking since Christmas is a Great Achievement!

 

[FranC]

Congrats nine44 Sounds like you have a good start. I would stock up on some syringes and blunt needles.As for percentages,they can vary quite a bit. Most fa flavors are mixed at low percentages for example.

 

[mauricem00]

on flavorings you should start low. you can always ad more flavoring if its not strong enough

 

[BrotherBob]

Now to the mixing. I'm aiming for around 15 percent flavouring from what I've been reading... although the latest tidbit I read said to limit to 5 percent... now I'm questioning that.

I find there is no hard and fast rule to determine flavor percentages for everyone. Each of our preferences will be individual and suit our perceived percentage mix requirement.

Will be looking to pick up some measuring tools to help me mix. I'll be making 30ml batches at a time and re using previously commercial e juice bottles. Any recommendations for specific tools that have come in handy?

Might like to read:
DIY Resources
dannyv45's blog | E-Cigarette Forum
Hoosier's blog | E-Cigarette Forum
Sir2fyablyNutz Major DIY Info.
First DIY Order

 

[nine44]

Thanks for the support friends

These are the flavors I've picked up so far simply by scrolling through what is available and picking what I think sounds tasty...

As far as blunt needles and syringes, I'm hoping they're available at the apothecary where I'm picking up the vg... as they have amazing prices on everything. If not I believe they should be available at Walmart or a drug store?

Should I pick up some pg just in case? Usually I don't look at pgvg levels on the juices I buy and everything has ranges from 70vg/30pg to "max vg" and none have seemed to bother me more than another... other than this one tangerine vanilla custard that absolutely annihilated my throat on first contact... I believe a sensitivity to the tangerine flavouring.

Once again thanks all

 

[sofarsogood]

I use 1% flavoring. Go figure.

 

[nine44]

I use 1% flavoring. Go figure.

Interesting. What nicotine level? What device?

I'd love to use less flavour as I hear that's what kills coils, also that would stretch that 90ml of flavouring I purchased much further

Maybe to start I'll make an unflavored batch at 3mg and give it a quick vape for an unflavored baseline, then break it into 3 10ml batches and try 3 flavors separately... eg. the banana, the pineapple, and the coconut, then decide from there at which strength I'd most likely like them in the flavour I'm looking to bring out in the mix of the 3.

Then still adjust from there as one flavour accentuates or deminishes (probably not the right word) another.

 

[JCinFLA]

In looking at your list of flavorings, they look pretty good! You might find that you'll want to add some Cotton Candy (used as a mild sweetener & smoother for harsh flavors) and/or some Sweetener (which is sweeter than the Cotton Candy, but isn't a "smoother") to your stash in the near future. Sometimes they're needed to take a sharp or "stingy" taste off mixes. I've found I especially use 1 or the other & sometimes even both, with flavorings that have ethyl alcohol in them (like the Ripe Banana on your list), and other fairly harsh flavorings.

Also, before you make a big batch of any new recipe, you may want to do Bill's Magic Vapor 100DT (100 drop taste test). You make a representative small 5mL or less sample...that when you've tweaked it to your perfect vaping taste & made notes on what you've changed, you can easily duplicate that exact taste for your larger batch.

I've used the test for my first 3 new recipes, and I've absolutely altered a few things in the recipes to hit my desired taste with each one. Would've been much harder to "find that taste" in my opinion...if I'd started right away with the larger batch.

How you do the test is found in his blog. I think I posted the link to it on the Flavor Apprentice thread (p. 611 or later) and also on a few threads in the DIY forum. Someone else also posted a link to it on another discussion on this forum. You could also find any post he's made, and find his blog from there.

You can also find a bunch of his recipes here:
Dropbox - Bill's TFA recipes on EJuiceMeUp Calculator Format.zip

 

[sofarsogood]

Interesting. What nicotine level? What device?

I'd love to use less flavour as I hear that's what kills coils, also that would stretch that 90ml of flavouring I purchased much further

Maybe to start I'll make an unflavored batch at 3mg and give it a quick vape for an unflavored baseline, then break it into 3 10ml batches and try 3 flavors separately... eg. the banana, the pineapple, and the coconut, then decide from there at which strength I'd most likely like them in the flavour I'm looking to bring out in the mix of the 3.

Then still adjust from there as one flavour accentuates or deminishes (probably not the right word) another.

I think the most commonn mistake would be too much flavor. My setup is in the signiture area below. The SV rda is worth a mention. I use it because it's better at flavor than anything else I've got. It's so good at flavor I don't need much flavor, which has other benefits like, coils don't gunk up much. I'm tasting it but bystanders aren't noticing an odor and if some gets into my clothing that's hardly noitcable too.

What I care about most is throat hit so I've been trying to figure out what it is, why it can come and go. One thing I might be noticing is I get the best throat hit on a clean coil and fresh wick. And I can hear it. There will be a bit of sizzle. When things get gunked up the sizzle goes away and the throat hit gets muted. So what does the sizzle have to do with it? May be a tiny bit of the vaper gets much hotter than the rest and keeps the different temperature until it hits my throat. If all the vapor was that hot it would be too hot? Just a thought. It would be good if we knew what throat hit is.

 

[JCinFLA]

Found the link to it! You'll see I posted some questions & comments to Bill there, and he was extremely helpful in answering them. So, don't hesitate to ask him for help or clarification there either. He's a terrific asset to the ECF!

Using Bill's 100DT Taste Test Method | E-Cigarette Forum

 

[nine44]

Found the link to it! You'll see I posted some questions & comments to Bill there, and he was extremely helpful in answering them. So, don't hesitate to ask him for help or clarification there either. He's a terrific asset to the ECF!

Using Bill's 100DT Taste Test Method | E-Cigarette Forum

So basically if I use my ejuice calculator, set it to 100mls output and then convert mls into drops I have a micro batch test sample.

When my goods come in that's what I'll do... you've scared me into starting with 5 percent flavor and taking it from there... at the micro batch level 5mls is hardly anything to cry over if it tastes like feet (no offense to those that are into feet)

Due to the new lower percentage of flavouring therefore pg I'm wondering if I'll need to add some to make my juice vapable in my subtank mini... I've heard some use distilled water to acheive this same effect?

Stuff should be here tomorrow and I'll try to grab some 1, 3 and 5 ml syringe bluntneedles... and now 5 eye droppers for the drop test.

Fairly excited over making some conform m concoction heh

 

[Frenchfry1942]

I made a list of general flavors that I felt I liked and then looked for those recipes. Once I found the recipes, I ordered what i didn't have.

It helps to keep track of the recipe, flavors I have, flavors on order and flavors not yet on order but are waiting for a group to be ordered. I use a calendar for steeping.

I bought a crap load of 5ml bottles, too. 10ml, 30ml, and I have some 125 & 250ml glass bottles. for final products.

For syringes, I have 1ml, 5ml, 10ml and 30ml. because some of my nic base bottles being a little larger, I have some 4" Luer Lock needles.

Just like getting started in vaping, the cost for DIY is front-heavy.

Hope helps

 

[rice721]

check out this basic guide on youtube...helped alot

 

[JCinFLA]

@nine44 - Because your Nic is 48mg/mL in PG and your flavorings I assume are in PG, but you want your final juice to be 80VG/20PG and 3mg Nic...I think you may run into some problems using the calculator. You're going to have to use recipes with very small total % of flavorings for it to configure it without a problem.

 

[nine44]

@nine44 - Because your Nic is 48mg/mL in PG and your flavorings I assume are in PG, but you want your final juice to be 80VG/20PG and 3mg Nic...I think you may run into some problems using the calculator. You're going to have to use recipes with very small total % of flavorings for it to configure it without a problem.

I'm not very particular about vg to pg ratio as long as I can get it to work in my subtank mini. With 15 percent flavouring I was able to make the juice 80vg/20pg without adding additional pg but with less flavouring I will obviously have a higher vg ratio...

Nic is 48mg pg based
Flavour are all pg based

Those will be added to 99.5% usp vg.

This calculator shows my tentative mix at 6 percent flavouring

 

[fishwater]

Id recommend mixing by weight, I use a $30 AWS scale I purchased off of Amazon. I also bought blunt tip needles, syringes & pipettes. Haven't needed any of them except for one pipette when I transferred my nic from a 240ml bottle to a 30ml dropper bottle that I use when mixing. No fuss clean up & super simple to mix this way. I did three 30ml batches this morning in less than a half hour including set up.

 

[nine44]

Id recommend mixing by weight, I use a $30 AWS scale I purchased off of Amazon. I also bought blunt tip needles, syringes & pipettes. Haven't needed any of them except for one pipette when I transferred my nic from a 240ml bottle to a 30ml dropper bottle that I use when mixing. No fuss clean up & super simple to mix this way. I did three 30ml batches this morning in less than a half hour including set up.

I have a pretty decent pointscale that's accurate to a tenth of a gram... is there a listing somewhere that says how much 1 ml of vg/pg/flavouring weighs? Or do I just assume a value of 0.1g for each ml and adjust my recipes to taste?


My flavors and nicotine have arrived, just have to take a stroll down the street to pick up the vg and some mixing supplies and hopefully by tonight I can report back with a 100 drop test of my first attempt at juicing.

 

[fishwater]

Most juice calculate in ML or grams. I use e liquid recipe's dot com & it converts to grams using the mfr specific gravities automatically.

 

[nine44]

Ooh cool just saw some have the flavour weights pre loaded... sweet.


Just did my first 100 drop test batch 2 drops of whipped cream, 2 drops of sweet watermelon, 1 drop of pinapple and 1 drop of koolada to 6 drops of nic and 88 vg. It smells delicious although I've yet to empty my tank to try it out... I'll just have to have a chain vape after dinner I guess.... thanks for the support so far friends hopefully I'll graduate from micro test batches soon