Water/alcohol in recipies

[Jackal3]

Ok, so new to the DIY juice making, I did some experimenting. I bought some Wilton's glycerin at the candy/cake shop. Bought some Loranne's flavoring too.

I did the following experiment in order to double some of my stock and lower the nic content.

In a 10ml bottle, I mixed the following:
2ml Dekang cappuccino @ 18mg nic
2ml Wilton's glycerin
1ml Loranne's Keoke coffee.

So this recipe vapes incredible plumes and should be around 9mg nic. Problem is it is so thick that it begins to clog my atty rather quickly.
So how do I cut it? I see in all the recipe calculators that you can use distilled water or vodka? I happen to have some Three Olives Triple Espresso Vodka.

I put .5ml of the espresso vodka into the bottle and it seems to vape nicely now. Is that the trick? What about regular vodka in other mixes I make? Will it do the same? What about distilled water? Won't that make it too wet or separate?

 

[Nikhil]

Usually people cut VG that's too thick for them at 10-20%, it depends heavily on your preference and there's no real good or bad about it, unless you use a high percentage of Everclear. Water works just fine but can give the liquid a strange taste. A high proof vodka is usually best because of the lower water content and fewer unnecessary ingredients like sugar which can kill atomizers, and you can use it in anything. It also reduces the vaporization point of the liquid, which helps particularly at lower voltages.

The only information I found on the Three Olives Espresso is that it has 1 gram of carbohydrates per ounce, so may have small amounts of sugar.

 

[Jackal3]

Ok, lets say I wanted to make a base using glycerin. To make a 10ml bottle's worth, how much glycerin, how much vodka? Using glycerin by itself with flavoring is just too thick. So of a 10ml bottle, how much of what would go in (an average)?

 

[MaxUT]

2ml of vodka in 10ml total base will give you the 80/20 ratio, 4 parts glycerin to 1 part vodka.

 

[LowThudd]

I use water to thin my VG. Most people say distilled water, but I have never had a problem w/ tap water. Distilled water is cheap though, so you might as well go w/ that. Usually people use alcohol to not only thin VG but to increase TH. To be honest, when I make juice(and straight LorAnns Keoke coffee happens to be my favorite), I usually just compare the viscosity to factory made juices I have and add a few drops of water at a time untill I get a similar viscosity. It is not scientific, I do half ... it, but it works.

 

[Jackal3]

Thanks for the replies. So a good estimate is 4:1 (VG:Vodka/distilled water) ratio.
So I did approximate correctly. And flavor is typically 10-20% of the total mix, too, right? (adjust to taste).
So in a 10ml batch I'd use the following estimates:
7.5 ml VG
1.5 ml vodka
1 ml flavor
Then adjust to viscosity/taste.

 

[Jackal3]

I have a bunch of 18mg nic juices that I'm planning on cutting to around 9mg nic.
Assuming the recipe above, I should be able to take 7.5ml of VG + 1.5ml vodka base and add it 50/50 to any amount of premade juices to cut the nic by 50%.
I experimented with a few already, and adding the vodka seems to help the viscosity. At first I was just using the VG straight and everything was like syrup... clogged my atty quickly.

Although I gotta say taking 5ml of Dekang cappuccino, adding 4ml of VG, 1ml of Keoke flavor, and 1ml of Three Olives Triple Espresso makes a really rich coffee flavor vape. Sugars or not, wow...

 

[Antwoord]

I use water to thin my VG. Most people say distilled water, but I have never had a problem w/ tap water. Distilled water is cheap though, so you might as well go w/ that. Usually people use alcohol to not only thin VG but to increase TH. To be honest, when I make juice(and straight LorAnns Keoke coffee happens to be my favorite), I usually just compare the viscosity to factory made juices I have and add a few drops of water at a time untill I get a similar viscosity. It is not scientific, I do half ... it, but it works.

So it is safe to use filtered tap water?

 

[Jackal3]

I wouldn't use it for mass quantity... maybe that which I was vaping right away. I wouldn't trust tap water (or distilled, for that matter) to sit around without some sort of bacteria growing in it. With high strength vodka, at least that wouldn't happen. The alcohol content would kill any bacteria.

 

[bshalaby]

I use water to thin my VG. Most people say distilled water, but I have never had a problem w/ tap water. Distilled water is cheap though, so you might as well go w/ that. Usually people use alcohol to not only thin VG but to increase TH. To be honest, when I make juice(and straight LorAnns Keoke coffee happens to be my favorite), I usually just compare the viscosity to factory made juices I have and add a few drops of water at a time untill I get a similar viscosity. It is not scientific, I do half ... it, but it works.

Does it make a difference between using water and alcohol as far as the vaping experience/vapor production? If you use alcohol would you get any ethanol taste in the vapor?

 

[dalelovelace]

Does it make a difference between using water and alcohol as far as the vaping experience/vapor production? If you use alcohol would you get any ethanol taste in the vapor?

I've used water and alcohol (190 proof Everclear) to cut my diy juices. You can tell the difference, but it's not in the vapor production, and it's not an ethanol taste in the juice, it's really hard to put my finger on the difference, it's more that you can feel it when you vape, in your nose and throat... For most fruity flavors and especially coffee flavors I like to cut with alcohol, where in nutty flavors it seems that water is better.