I've found more and more that since I can mix up practically anything I could imagine that I get bored with a flavor quicker than I used to. I used to mix 30ml bottles exclusively (except for testing of course). Now if I mix 30ml I'll get through half of it and it sits for weeks. My bottles have been getting smaller and smaller. Now I'm down to 5ml bottles. Since I vape about 5ml's a day I'm vaping a new flavor every day.
On Sunday nights I'll mix up 5-6 little bottles and vape them through the week. At night if there is a little liquid left in my KFL I'll dump it, clean the coil and fill up with the next flavor.
Anyone else get locked into this weirdness? Or am I weird (don't answer that)?
UPDATE- I'm weird...
I make a single 250ml bottle. Then I disperse it into various smaller bottles for storage. I have literally hundreds of dollars worth of flavors that sit idle while I use only two to make my AD,EDV.
Speaking of, I need to order more flavor.
I always make 30's. I will make 15 ml for testing new flavors but dealing with 5 ml is almost impossible with anything that has less than 1% flavor. So even often for experiments I will make 30. Plus the deal is I vape 15 ml a day easy. Sometimes more. I will sit down and make like 6-10 bottles a session.
I was reading about some guys on the e-cig forum that made their own oak barrel reserve, So I may be trying to mix up a rather large batch.
15ml per day? When I'm alternating between my W3 with quads and KFL I'll go through maybe 6-7ml over the day and that's when I'm in chain vaping territory.
KFL doesn't use much, Kracken and Ikarus, both dual gennie, use a lot. Over a ml just on drive to work, 20 mins...
Ahh, I've got an AGA T2 set up with duals and mesh but it rarely if never gets used due to having a fogger and KFL. Not familiar with the genny world cause I seemed to of completely missed out that phase lol.
Even with a .5 double barrel build in my KF though I didn't notice THAT much of an increase with juice consumption
How ... Does it really give you insanely huge hits or is it somehow inefficient?
I usually use a 0.7 single coil rig on an RDA and an entire 10 hour shift at work I'll go through maybe 3ml at most.
Chain vaping all day while drinking and having friends hit it, I've gone through about 10ml maybe and that includes me accidentally overdripping and losing some of the juice out the airhole.
When I first started I would make 30ml experiments and I've always used nic even when testing because I can taste a difference. I thought better when I realized that I was dumping tons of juice that I wouldn't vape and wasting a ton of money. I went through quite a lot of my nic reserves that way.
It's not impossible to do less than 1% in 5ml batches. You just have to have the right syringe. I rarely if ever go below .5% and that is easy enough with a 1ml syringe.
Yea I use a 1 ml. I saw one guy who was using this like 10" long glass pipette he could easily get .01 ml measurements. The deal is I just do not care that much. Even if I toss a whole bottle its not $1.50. I got 500ml of nic from Wizard so the nic is cheaper per ml than the flavor.
I used to spend over $150 a week on smokes, Buying liquid I was spending around $75-$100 a week. I don't like that cheap liquid like MBV. So I started DIY. I make better liquid than I can buy unless I get some premiums like 5P, TVC or space jam. So now I am spending like $20 a week total... dumping a few bottles doesn't hurt at all.
Its like anything, do you eat every single bite of food you buy? Do you trim the excess fat from meat? Prob 25% or more of your groceries you toss or don't eat, Its the same thing. Its the cost of doing business.
I guess I was shocked at the 30 ml testers because I fear not being able to get nic base after the FDA regulates. So I stocked up and calculated that I had enough nic to vape for 4 years. Then I dumped a months worth of juice that had been sitting around long enough to get that nasty ass old juice taste. So for me it's not about the price now, it's about the price later if/when it's harder to come by. Also I buy nic from another vendor that is a little more expensive than wizard but has much cleaner tasting nic IMHO.
Yes I do make it a point to eat all the food I buy in fact. The fat trimmed from my meat does not make 25% of my grocery bill. If I could use that fat for something useful you better believe I would. Anyone can reduce their grocery bill with a little foresight and planning. We buy the staples and make everything we possibly and economically can from scratch. Bread, breakfast cereal, salad dressing, certain condiments, beer among several others can all be easily made at home for cheap and I can make it better than what I can buy in the store. Very little food or any other consumable for that matter goes to waste in my house. I won't allow it.
I'm very weird about this specific point and It's weird that you happened upon it. Sorry for the lecture and I mean that. I started vaping to save money and then started rebuilding and making my own juice so that I could justify buying better built and longer lasting mechs and regulated mods. In short, no I don't agree that it's the cost of doing business.
I mix 1ml on demand for dripping. I keep a big bottle of 20mg 60/40 PG/VG, which I use to make a dozen 4ml 20% single flavor bottles (.8ml flavor, fill to 4ml mark with the base) and I have a bigger bottle of 20% no-flavor made the same way, and a bigger bottle of pure PG. Then I have these tiny droppers that are .2ml/8drops exactly enough. 1 dropper = 4%, 1 drop = .5%.
So, if I want:
8% A
4% B
2% C
2 droppers A
1 dropper B
4 drops C
1 dropper + 4 drops unflavored
That's 5 droppers total == 1ml == 20% total flavor (in this case 6% is no flavor).
So I can now mix and match those 12 flavors in any combination at .5% resolution. Some really strong flavors (like Sassafras) I make at 10% or 5% instead and do the math in my head (that's where the plain PG comes in, .4ml flavor, .4ml PG, fill to 4ml mark). And I keep some 3ml dropper bottles with 5% dilutions of EM, Smooth, Menthol, Koolada, etc. and sometimes add a single drop to a batch.
I'll mix the batch up in a bulb that's been cut off of a 3ml pipette and mix by pulling it in/out of a syringe and/or just put my thumb over the blunt needle and shake it up good in the syringe. Having everything sitting pre-mixed at the same nic/PG/VG ratio makes the mixing a bit easier.
Then I vape that 1ml and either make more or make something else. :)
Sounds like a lot of work, but it's nice to experiment. When I want a larger batch, I just calculate the 20% flavor part and use the same pre-mixed base.
That sounds like an awesome system! Still though I'm far too lazy for that amount of prep work.
At one point I thought about pre-mixing all of my ADV's flavor concentrates and diluting them so I can always use just 20% flavor and whip out juice as quick as possible but it would never work because I'm always fine tuning the percentages and adding new flavors almost every time I mix.
I have a similar system, I mix about 250 ml of PG/VG and nic as if I were making 20% flavor, so its like 7.5-8 mg. Then when I need a bottle I mix up the flavors and fill the bottle with premixed. Ready to go. Its not all scientifically 6% but close enough. Hell that 100 mg nic you bought is probably not 100 mg.
Hmm, I've pretty much always just mixed up 10ml bottles. For one, they're REALLY cheap and I have like a hundred of them. It is also stupid simple to calculate even complex batches in your head when working in 10s. Really though, it is about the right size for me to get a proper feel for each juice so that I can tweak it for the next 10ml.
I typically have my 2 favorite juices in the rotation and three or four experimental/work in progress juices. I very, very rarely dump a juice. I usually build from one flavor and start low so unless a flavor is just outright bad the mix isn't unvapeable and I can make it through 10ml or let it steep for weeks and finish it off over time. If I still have some after 8 weeks, I dump it.
When I'm traveling more than a few days, I will mix up a couple ADV 30mls to stash in a friend's bag in case mine gets lost etc, but that's about it.
I also mix 10ml batches most of the time because the math in my head is so easy. I'll rotate 5-6 throughout the day and a few 10-15ml bottles don't take up much space.
And if I mix 10ml of something I just don't care for and don't feel like working on it, I'll put something heavy like a couple tobaccos in and vape it as a flavored tobacco (if it makes sense to go the tobacco direction). Sometimes it'll be better as a menthol/koolada vape so it gets hammered with those. Or maybe bury it in marshmallow or vanilla. Point being, all my 10ml experiments end up being enjoyable juice in some form without a lot of fuss or waste. And in a rotation they'll generally get a few days to see how they settle down.
I'll mix 30's of things that I know I want to test a few weeks from now or if I'm going to be away from the house for some time.
I usually vape 15-20mls per day And like to make Up a lot of bottles ahead of time with either experiments or my favorite mixes. I also have a 60, a few 120s, and a single 250ml bottle that I will use/wash/resuse every now and again. I'm usually limited by my bottle count, actually. Thinking about getting a case of some nice 30mls actually.
But to answer your question, I only don't vape the last drops of my DIY if its a new recipe n I don't like it. If its one of my ADVs then it WILL all get used.
About once a month I mix up a 500ml bottle of Green Apple Menthol. Its my and my girlfriends all day, everyday vape. I sell a little under half to friends.
Would you mind sharing your recipe? I really want to try this,
5 ml of testing if I'm not sure I'll like it (though working with 5ml is too uncertain), 10 ml got those testers I'm pretty sure I won't find horrible, 30ml of what I use as "breaks" from my my ADV, and 60-90 ml of ADV. I could easily make 250ml of my ADV tough, and indeed I have made 250ml of whatever was my ADV.
I've more or less ditched the 5ml, and exclusively use 10ml for testing now.
I have lots of 5 and 10ml bottles that I need to empty and clean.
I do use 10ml bottles for my ADV to take with me, and just top it off when it gets below half full.
I use 30ml bottles but make 20ml batches of "perfected" recipes. This is because when using 100mg nicotine, the math is easy for doubled 10ml measurements. I calculate everything in my head, though. Nothing is written down. I do not recommend my method to anyone. Ever. *Edit: If I ever made any for use by others, I would document the hell out what went into it. I'm only blase about my own well being.
I also calculate the percentages in my head. It was a little tough when I first went from 10ml to 5ml bottles but I got the knack of it after a while. The worst part about doing it without a calculator for me is when I'm using several strong flavors and have to add up a lot of small amounts like .2ml +.4ml + .3ml + .7ml in my head so that I can figure the amount of PG to add to it to get my mix to 50/50.