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Aside from all the general noob knowledge that is easily accessible from links in the sidebar, here are just a few of the things I had to learn on my own when it comes to DIY e-juice. I’m no authority by any means, just a guy trying to make a tasty vape.

1. One man’s adv is another man’s poop juice. Don’t mix more than 5ml or so of something because it looks good on paper or because some juice guru swears by his recipe.

2. Keep a spreadsheet of all the flavors you have. Make a column for recommended %’s (lots of treads about this) and another column for %’s that you personally find to work well. If something is recommended at 5-20% that may give you a starting point (low %’s when mixing, higher %’s for single flavor juices) but you need to know what works for you and write it down.

3. Buy a cheap label maker. I mix my test batches (both recipes and single flavor tests) at 5ml or less in small test tubes. I number each test tube and make a spreadsheet. This way I don’t have to relabel each test tube. Get a label maker that uses laminated tape, it won’t wash off as easy.

4. Make enough juice to test both fresh and enough to put away for steeping. You don’t have to steep everything you mix for weeks in order to tell if certain flavors compliment others but you do need to have a “steeped version” of the recipes you are refining, your keepers, in order to truly refine your recipe.

5. 1ml graduated syringes are your best friend. You can buy 100 on amazon for cheap. Label the tops of each one and keep it with it’s respected flavor. Wash out or replace the syringes that are used for flavors like banana that break down plastic. I just keep a fresh jar of distilled H20 on hand to pump rinse the syringes after use and that works for me.

6. Build a mixing board. Get some 3/4” plywood and some forstner bits and go to town. I use a drill press but a drill guide on a handheld will work too. I make a hole for each flavor bottle and a smaller hole behind each one to house it’s respected syringe. I also have holes drilled to house my mods and tanks (to hold upside down by the drip tip) for convenience. I used my drill press’s stop to make sure my holes are recessed but not through. This can be achieved also with a stop guide, careful drilling or by gluing an 1/8’’ sheet of plywood on the bottom of your board that has holes drilled completely through. My next board will probably have a glued sheet of plywood underneath as described above with a polyurethane finish to keep the bottom of the holes from absorbing liquid although I’ve had no problem with recessed holes to this point. One of my boards

7. Work with what you got. There’s always a flavor or two that you don’t have or forgot to order. Keep notes of those flavors (I just add rows to my flavor spreadsheet at the bottom for flavors I need) but don’t rush to make another order until that list grows a bit. Shipping costs are the real killer, at least from my sources, and I don’t make an order unless it’s relatively large.

8. Buying the smallest size bottles from the factory is usually more expensive than buying from a vendor. You see all those small 4ml TPA vials? 8ml vials are the same price at Wizard Labs, wish I would have realized this before that last order but I just assumed they were the same size since they were of similar price…not true.

9. When mixing think of your recipe in terms of High and Low note flavors. If this concept isn’t familiar to you, there are plenty of discussions that can be searched and studied on this topic. Basically the high notes are tasted on the inhale and the lows more on the exhale and having a good balance between the two is one of the major keys in developing and refining your recipes. I work as a sound technician and it’s easy for me to think of juice like a good musical arrangement or mix. You have to mix the bass, mids, and highs in a way that balances over the entire frequency range. EQ out some mids and things start to pump and sparkle more. Accentuate the bass for certain music but roll it off for other genres. Your tastebuds operate like your ears in a similar fashion. You need to make sure your complex juices are spread out and balanced over your palate and you do this by understanding which flavors hit which taste buds. The whole high/low thing is a good place to start but it gets much more complex the further down the rabbit hole of knowledge you travel.

10. Pickled ginger is your friend. Anyone who eats sushi knows you use the ginger to reset your palate and it works pretty well for testing e-juice flavors as well. Just be sure and wash off the preservatives or you’ll be left with a salty aftertaste.

11. Was going to stop at 10 tips but I feel the need to emphasize the importance of staying organized. Keep notes, develop a workflow, refine refine refine. Anyone can make decent juice but think of your mixing as an art, a hobby where perfection is the goal but unattainable. Experiment but keep your experiments and your refinements separate somehow. Remember, time is a variable here. Time to steep, time to refine, time to perfect but also time to forget so write your stuff down.

12. Ok…12 tips. Attempting to clone TVC or your uncle’s peach brandy moonshine is a noble effort, one which you will certainly learn from but most likely the knowledge you will obtain will find it’s way in your other recipes after you give up on making said cloned juice. The pros are pros because their recipes are the results of countless refinements. A refined strawberry flavor for example might consist of a premix of TFA strawberry, EM, drop of raspberry or too, etc. That then might be used as the Strawberry flavor in a recipe. Or perhaps you make a complex flavor with 9 ingredients and then use that as a single flavor for a different recipe. The level of complexity possible is only limited to your ability to test flavors, take notes and stick to a workflow. I’m still waiting on that Hobbs Blood clone to show up around here. It’s just Strawberry, Coconut and Watermelon right?

Happy Mixing!

2. I have a habit of mixing away from a computer, so I have the starting percentages written on the bottles themselves. But great tip. Finding a range to work with is just the beginning, though. Like you said, find what works well in the mix you're making. Flavors can surprise you with how they interact.

Also, do not be afraid of failed mixed. Set them side, they may just require some steeping. Even if they are still crappy, you learned what doesn't work and can move on from there.

I would also very much enjoy a Hobbs Blood recipe!

Very well put! Funnily enough I made myself one of those small pieces of drilled-out timber (the brown piece) when I started mixing.

13: Get a thermal label printer for $80. You can print easy, professional stickers out on the fly, with the added bonus of the ink will never smear (because there is no ink!) 3rd party stickers are heaps cheap on ebay, as well.

Do you mind if I sticky this post in the sidebar? It is a great guide!

Cheers

Mo

I just want to say that I can vape on any thing, the most horrible the flavor, as long as it does not have mint or menthol.

Also always shake up your liquid.

Awesome post, brother. Thanks for all the info, when I get started in a couple of weeks, I'll be riding on the shoulders of /r/DIY_eJuice giants like yourself. Hopefully I'll have some pointers to share eventually.

Great post. Thanks for taking the time.

14: When trying to think of what to mix next, ask yourself what else might be on your tastes buds while you vape. You hear a lot about which flavors compliment certain foods or beverages but it's just as important to think of which flavors might offend. This is especially true if you like hoppy beers, coffee, orange juice or other palate wrecking food/bev.

Great post, thanks.

I'm going to expand your concept of a mixing board. Mine is a piece of 2x8 lumber, which allows for deeper, more stable holes to rest the bottles in. Here's what makes it killer: I have two "calibrated" holes for my standard bottles, where the depth of the holes is exactly the 5ml and 10 ml volume respectively. So, if I want a 50/50 mix at 10ml, I add my nic and flavors, 5ml of VG is a no-brainer, and just add enough PG to hit the level. No more brain math required to determine how much PG to add.

Coffee also refreshes your palate.

Number 4 is high on my list, some flavors took three weeks to finally develop into a nice mellow juice. I would have never known if I didn't make an extra steeping bottle. Btw it had a tobacco and fruit flavors in it and the fruit was muted for the first couple weeks. Now it's a nice full bodied juice with a sweet note to start, a smooth body and that tobacco aftertaste. Makes me glad I quit smoking.