It has come to my attention that some B&Ms and vendors are copying recipes off of here and selling it for profit. Although some people may not have issue with this, personally I do. Considering the amount of time and money I've personally put into this for the community just for someone else to make profit off it is uneasy for me. I understand not everyone feels this way and I'll be more than happy to talk with anyone via PM from now on about DIY. But when my local B&M started making this exact recipe, that was the final nail in the coffin. Until a time I can come to terms with this I'm taking a sabbatical from this subreddit and deleting all recipes.
I liked your breakdown, this is a great example of what a clone post should be, a discussion of the process. I agree that no creams or as stated in another post, pomegranate are needed. I also agree that the strawberry is very important, I don't see why so many people who have tried it don't pick up on the SB, it's quite strong. My opinion of the SB flavor is one of two options, straight strawberry from TFA or, what I really think is used, a strawberry banana flavor of unknown origin. The meld of the two flavors is so well done that I really think there is a premixed SBB in there somewhere. Will do my best to try out this recipe in the next few weeks and report back. Good work.
I abslolutely agree with most of your points. Nana Cream is my holy grail, and I've chased every red herring posted here with no success.
What I've learned: I am not Bombies.
LA Banana Cream is absolutely essential. This is the foundation Nana Cream is built on. Any other bananas may make a good juice, but it will not be like Bombies'. This is where the original gets it's color, it's creaminess, and some of that pungent, sour vibe. Smell a wick gunked up with Nana, and then a juice heavy with LA banana cream. They both have that same weird, earthy salty aroma.
Strawberry is as important as banana cream, but which strawberry is harder to nail down. I use plain TFA strawberry, because of that gummy strawberry candy quality. It tastes like a package of Strawberry Gushers smells. This was one of the first things I loved about Nana cream's smell. It may contain a second strawberry, but I firmly believe TFA Strawberry is the main player.
Pear is essential. TFA pear is great, but it's just a bit musky and cloying for Nana Cream. Would you say LA pear is sweeter? I've been using TFA until I can reorder. It's acceptable, but not spot on. I've been blaming my percentages, but it may be time to try more LA.
I haven't included any peach until now. That's interesting. I don't think pomegranate makes an appearance, I'm iffy on the pineapple. I see it could be possible, but I think people are tasting the interplay between a few ingredients and determining there must be lots of balancers and flavors used for high and low notes and all sorts of wine tasting level shit.
I think banana cream, strawberry, pear, sour, and something to sweeten are the main players.
If there is an additional cream, it isn't a heavy one, has no vanilla or buttery notes, and that pretty much leaves FA's fresh cream. I've tried it in NC clones, and I'm also unconvinced that there's any cream beyond the Banana. Fresh Cream doesn't necessarily detract from anything, but neither does it add anything.
Considering we've all drawn similar conclusions independent of one another, we're probably on the right track. But I hit a wall and ordered 120mls last month. I think working out the first few elements has burned me out for a while. I'm currently on a cloning sabbatical.
>I think banana cream, strawberry, pear, sour, and something to sweeten are the main players.
I was using the white peach as a sweetner more than anything. I find that cotton candy can take away from the strawberry if too much is used.
> But I hit a wall and ordered 120mls last month. I think working out the first few elements has burned me out for a while. I'm currently on a cloning sabbatical.
I feel you. They have a 20% off coupon today and I'm debating pickup up 120ml right now as I'm down to 15ml of the real thing and well I don't want to be a hypocrite and clone something I can't compare it to.
I will push on for the both of us.
20% off?! Damnit I literally just placed an order last night for the 10% off >_>
Now I haven't tried putting this in there yet (have it on the way), but when I'm vaping on some 'nana cream I get an almost guava taste. Very slight, but I tend to get it a lot. It could be my taste buds playing tricks on me, but I think I'm going to try it when my CAP Guava gets here.
I'll pick up some guava next round. At this point I've spent a little less than $200 on flavors, base, nic, bottles, etc. So that's equlivant to 500ml of 'nana cream without the coupon code. Which to me is a 3 month supply. Once I get to a 6 month supply, I'm cutting myself off, throwing my flag in, and letting bombies win.
Have you considered experimenting with TFA Dragonfruit? I've been using it for the past week or so and I can taste some similarities. Maybe as a complement?
Maybe. But I want too get the basics down first. Banana, pear, and strawberry. These are the 3 most important things. People keep throwing out random fruits and vegetable flavors which may help when we get closer to the finish line, but we need to get the basics down first.
Mixing a couple strawberries may help as well. In one of my juices (not a nana cream clone) I use cap sweet strawberry and tfa strawberry ripe. Just mix up a bunch of test bottles of various mixes of different strawberries till you find something you like. Also dragon fruit in small amounts can help compliment the strawberry.
Has anyone tried FA Banana cream? I just ordered some and it smells just like nana cream
I'm with you on FA. I think it's spot on for nana. Everyone is so sure it's LA, but I bet the same recipe side by side with FA and LA would be indistinguishable.
Except LA nana cream is the same is color and taste and smell. FA may be similar but the liquid gold we're after is well yellow in color.
FA nana be be similar but what we are after is a direct clone. Similar doesn't cut it.
Have you had LA nana cream? I only ask because ALOT of folks go ahead and disregard flavors without ever trying them.
Could there be honeydew in there at all? A couple of my current favorite DIY recipes involve TFA honeydew so it's been on my palette quite a bit recently. I got my first order of 'Nana Cream yesterday, vaping it right now. Going to try my cool honeydew mint in just a second to revisit that flavor. I could be entirely wrong on the honeydew though. Thoughts?
This is still all wrong man. I've been bouncing ideas off /u/cTrollAltDel and we're the closest I've ever tasted at only 3 or 4 ingredients.
LA Banana Cream is certainly the ticket, but pear and peach are totally out the window.
EDIT: I'll add that I've mixed this recipe, minus the cotton candy and using 5% Banana Cream. Doesn't do it for me.
Why don't you share instead of criticize?
/u/jackster1232002 and I are PM'ing at the moment. Like I told him, I don't want to keep posting so many close-enough clones; we're going to bang out a workable recipe.
I'm not just blindly saying "nope!" but I totally see how it would look that way. I'm doing some final tweaks to my recipe and will post it soon.