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.
This is mostly a collection of notes and various research I've gathered over the past 5 months working on a Bombies 'nana cream clone.
As much as I want to avoid adding to the recent noise of 'nana cream "clone" overload, I've learned a tremendous amount about DIY working on this recipe. More than anything, I'd love to see an open discussion with other folks adding their input.
So why? I've learned more about DIY from this process than any other work I've done, and it's pushed me to relentlessly refine and iterate my own recipes. I learned the importance of using small amounts of flavorings, and that 0.1mL differences can have a big impact on flavor. I learned to use supporting flavors based on their chemical composition to stretch and tame primary flavorings. I also learned to research the actual flavoring molecules themselves as a basis for complementary mixtures.
Big credit here goes to /u/cTrollAltDel who I've worked with over reddit and skype, and kept insisting I explore a particular avenue. Also /u/jackster1232002 messaged back and forth a bit.
The important parts:
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LA Banana Cream: absolutely essential to the main flavor. Other banana creams don't work here. TFA's leans too heavily toward the cream component.
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Pineapple: The primary components of pineapple flavoring are ethyl caproate and allyl heptanoate, plus acetic acid. The ethyl caproate imparts a sweet pineapple flavor, while the heptanoate has a starchy, lightly banana flavor. That's why it blends so well with banana flavors – it rounds it out and increases the diversity or gamut of the flavor.
The acetic acid in pineapple flavoring gives a pungent and slightly sour punch. The mix of tiny amounts of pineapple with LA Banana Cream is the hallmark of the 'nana cream flavor, and is responsible for the prominent top notes the overall flavor profile.
I use LA Pineapple; TFA has a bit too much acetic acid and too little sweetness, which makes the resulting mix a bit too acrid for my palate. /u/cTrollAltDel insisted he tasted pineapple, so I started playing around with it and researching the flavoring. It all makes sense.
- Pear: Pear flavoring is mostly a product of isobutyl acetate. This is interesting because banana flavorings share a very similar primary molecule, iso_amyl_ acetate. The difference in a "banana" and a "pear" flavor is mainly a) different concentrations of isoamyl/isobutyl acetate and b) different supporting molecules.
Pear works in 'nana cream by fleshing out the banana flavor into a more broad-spectrum flavor. Not too candy, not too authentic, but with nuances of both ends of the contiuum.
TFA Pear and LA Pear are both extremely similar. I flop back and forth between the two, but am more inclined to use LA Pear.
- Strawberry: Strawberry is the primary backing flavor in 'nana cream. There are lots of strawberry flavorings available. Capella Sweet Strawberry is my favorite, and 'nana cream certainly has the aroma of Sweet Strawberry, BUT it doesn't work in the final mix. I'm not really sure why. FE Strawberry is also very close, but winds up being too sweet. LA Strawberry is dyed bright red, and I think the color would be too apparent so I didn't even try it. TFA Strawberry (not ripe) is the closest, as /u/jackster1232002 pointed out.
What I've got so far:
5.8% LA Banana Cream
1.5% LA Pineapple
2.0% LA Pear
4.8% TFA Strawberry
0.5% Citric Acid (10% Solution)
Please post your own findings if you're interested in working on this further! Our sub rocks and I'd love to collaborate with you all on honing this one even further.
Thanks Fizz, before I retired I worked in the coatings industry for 25 years. I used to add anywhere from 20-50 gallons of Isobutyl acetate to a batch of paint. I never could figure out what that stuff smelled like. Now I know, it was BANANAS. All those years I just couldn't link the two together. BANANAS!!
It can also cause nausea and dizziness. Hooray!
What resources did you use to learn about the chemical composition of the different flavorings?
Several – a lot of data on the specific molecules in TFA flavorings are available on their website, just check out their components lists. From there, the more common molecules may have articles, or at least stubs on Wikipedia that can provide more insight and citations for other articles (ex. isoamyl acetate, amyl acetate, isobutyl acetate).
I found more information in subscription research databases as well, though not publicly available. American Chemical Society's food chemistry category (and their Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) is particularly helpful. The journal titled simply "Food Chemistry" has some occasionally helpful articles. Even googling the phrase "food chemistry" can get you some good results too.
If you're doing this kind of research with Google, particularly using generic terms like "pear flavoring", I highly suggest doing it in a browser other than your main browser, or using an incognito/privacy session. You're likely in a vape-centric filter bubble that will skew your results away from the academic side of flavorings.
Thanks so much! I've been browsing TPA's site for an hour now. It's really fascinating to read about all of the components used in each flavor.
On a side note (wholly unrelated to DIY), there was a TED Talk about filter bubbles that some might find interesting.
I really wish I had the cash to get a fresh bottle of Nana Cream and start from the basic knowing the banana and pineapples are in a sense, and see where some sort of other flavor may come in.
Btw, There has to be some trick Bombies uses or I just don't have the proper equipment or its my oldish hawksauce bottle from MBV. In a small batch which me and Fizz mess around with, the perfumey smell would dissapear after a few days "like going from the mail to here" But in a big batch even with a good 8 hours of breathing it has that perfumey chemically smell still in the bottle. After mixing up 170ML of the setup we did, I wonder what we could do to possibly match if his dont smell like that after a good week in his big batches like 500ML
Remember one note needed to say is that ANY CLEAR FLAVORINGS WILL INSTANTLY TELL YOU THAT YOU ARE WRONG. By this I mean there has to be around %8 LA Banana with just the few me and Fizz used.
The reason is, Take bombies Nana cream and drip it on fresh cotton. Now take your recipe You instantly can tell the color difference, Bombies has a Bright yellow that isn't clear its more cloudy in general the liquid. Yes I know their bottles are cloudy, I am talking the eliquid, The more non colored flavorings you add, the farther away you move from the recipe is how I see it. You need to get the color right while mixing, or you simply are not there yet. As thats how me and Fizz came to the percentages, but its also based on your tastes too but if you want that bombies clonability you need a thick bright yellow that holds that LA Banana Coloring.
Even Fizzmustards 5.8% is Low, But thats because taste preference and getting the flavors to stand out enough to tell it should be it and then adjust.
But don't take it from me, I am a noob at DIY, I am just trying to give some observation notes.
I just mixed this up and it tasted like it had way too much pineapple in it. Does it subside over time? I dropped it down to 0.75% in a second batch and it tasted closer to the original nana cream IMO.
I just made this and it's very close. I followed your recipe exactly except I used 5% citric acid because it was easier to find. I also did 85% VG.
I tried it side by side with the real thing, and its barely distinguishable. The real one is a bit sharper, if that makes sense, but the difference is really subtle.
jackster, I've tried your recipe and it is pretty darn close (I have the original to compare against).
I urge you not to take it too hard on the recent developments. We've got some dirtballs on here who will profit from others' hard work, including one guy who takes all the clone recipes and brags about selling his juice to a chain of truck stops. But that's par for the course. How do you lknow the B&M is using your recipe?
In the same vein, how do you think Bombies feels when people try to clone his hard work? From what I've seen, he's pretty mellow about the whole thing.
I urge you to continue your contributions to this subreddit, but if you want to vent about it please PM me.
Maybe Bombie's will chime in if he sees this thread, but I believe I read in one of these clone threads that he uses some flavors that aren't widely available, perhaps not even available to the general public (at least at that/this point). Which isn't to say a reasonable approximation can't be made.
If I recall correctly it was the custard in ktr and boc that we can't get our hands on yet.
Yes, you're right. He said he used "beta flavors" that weren't released to the public yet in the making of those.
Just out of curiosity, have any of you experimented with a very small percentage of TFA Coconut Extra? I'm vaping a mix with Cap Sweet Strawberry, TFA Juicy Peach, 1% TFA Coconut Extra, a few drops INW Coconut, and .5% Malic acid. I'm getting what might be hints of nana' cream. But then again, Coconut Extra contains acetoin so it's probably not that.