I was inspired by /u/dinning_room_hobo and /u/vaparango posting up some DIY videos, so I decided I would tape mixing up a batch by weight for the folks that are thinking about getting in to it.
The process is stupid easy, and /u/Botboy141 has a fantastic guide to mixing by weight, but you essentially set your calculator to grams, throw a container on your scale, and tare the scale between each ingredient. It's basically just a more precise way of measuring by drops.
So I hope this video is interesting/helpful to at least one of you. I was going to mix up some juice tonight anyway, so no great loss of my time by taping it.
Here are links to some of the stuff I'm using in the video:
- 4 oz. amber dropper bottle for my nic
- 100g calibration weight & 200g calibration weight
- 8 oz. squeeze bottle for PG/VG
- 100 3ml pipettes (you should use 1ml, though)
- My cheapo scale
- Avery labels
Thanks!
How crucial is a scale with 0.01 resolution?
for me, it's pretty important. besides ease and stuff, i switched to weight for better accuracy as well.
plus, you'll find yourself needing to add .45g of something, but your scale says .4g ... that could be .41g or .49g. not really a huge deal, especially in small batches, but it could impact replication of recipes.
so, can you get by with a 0.1 resolution? absolutely. would 0.01 be better? i think so.
Pretty sure .4 is from .35 to .44 but yeah, I'd advise getting a 0.01g scale as well.
I use two scales, the 0.01 for flavourings and the 0.1 for PG/VG and Nicbase as they're not so critical.
I've found that the 0.01 will easily register single drops, which i've also found can make quite a difference to a flavour, especially the stronger flavourings.
Man 3 good videos today in this subreddit. Loving it!
Question for you, since I will be getting into mixing by weight soon. With the pipettes, do you dispose of them after every use? Or do you keep one for each flavor and just rinse them out?
Great video my dude.
i just throw them out because they're so cheap and a pain in the ass to clean. but you can rinse them out to reuse them or just have a dedicated pipette. i'm lazy and unorganized so i just chuck em.
This is great, thanks! I'm waiting for my order to arrive, can't wait to get started. Would it be easier to get the exact amount of liquid if I used a smaller pipette?
> Would it be easier to get the exact amount of liquid if I used a smaller pipette?
yup. smaller drop size = finer granularity = more accuracy. i've been meaning to get some 1ml pipettes, which i'll do soon since i've almost blasted through the 200 3ml pips i had. pretty good deal, nonetheless, lasted me almost a year.
I have a scale that I used to use to weight... Broccoli. I'm waiting on supplies to get started in diy. Mixing by weight looks way too easy to not try. I used to just calibrate my scale with a nickel. Should be fine right?
> I used to just calibrate my scale with a nickel. Should be fine right?
afaik each scale is different. mine will only calibrate with 100g and 200g weights. i guess you could use 20 nickels and 40 nickels, if that were the case.
in fact, when i first bought it i only had the 100g weight and couldn't calibrate it without the 200g.
but, yeah, if the scale will calibrate off of 5g or so, a nickel would be fine.
also you want to make sure you broccoli scale has a .01 resolution
I just put the nickel on and if it's 4.9/5g I assume it's good to go.
Does 20 units (drops, ml, or %) of PG weight the same as 20 units of VG, nic or flavoring? Or is this a stupid question? :/ ...sorry if it is, but I just tought viscosity and composition (PG vs VG) could influence the respective weight, and it may not reflect what the recipe intended.
pg = 1.04g/ml
vg = 1.26g/ml
my nic = 1.04g/ml
flavorings = 1g/1ml^*
^* You can actually get the MSDS for many flavorings and get their exact specific gravity. I used to do this, but have gotten extremely lazy and just do 1g/1ml
Nice video. Where did you get those labels?
good call! they're Avery Easy Peel Address Labels. They are not waterproof, but they get the job done.