So I have recently kicked the habit of buying premium flavors and started DIYing my own flavors. It's fun and I have saved tons of money. The only problem is, is that I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get that "premium" flavor. Most of my blends sometimes come out tasting a bit chemically. Sometimes steeping fixes the issue, but sometimes it just stays in the flavor. So I am looking for some advice on what I may be doing wrong.
Honestly? A lot of research and months of tweaking. Sometimes a tenth of a percent difference in one (of 5-6) flavorings can make a difference. Practice, practice, practice
So, if you don't mind me asking, where do you get your flavors from? I have been using Mt. Baker's flavors and so far they are ok, but there has to be something better.
The Flavor Apprentice, Flavour Art, and Inawera are three of the more highly recommended "better" flavoring vendors. You can either buy direct through them or through a reseller like ecigexpress, WizardLabs.us, or rtsvapes.
Which option is cheaper depends on the volumes you're purchasing but to start out I'd recommend getting sample sizes (<10ml). For those, I'd suggest trying out WizardLabs.us first. Once you have a few ADVs then I'd look into bulk purchases.
If you want top shelf results, you won't get them from home brew on your first few attempts. I can only suggest one "shortcut" path, but it still takes time and effort...
Check out E-Liquid-Recipes.com - or search the suggested recipe threads here on DIY for a clone of your favorite juice. I also highly recommend original recipes from Botboy141, kirkt, InertiaCreeping, and et3rn1ty.
Pick at least 2 recipes or clones that sound tasty, buy the ingredients specific to the brand. Make 2 small bottles of each recipe, one with minor tweaks. Making Nana Cream? Maybe you would like a little more strawberry in yours, you won't know until you do it.
Last thing, let your juices steep for AT LEAST 5 or 6 days before passing final judgement on them. Small batches steep faster, but many complex flavors change quite a lot after a week or sometimes longer.
Edit- For buying flavors- Ecigexpress is a good place to pick up many different brands of flavoring in one place. Popular brands include: The Flavor Apprentice(TFA or TPA), Flavor Art (FA), LorAnn's (LA), Capella (CAP), Flavor West (FW), Inawara (INW), and DaKang- there are more but you will see these often.
This question gets asked all the time, and the answer is always the same. Premium juices take months to craft for people that do it for a living. Hundreds of mixes with small adjustments using flavorings from all different companies to see which ones meld best.
The best we can do as DIY'ers is crowd source that process to cut down on individual effort. Before trying a recipe, search the forum and find others that have already done it and learn from their mistakes.