Full disclosure, I'm a newbie to DIY but in the last couple of weeks I've realized how much better it is to mix by weight.
Reasons to mix by weight:
- More accurate in terms of tweaking and measuring.
- Easier to clean up.
- Quicker to mix.
- Reduce costs with wasted juice and supplies.
Supplies from Amazon:
10 pack of 15ML glass bottles:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0085W96U0/
Inexpensive scale:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ME8VI34/
OR
Better scale with calibration weights:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005UGBG20/
Newest version of eJuice me up (with weight):
http://breaktru.com/ejuicemeup.zip
Android app I've found and really love using:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xpressive.Liquix&hl=en
The steps I use are as follows:
- Set up your app to set weights for PG/VG/NIC/Flavoring
- Put in your percentages and calculate
- Place your bottle on the scale and press "Tare"
- Use pipettes, or syringes to slowly drop liquid in the bottle
- Once the weight is met for each item hit "Tare" and move on to the next.
- Label, shake/vape cure all that good stuff.
So basically for a $20 investment in a scale you can increase your productivity and accuracy. This makes mixing small 5 ml batches so much easier so you don't waste your juice!
Edited to include different scale. Don't mean to beat a dead horse with this, just sharing my limited experience.
I understand how it could be easier, but how is it more accurate? Syringes are pretty exact, how can you mess it up? And for the most part don't people mixing by weight make assumptions about the weight of mls? If anything I'd expect that mixing by weight is slightly less accurate.
You'd assume incorrectly. Syringes are fairly accurate, if you're medically trained and have a repeatable technique, you can obtain decent precision too. If you're using a scale, even a monkey can get perfectly repeatable precision down to 0.01g accuracy. Repeatability is more crucial than perfect accuracy to a true statistic in mixing, where the ultimate barometer of success is taste not some abstract ideal of perfect accuracy, and using standard metrics for flavoring weights (assuming 1.036g/mL for PG-based flavorings), you'll likely have deviations of less than 1% from the "true" weight of your flavors, which means utterly inconsequential variances. If that troubles you (I work in a neuroscience lab, so I'm pretty good at judging when and where precision and accuracy in measurement are really meaninful), then by all means use the large and extensive tables of flavoring weighs amassed by others with similar concerns, but I really don't see the need to do so.
Are the syringes you can buy on Amazon even calibrated, or does it not really matter at those volumes?
If you use them like they're intended to be used they're fairly accurate, but most people don't realize there's a difference between measuring to the plunger on the sidewall of the syringe and measuring to the pointed tip of the syringe plunger in the center... people should be more focused on things like that and less concerned about 0.02g variances in their flavors in mixing by weight.... calibrations for stuff like that isn't really done, they just assume the molds are close enough to precise that the error involved in that variance is a degree of magnitude less than human measuring error.
But you're also assuming that the scale is perfect. A 20 dollar scale most likely is not.
No, I'm not. I'm testing it using calibration weights. FYI, my $30 American Weight scale came off by 0.04g @ 400g, a 0.01% deviation pre-calibration. Even if it was off by 10 times that much and I didn't calibrate it, it would still have an imperceptible effect on my mixing. Furthermore, as I already explained, that wouldn't affect the precision of the measurements, just the accuracy, and while accuracy is good, precision is what's crucial for repeatability and therefore the primary goal of mixing by weight and of DIY measurement in general. I'm sorry but mixing by weight is just better, period.
You should include the $30 scale from /u/Botboy141's guide on the sidebar, it has an AC adapter, calibration weights, and it never will shut off on you mid-mix. What's the time-out on this scale?
Good guide, we need more info on mixing by weight out there. I hate syringes, and not just because I spent many months of my life in the hospital as a child -- they're also a pain in the ass to mix with, and less accurate for sure.
Time out on the scale is 2 minutes. I've found it time out on me once but didn't matter since it was after I added an ingredient and was going to tare it anyway.
That's not too bad, as long as you can get all of one ingredient in there before it times out from non-activity, you're good. Still recommend you add the American Weigh scale though, it's ideal for beginning-intermediate DIY and priced excellently.
Would this be the tutorial by Botboy you are referring to and this the scale in that tutorial?
I don't see any information in the description that it includes an AC adapter...
I did find this one which explicitly states it includes an AC power adapter. Thoughts on this one or should I just put Botboy's suggestion in my cart? Thanks for the tips!!
Could not agree more. When I rolled over to mixing via weight, my blends have come together so much more nicely, and more to the point, scale to different sized bottles while maintaining the exact same taste, way better than my old system.
That Android app is pretty freaking amazing as well! Takes forever to get all your ingredients set up, but then it's like a DIY'rs best friend. Can play with ideas for flavors practically anywhere. (I highly recommend you back the app data up after you punch in all your flavoring info)
Thanks for the suggestion I wasn't sure how to backup data in there in case of a lost or broken phone. I also enjoy the database section that has a list of user submitted recipes.
If you go into the apps settings, very bottom of the page, you can set a manual location for it to store it's data. Simply set it to somewhere you can access easily (sdcard) and manually make backups, or throw it in a folder that you can cloud sync with something like dropbox.
If your device is rooted, I highly recommend Titanium Backup Pro, or Rom Toolbox Pro, or both. Either can backup up apps, settings and all, even from their default location.
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Smart Weigh Digital Pro Pocket Scale with Back-Lit LCD Display, Tare, ...
Current $20.00
High $22.35
Low $17.81
I've been mixing for a while and always used my computer to calculate. That being said, thanks for the heads up on that app.
Instead got my scale last night after 6 months or so mixing by volume. What the hell took me so long????
That being said u don't have enough room on my desk for the scale and all my flavors and stuff. So I can't pull out my laptop too. So my phone is used for a calculator.
I wish liquix UI wasn't so overdone. It's a great app, but that UI is...too much.
Are there any other good android ejuice calculators for mixing by weight?
For anyone that wants a little more robust program You can use Juice Calculator.
It has the ability to import recipes from ejuicemeup! so you won't have to re-input all your recipes. It will help you keep better track of your ingredients, giving you drop down lists for flavors you already have put in, saving typing time. There is far more than all this, so give it a shot yourselves.
I mixed by volume for like two years before finally trying it by weight recently. What a difference. Just so much less messy.
I said this yesterday in another thread but if we all just use the assumed 1g/ml for flavoring weights, it would be far more accurate than mixing by volume - we'd have no issues recreating each other's recipes to the T.
I pretty much agree with you here, and I think most of us who mix by weight assume this when we share recipes. Otherwise, it'd be a nightmare of confusion and minor variances when we post recipes.
One exception I'd like to note is when using super-concentrated flavors. When I post my Flavorah recipes, I think I'm going to link to their site with the g/mL stats because when you're mixing SC flavors, the variance can be up to 20% by weight and when you only use 2-5% of a flavor, this becomes a significant factor.
I prefer ejuicelab as an android app to be honest.
It can be more accurate but involves more math because the densities of both liquids are different. PG has a density of 1.01mg/cc while a VG has a density of 1.26 mg/cc. So for the same volume, VG would weight more. Also the flavoring and nicotine base would have different densities as well. The ratios of PG vs VG and even nicotine would be off since most people define it by volume and not weight. It wouldn't be off by that much but just something to keep in mind.
Yes you're right doing this manually would be much more difficult but the calculator apps I've linked fix that problem.
This should also be helpful:
- Weight of PG: 1.038 grams per ml
- Weight of VG: 1.26 grams per ml
- Weight of Pure Nicotine: 1.01 grams per ml
- Weight of 100mg in PG: 1.035 grams per ml
- Weight of 60mg in PG: 1.03632 grams per ml
- Weight of 50mg in PG: 1.0366 grams per ml
- Weight of 48mg in PG: 1.036656 grams per ml
- Weight of 36mg in PG: 1.036992 grams per ml
- Weight of 24mg in PG: 1.037328 grams per ml
- Weight of 100mg in VG: 1.235 grams per ml
- Weight of 60mg in VG: 1.245 grams per ml
- Weight of 50mg in VG: 1.2475 grams per ml
- Weight of 48mg in VG: 1.248 grams per ml
- Weight of 36mg in VG: 1.251 grams per ml
- Weight of 24mg in VG: 1.254 grams per ml
It's nice to have this, but step back and look at it for a second... even with the most severe deviations, we're talking fractions of a DROP worth of difference. There is simply no need to bother with this kind of thing, much like weighing flavors it's utterly pointless in 99% of circumstances, and will not affect much of anything at all.
I work in a neuroscience lab at university, I'm very rigorous about laboratory protocols, but part of being a scientist is also about knowing what's statistically significant and what's superfluous. and this kind of thing is just unnecessary work that keeps people away from mixing by weight. By all means, do it if you like to but don't feel like you need to in any way shape or form.
We would need to start talking about nicotine as a % rather than as a proportion to ML. This would be a shift but it makes a lot of sense from a production/precison point of view. A huge variable is encountered with you are using VG as your nicotine base instead of PG :/
Dont forget the densities if each of your flavorings.
Yes they do vary and I believe there is a really good thread here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/2ym39o/those_of_you_that_measure_by_weight_how_do_you/
I read that as long as you keep the percentages the same (i.e set flavoring to 1 gram per ml) you are still using the same value each time and will help in tweaking. It may not be 100% accurate, but in dealing with a hundredth of a gram difference, it should still be able to serve it's purpose.
My point of argument is you can't take juice out once you overfilled one of the flavors in batch with the weight method. Pretty much same clean up time as using syringes. So it's not more efficient, unless you want to use the disposable droppers and just toss them. But then again who would want to sit and do drops for that 120 ml batch. Most people would lose count. Last thing is, every flavor has a different weight. Since you calculate true VG And PG weight, you might as well calculate exactly the weight of every flavor. Test batch made to perfection, but when you make a 120 ml batch your flavor is off by 5-10% if I'm not wrong in my calculations.
Have you ever mixed by weight? Because I don't see how any of these complaints actually become an issue in any form when mixing by weight.
You don't ever need to count drops in mixing by weight -- you simple rapid fill on the scale until it nears your calculated weight, then drip flavor in slowly until you hit your target. I use disposable pipettes (with 3mL in 0.5mL increments on the stem, if you like to approximate how much you're adding) exclusively for my mixing, as they're $5 for 100 and I never worry about flavor contamination or cleanup, and they're recyclable.
You never need to remove flavor because you'll never overshoot your mark unless you're doing it exceedingly impatiently or not paying attention. I'm not sure when you'd ever need to remove flavor from a mix anyways... but I work in a lab, so maybe I'm just used to good lab practices?
Finally, regarding your flavor densities calculation... In my experience weighing flavors, you're quite off... Most vary by 1-2% from the weight of their carrier (edit: concentrated flavorings have much more variance possible, this is for a majority of TFA-type flavorings). This is percent so it scales, meaning your test batch will be off the EXACT SAME amount as your final batch, percents are percents, they don't increase by volume. Furthermore, because mixing's goal is to produce products that subjectively taste good, repeatability is the ultimate goal: When you add "7%" of a flavor by weight on a scale, it doesn't matter if in reality, it's 7.1% or 6.9% or whatever because every time you use that scale and that assumed weight for the flavor and add "7%", you're adding the exact same amount of flavoring, so your recipe will come out exactly how you wanted it to.
I could go on, but it really seems like your creating issues in your head that simply do not exist in reality. Don't take this as being an attack or anything, but I felt the need to set the record straight because it seems like this thread is becoming a magnet for misinformation on mixing by weight lol.
Yeah, I'm not sure about that. I don't have time right now before work to make the calculations. But I think this would be a good thing to stop theorizing about. Grab the equipment and actually prove it with facts. I don't have a scale but perhaps someone here can do it and show the margins. The test batch also wouldn't be as off as the 120ml or the 500 ml batch. Since the VP/PG/NIC are expected to have say a 1% margin of error, the flavoring will have a substantial difference. So 10 ml batch of 10% peppermint saying it's 1 gram its already an error since it' .9408 gram so it's off by 6%. At 120 ml it,s since 12 ml 12 gram and it should be 11.2896 grams so that actually makes it a 11% peppermint instead of 10%. I might be wrong right there, I'm trying to do this super fast. The more you scale it, the more problems you get.
I agree this would be a great thing to stop theorizing about, however since you admit you don't own a scale, you're the only one theorizing here. Not only that, but your math is wrong and you're fundamentally misunderstanding percents (which I already tried to clear up before). Let's try again with your own numbers:
TFA Peppermint is an outlier flavor on the TFA spectrum, you're right. At 0.9408g/mL it is indeed off by 6% from the assumed 1g/mL norm. Setting aside my argument about consistency/precision over technical accuracy to sort out your mathematical errors, we'll move forward from that. You say mixing a 10% batch at 10mL, you'll come out off by 0.0592g (6%) using the 1g/mL assumption. I do not dispute this. Now let's mix up your 120mL batch, 12mL = 12g (theoretical), 11.2896g (actual). Still no disagreement. Now, let's subtract: 12g - 11.2896g = 0.7104g error in a 12mL mixture, 0.7104g/12mL (x100%) = 5.92% (rounding up to 6% as before), so guess what? Still 6% error, just like the 10mL mix. This is because, as I stated before, percents are scaled -- while the ABSOLUTE ERROR will grow with batch size, this is absolutely irrelevant because the proportional error is constant.
Furthermore, like I already explained, since final mixes are determined by taste, if you find mixing your Peppermint at 10% is too weak, you can bump it up by a percent until you find the right subjective amount, and your output mixture mixing by weight, whether you choose to use the "true" weight or the "wrong" approximation, will always be identical to your recipe, which is what truly matters and which is what makes mixing by weight ultimately better.
The takeaway: Even if you choose not to take advantage of its superior accuracy by using the specific gravity of ingredients, mixing by weight is superior in precision and therefore superior in repeatability, which is what matters above all else in DIY (and all) ejuice." Hope this was helpful and provided some much needed clarity.
Yes I agree and this is one of the downfalls of measuring by weight. I generally get an idea of roughly how many ML I will need using the calculator and try to see how close it is to the weight. This way it decreases the chance of putting more juice than needed. One thing I've learned is if you go over, you can always go back to the calculator and add another ml or 2 ml to the overall amount and adjust other quantities accordingly. Chances are if you're mixing up a 120 ML batch, you already know exactly how you like it. The mistake I've made when I first started was making 15 and 20 ML batches as it was a lot easier to measure volume when not working with < 1 ML for flavoring. This method allows me to make a very small batch with more accuracy than eyeballing a 3 ML syringe.