With all the rage over TFA Dragonfruit, I peeked at the GC/MS list and saw triethyl citrate on there. Why is that in e-liquid?? It's useful in cooking (typically to keep foamy things foamy), has no flavor, and is considered to be very non-toxic.
It's an ester of citric acid, but it is not sour.
So why e-liquid?
Because triethyl citrate is used to keep things foamy, it's basically an emulsifier of sorts. Emulsifiers help to combine two chemicals that don't like each other. Consider oil and water: they don't combine well, unless you add an emulsifier. A common emulsifier in foods is soy lecithin, used to bind fats and non-fats to prevent separation.
Triethyl citrate is not exactly an emulsifier, but it works as one.
In e-liquids, the goal of triethyl citrate is to keep essential oils, flavor and aroma molecules, and base carrier solvents from falling apart. As e-liquid recipes get more and more complex, and involve more and more disparate ingredients, the need for emulsification grows.
We can't use lecithin because it isn't combustion safe, so the flavorist secret society decided to get all fancy scientific on us. Triethyl citrate was the next logical step to help blend the many chemicals and keep them from separating in solution.
Diluent
In addition to be useful as a pseudo-emulsifier, Triethyl Citrate is also useful as a flavorless diluent (something that dilutes a solution). If your flavor concentrate is too thick, you used to have to add PG or distilled water (DW) or ethyl alcohol (EA) to thin it out. Even PG has a thickness to it, compared to water or alcohol, so if your flavor concentrate is already PG, you can't dilute it by just adding more PG without reducing flavor.
By reducing the PG slightly, and adding Triethyl Citrate, you're able to keep flavor up while allowing for a thinner liquid solution.
What flavors use it?
According to TFA, they're currently using Triethyl citrate in:
- Chai Tea
- Dragonfruit
- Dulce de Leche
- Hazelnut
- Pomegranate
- Strawberry
In all of these (but strawberry), the overall amount of triethyl citrate is between 1 and 10%. In strawberry, it's > 10%. That's a lot, considering how many aroma molecules are used in < 0.5% amounts in the concentrate.
Price
Triethyl Citrate is cheap: about $100/kilogram. If you're mixing it into a concentrate at 5% and you use 15% of the concentrate, you're going to get tens of thousands of ml of final mixed e-juice out of $100. It's cheap.
You can buy it from TFA for $6/80ml.
My thoughts
I've never used it, but I ordered some to see if it will thin out VG without destroying flavor. With any luck, maybe it'll even help accent flavor -- but I will definitely report back.
Also, apologies if I post too much Deeper DIY stuff lately -- this is a good place for me to stick it while I work on my own site to throw this onto, and I always like input from others.
This type of information is awesome, thank you for your post.
TFA Dragon fruit is rumored to used in complex flavors (such as Mother's Milk), so this information does make sense. Keep up the good work.
Dragonfruit is an incredibly complex recipe, with aroma molecules that should really go well with a lot of other flavors (if not abused).
It uses some chemicals common to a lot of TFA flavors:
- ethyl-Butyrate (ethereal, fresh)
- gamma-Undecalactone (creamy)
- Benzaldehyde (almond, oily, sweet)
- allyl-Hexanoate (tropical fruity)
- isoamyl acetate (ripe fruity)
- maltol (NOT ethyl maltol)
- 2-methyl-butyric acid (dirty tropical fruity)
- ethyl caproate (tropical fruity)
- limonene (citrus fruity)
- linalool (citrus musk fruity)
The 2-methyl-butyric acid can bring on a sweaty socks flavor, though, so don't abuse this with other butyric acid containing flavors.
Where the heck do you guys manage to score info like that?
Really interesting stuff! I really appreciate you taking the time to post your findings here. I don't think it's too much at all.
I have an overwhelming amount of information I've been cataloging, testing and recording -- a lot of it is really anecdotal in nature and it's really hard to find facts.
Someone posted a video yesterday (60 minutes news program) from a few years back that looks deeper into flavorist engineering.
It's truly a secret society. They don't even share among themselves because it's a multibillion dollar industry revolving around addiction and consumerism crap.
could this be used with VG to completely skip PEG in a VG/PG solution? Looking to find a way to skip PG and PEG entirely, so basically is VG and TC a viable substitute?
I'll be honest: I have no idea. I discovered triethyl citrate when reading a flavor science book 2 weeks ago, hopped onto Google and discovered it was available at TFA. Since then, everyone is screaming about TFA Dragonfruit and lo and behold it uses TC.
I have some on order from my aroma molecule supplier and will start playing with it at 5% in the final mix and definitely report back.
I currently use DW at 10% in my final mix, but it definitely mutes flavor. I hate PG and refuse to use it.
Why the dislike of pg?
Girlfriend gets torrential nosebleeds if she vapes it. Good client of mine breaks out in hives if exposed to it. I hate throat hit, and I'm fairly certain we only metabolize a small percentage of it with the rest being excreted out -- I wonder how well the body handles it.
I am not against people vaping it, I think it adds a lot of flavor and overall is beneficial to eliquids. I just personally don't want it.
/u/fizzmustard may find this useful as bonbies stated be doesn't use dragonfruit in his recipes.
He doesn't use citric acid either, but those are solid hints.
In the flavor / cosmetics world Triethyl Citrate is also used to denature ethanol to make it non-drinkable and therefore not subject to spirits taxes.
I like being a guinea pig so I'm going to place an order for a bit of this right now to try out.
Is the point of steeping not just to allow the different flavorings to mingle and mix well? If an emulsifier helps different chemicals mix together, could it maybe help reduce steeping times?
If not, we're just using it to thin VG then. Any thoughts on this vs saline? It is currently used for that purpose by some people. I include it in a lot of my juices in small amounts.
Thanks for your posts, they've all been really interesting so far.
Thanks for the kind comment!
I use saline rarely and minimally to help certain flavors pop. Saline is easily abused.
Great theory on TC speeding up steep time -- I have no clue but it is worth testing.
According to this site TC is a solubilizer so it is feasible it will accelerate dispersal of essential oils and similar aroma molecules.
Also mentions that it is a flavor enhancer.
One downside: it may lessen vapor production when VG is cut in ratio to offset the added TC. But that's hypothesis.
I so enjoy these posts. You really, really know your stuff! I appreciate the information - the more you know, you know?
So you can dilute a concentrate with something really cheap that won't decrease it's flavour and maybe actually enhance it?
How do we keep this information away from disreputable flavour houses or doesn't it really matter?
/mindblown
So? Any further testing yet? Quite interested in things like this.
It definitely helps mix flavors in VG. No doubt in my mind doing some minimal A/B tests and vaping.
Doesn't separate like Triacetin does. No idea on if it reduces vapor as I test vape at 12W -- enough clouds for me, but hard to tell if there's a reduction.
No noticeable throat hit. No noticeable flavor muting or weird aftertastes. Triacetin + TEC appears to feel creamier, but that's subjective as all hell.
Going to test it with reduced flavoring and versus no TEC with same flavor and see if it allows for less flavor usage.