Thanks to this sub I am now one of The Damned. I'm posting this wall of text in case it ever helps someone who is looking into starting up, and because I'm super excited about my new hobby.
A couple of weeks ago I started reading. I first started stalking the sub when /u/abdada was mentioned in relation to Medicine Flower extract, and /u/returnity made a reference to DiY in the SmogGB sub. It got me thinking that all this maybe wasn't so hard.
Then I became slightly more educated about where the legislation (nationally and otherwise) was headed, and that prompted me to seriously read the sidebar. I asked a couple questions in the daily "Ask anything" thread ('What would you do different from the start?'), and that lead me to buy my scale first (mix by weight!). I started collecting odds and ends, mostly on Amazon, and in the end I had almost everything I needed, and a few things I didn't.
#Things that were, without a doubt, absolutely required:
-
Empty glass bottles (I had both, and I think my plastic bottles looked sketchy so went with recycled vendor bottles - it was an adventure cleaning them out)
-
Flavors, VG, Nic (well, technically didn't need the Nic, but I really do want to DiY and I use Nic!)
-
A Computer. Preferably one that I didn't mind getting covered in FLV Spearmint or the occasional drop of something if I had an accident.
-
An e-liquid calculator! There's a ton of good ones, but I used e-liquid-recipes.com. Invaluable tool and the MaxVG option made things so easy.
-
For some reason I ordered a set of plastic beakers. I thought these weren't going to be useful, but I ended up using them to hold droppers, lids, syringes, etc.
-
Black nitrile gloves. These weren't the ones the cool kids use, they were el cheapo brand on Amazon, but did the trick.
#Things that I didn't get that I really needed:
- Little funnels! The blunt tip syringes were fine for small amounts of VG, but when i wanted to mix larger amounts, it was a real pain. Having stored the nicotine in the freezer meant it just wasn't going to work. I have funnels on the way and thought I could do without them for this time. I managed, but they will be really necessary going forward.
#Things I got that I didn't really need:
-
Vials and holder. This was sort of an impulse 'just in case' and I didn't use them at all. I'm actually not sure what I would use them for. I have bottles, I'm not mixing by volume...
-
~~Pipettes. I don't have these yet either, but I don't think I have any particular need for them so far. Flavors, VG and Nic can be dispensed directly into mixing bottle with funnels.~~ As it turns out, these are very handy for transferring VG-based NIC. Much faster than syringes - at least until I find a good-enough squeeze bottle.
-
Stevia. I bought some, thinking I might want it. Definitely not necessary so far. Obviously, this probably depends on recipe, so I might use it one day.
I set up a workspace with toolkits, secure storage for flavors, nic and tools (I especially didn't want my huge white cat sitting on my scale) and made sure it was clean and clear in case I needed to clean up a spill.
For my very first order, I decided to not just buy the top 20 flavors on the sidebar. This new vendor Flavorah was getting a lot of buzz, and for a pretty minimal investment I got a bunch of flavors. The only problem I had was that meant I didn't have a ton of tried and true recipes to use. There were already a few interesting ones (I'm looking at you, Alligatah) being passed around, so I wasn't too nervous about it. When my package arrived, a couple of the bottles were leaking. I sent an email to Flavorah, and got an answer almost instantly that they'd be sending along replacements. I have a feeling the leaking bottle issue isn't long for this world.
I got my nic from Nude Nicotine, and I only got a small bottle with a low concentration (60mg) because I've been well warned, and didn't want to risk my cats or my body in my first few projects. It arrived quickly and without issue (though I, for some reason, felt the need to throw it in the freezer, which now I know I didn't need to do with such a small bottle).
Once I got all my materials together, it was time to do my homework. I decided I wanted to test three of my flavors first. I mixed 5ml of 0 nic Flavorah Vanilla Custard, Creme de Menthe and Cured Tobacco to get an idea of what they tasted like and had fun vaping them at around 2% to get a good feel for their different characteristics.
Directly after that I went crazy and tried a couple of experiments. I liked one of them so much, I decided to mix 30ml of nicotine-laden juice.
I'm sure this is pedestrian to our veterans, but the Creme de Menthe reminded me of my favorite flavor from Cloud Provisions - a White Chocolate Mint Tobacco. So, I got lucky and on my first night of messing around, I now have a lovely ADV that I hope will get even better with age!
Ingredient|ml|g|% :---|---:|---:|---: Nicotine juice 60 mg (100% VG)|4|5.04|13.3 VG dilutant|23.9|30.14|79.7 Coconut (FLV)|0.12|0.1|0.4 Creme de Menthe (FLV)|0.9|0.92|3 Flue Cured Tobacco (FLV)|0.9|0.86|3 Spearmint (FLV)|0.18|0.16|0.6 Totals|30|37.22|100
Strength: 8mg/ml
PG/VG: 7/93
Flavor total: 2.1 ml (7%)
Remember to rate it at e-liquid-recipes.com!
Thanks to all the folks here that contribute! I hope any of this drivel is useful to someone in the future.
#Shopping list
-
Flavors - I got the 7 from heaven reddit promo with the Fruit+Savory. Something tells me that deal is almost over but I'd do it at $35/7 anyway.
-
Blunt tip needles - I probably should have gotten a larger gage, but this is what I started with
#Compiled tips from the comments (for finding easily):
-
Solvent-style dispensing squeeze bottles for VG/Nic into container on scale. Like this maybe
-
Magic eraser (melamine open-cell sponge I guess) for removing gummy residue from recycled ejuice bottles without using solvents Example
Hey man! Glad to see you crossing over to here and getting into the game! I'm glad my suggestion got you thinking of the possibilities. I'm even happier you did the research, read the sidebar, and took it upon yourself to learn how to mix the right way. I'm chuffed to bits you took the time to post this success story, because it's exactly what I think this sub needs to see right now (in the context of the discussion ongoing in my sticky): This sub is a great place to be a new DIYer, if you're humble and willing to help yourself. Congratulations on your first recipe -- I'm going to mix it up myself right now and give you some feedback of my own as a way of saying thanks. Is there anything you'd change about it, having made it and tried it, before I mix it up?
Thank you! It's maybe too soon to play too much with it for me. I'd like to let it cure a bit and see how or if it changed. Otherwise, go nuts!!!
It's mixed and in a hot bath for a quick-steep. I've got a couple recipes in the works with Flue-Cured. That stuff is AMAZING. Seriously, it's the best tobacco (non-absolute) I've ever encountered.
I've been really into the tobacco lately. I'm trying to help my wife quit smoking and she loves a good tobacco vape as long as it doesn't taste like Las Vegas Airport carpet. I can't wait to try the Virginian and the NN sample I was kindly sent last night.
It's weird because I've had some really nasty experiences, mostly with local vendors, with tobacco flavors liquid. But when it's good, to me, it gives my vape a whole-body sort of zen rounded-outness?
I'm tired and feel like my brain is turning into Charlie Sheen but hopefully that makes sense.
Congrats. I will try this. I was wondering how the mints might do in the Flue Cured. I loved buying poncey, over-priced smokes and was fond of a Nat Sherman's Mint now and then.
So. Do you get coconut flavor at this % or just fat-FAT buttery goodness? Just wondering as I just finished tasting the coconut for my notes.
I get rich creamy from the coconut, though my roommate blindly spotted it (here, try this and tell me what you taste!).
I'm honored if anyone tries it! I was just happy I wasn't the latest inventor of burnt popcorn juice!!
Interesting.
BTW. That last line might be a good summation of the strength of the Flavorah flavors. They give you a pretty good chance of creating something decent. Food flavors come with built-in booby traps. These don't. So far.
Welcome to the club (though I'm sad you will no longer be buying Caleb). One of our early flavors was a very robust tobacco that got put on the back burner, it may be time to revisit it.
This seems like an opportune moment to mention that I've read your posts on ecr several times, thought, "this is a vendor I want to support!," went to order. . . and remembered you don't do the sorts of rich, sweet tobaccos and custards I like. Please do a tobacco so I can send you money!
Fantastic post, thanks for the great read!
I'll offer one suggestion regarding the slow VG.
I mix a few 30ml bottles at a time (usually 3-5 bottles at once), so I keep a small 250ml bottle of VG in addition to my larger ones. When its time to mix, about an hour before I'll top off the 250ml bottle with slow moving VG, then cap it and let it sit in a warm water bath, so the VG flows faster when I'm actually pouring in bottles an hour later. Then when I mix, I do so from that small bottle.
Great write up! Thanks for taking the time. I'm sure lots of people will be taking the plunge with weight mixing because of this :)
Did you buy everything seperate? I'm extremely tempted to start my DIY adventure through one of those "all in one" kits because 1. i'm lazy and 2. DIY seems a little overwhelming right now with all the different flavor choices.
Looks like you did your homework and your setup looks great, hopefully i'll be able to join in soon!
Fantastic! The only thing I can think to mention is that I love pipettes for flavors that don't come in squeeze bottles (which is most of my flavors,) and squeeze bottles for PG/VG. They replace syringes entirely, mixing by weight.
Oh, also, be careful with the funnels. You'll almost have to do nic first and PG last to make it work out, or VG last and wait forever for it to clear, no? I've almost ordered the little metal ones for filling essential oil bottles a half-dozen times, and rethought it. Someone posted a mixing video here some time back, and my strongest impression was watching the VG move glacially through a funnel.
I definitely need squeeze bottles. Good note on the pipettes! All the Flavorah bottles have those nifty tips but when I start getting bottles without them I will want those!
And yeah... Freezing my vg based nic and then trying to add it right out of the freezer was hilariously touch and go. Definitely made me glad I had gloves on!
What I see people doing with VG nic is taking one of those red-capped squeeze bottles for solvents (hardware stores and kitchenware places,) and pouring their VG nic in when it arrives, then freezing in the bottle. Personally, I've decided I'm happy with 30PG/70VG juice and just buy 100% PG 100mg/ml Nic, mostly because of cold nic safety. Even 50/50 trickles so slowly cold.
Awesome tip! Guess I'll be making another trip to the hardware store tomorrow for bottles. I like to avoid extra PG. I'd do without it entirely if it was easier. So I pay the price of VG-watching in exchange, hehe.
I do wonder/worry if I shook the nic enough when it was warm. I have it a good five minute shake out of the mail before freezing, but I doubt anything I did to it straight out of the freezer was effective.
I'll have to give it a bath and another good agitation tomorrow just to be safe.
Great post, glad you got your feet wet and made a juice you really like. I'd suggest if you haven't found a use for those small vials, you can use them to create very small batches of juice with minor tweaks (i.e. same juice with .5% variations) until you get something that is "Just right". You can also keep flavor bases as those don't require a large container.