About five months I wanted to get into DIY but it just never happened. In anticipation, I ordered some 100% PG 100mg/mL nicotine which never ended up getting used. Now that I'm getting into DIY proper, I'm curious to why oxidized nicotine is bad. Can someone shed some light?
When I got the nicotine, it was a pale yellow, not unlike egg whites. But now, after five months sitting in storage at room temperature? It's a very, very dark red, almost black. When I syringe it into a bottle, it's a brown color. I know it's oxidized and why this happens, but what's wrong with it? Is it toxic (er, more toxic than nicotine already is)?
Tastes like pepper and makes flavors suck, you'll know when it happens.
I'm pretty sure the peppery flavour in nicotine comes from problems with the manufacturing process and is not age related.
I have some 100mg/ml PG nicotine base that is now 2 years old. I've been keeping it in the freezer except for a 50ml bottle I fill up from time to time. When I first got it it was exactly as OP described... very slightly yellow, like egg whites. Now it looks like pee. Taste is the same, throat hit is the same... not peppery at all.
A couple of years ago when I bought that batch, people would often complain of getting nic base from various DIY suppliers - including quite reputable ones (Wizard Labs, MBV, RTS Vapes, etc...) - that looked fine (egg whites) but tasted peppery. The consensus back then was that you were lucky to get neutral-tasting nic base from anybody.
I've never had this experience. I used a year-old bottle of 24mg/mL MBV Coconut as my nicotine base for several 30mL 6mg/mL bottles, and it was fine, even though the liquid had turned red at this point (and a day of accidental heat steeping in a car left a bottle of the subsequent liquid the same color). No peppery taste and I was happy with the nicotine content.
That's just nast....
I'm still trying to even work the math on that. How big was the original bottle?
It was just a 30mL bottle. They came out fine. I used ~30/4=~7.5mL of 24mg Coconut per 6mg 30mL bottle. It wasn't Overpowering Coconut Hell at all, I promise. The liquid just seems like a low percentage of Coconut Extra, so the flavor was adequately diluted even at 1/4 of the total volume.
One of my favorites liquids I've made actually was just that, 20 drops of FA Neroli and 20 drops of FW Butterscotch.
Of course, it was just blind luck that the percentage worked out to something not only vapeable but tasty. I was just drunk and too impatient to let my nicotine base warm up out of the freezer at the time.
I don't think it's bad, just loses some strength. Make a batch and see if the flavor and throat hit are still OK. The nic base I'm using has been out of the freezer for a couple of months now. It's almost gone but still seems fine to me.
It tastes okay to me, and throat-hit seems to be on point. Other than the color, I can't tell its old. Do you suggest a temperature to store nicotine at? I've heard 36 degrees and 28 degrees. Fridges in my budget can only go as low as 28.
I didn't know this. I've ordered a 250ml bottle 7.2% PG. Any tips on how to avoid oxidation? Maybe transfer it to smaller bottles and put them in the freezer?
Shake VERY well, good 15 minutes of intermittent shaking. I have a tumbler I use for the gallons of VG we get from NudeNicotine so it can be properly mixed. Break into Amber Glass Bottles. Wrap in some sort of paper, we just use brown package filling paper, could cut up a paper bag and just use that and store in the freezer.
You would probably want really small amber glass bottles so you can just bring one out, go through it, then bring another one out when you need it. Rather than storing in 1-2 glass bottles and refreezing / reopening over and over. Let it thaw out overnight, when you plan to use it make sure to shake it very well so the nic gets diluted back into the VG/PG.