Hey guys, over the past few weeks, I've been playing around with a lot of different flavors and I can just not get anything to taste great. If I do get an ok flavor, it is just that... ok. I can't seem to get any "sweetness". I use EM as a sweetener and have been working with flavors such as FA Mad Fruit, FA Oba Oba, Signature Circus Cotton Candy, and Flavor Express Tutti Fruit.
I mix 70/30 VG/PG and use 100mg/100% VG nicotine to mix 3mg into my juice. I have tried flavoring anywhere from 7% to 20% of my mix and just can't get anything to stick. At this point, I'm hardly saving money because of how much supplies I waste while sucking this bad. I use syringes so that I can mix with precision and still no luck.
Anybody have any fool proof recipes using these flavors that I can try, or perhaps have a recommendation for an awesome cotton candy or strawberry cream recipe that uses only a couple flavors so that I can test my results without ordering a ton more?
Thanks in advance!
EDIT: A few people asked for me to share what flavors I had so that recommendations could be made for good recipes. I'll list those below. I just wanted to say first though that the info in this thread has been extremely valuable and I really appreciate everyone that comtributed. I've realized that my main pitfall has been impatience. I was trying to fast track the process and get instant results. The other night, I pulled out a small notebook and got very methodical and specific with my mixtures and in about 3 hours of tinkering, I came up with an amazing flavor in a 10 mL bottle that I was able to duplicate into a 30 mL bottle. I've been vaping it for 3 days now and have never been happier with a flavor! If anyone is interested in a Strawberry and Whipped Cream Waffle recipe, let me know. I call it Prison Crepe ;)
My current flavors are below. Please make any recommendations!
Flavor Art brand - Custard, Oba Oba, Mad Fruit, Whipped Cream, Strawberry
Signature brand- Cotton Candy, Belgian Waffle
Flavor Express brand- Tutti Fruit
Flavor West brand- Cinnamon Roll
Capela brand- Cinnamon Danish, Sugar Cookie
For the flavors you mentioned:
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FA Mad Fruit: Interesting and tangy; lower percentages (1-3%) add a bit of tang or "zip" as a top note to other fruit flavors. Around 5% it starts to develop its own flavor and taste pretty accurately like an "energy drink" – I don't regularly drink those so I can't say it's an accurate Monster or Amp or Propane or whatever.
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FA Oba Oba: Another "intersting" flavor. I find it very sweet. It's faintly citrus, faintly vanilla, and some folks get "tobacco" notes at higher percentages (7%). This is a very subtle flavor so don't expect much of an in-your-face flavor...you're tilting a windmill to try to get it punched up. Embrace the subtlety.
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TFA Circus Cotton Candy: "Signature" from ECigExpress is just rebottled TFA/TPA. As a side note, I don't trust ECigExpress' rebottling operation because they've been completely unwilling to work with me providing Certificates of Analysis...but that's another rant. The flavoring itself is pretty bland...mainly ethyl maltol (a sweetener) with some other very subtle "fruity" notes and some cyclotene (maple). Boring standalone and I don't find it particular advantageous as an additive.
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No experience with FE Tutti Fruit...I refuse to do business with them any longer.
So it sounds like you're struggling with some flavors that are primarily additives or faint top notes. You'll very quickly hit a wall trying to increase your flavoring concentration where "I can't taste it because it's too faint" turns into simply overflavored.
What other flavors do you have on hand? If you want to post a list I'm happy to help make some more guided recommendations!
Specific to your request of a "couple flavors" strawberry and cream, I gotcha bruh. Of course I'm biased, but my Mustard Milk recipes are very simple and stack up against any well known strawberry/cream vendor juice.
Agree that most of what you're listing would be better if thought of as "support" type flavors... A great many flavors simply dont do well as a main ingredient, and exotics are almost never good solo.
Try strawberry, watermelon, custard, etc as a "base", and add the exotics in at low ratios as a "highlight".
For me, the "go to" is inawara two apple. I can add pretty much anything with that at 4:1 or so and enjoy it. Even strange stuff like tamarind and chocolate are good if "supporting" an apple flavor base.
Sometimes you just need that dash of salt to bring the sweetness out...
You are a man of much information. You also seem to have a lot of support and respect around here so you better believe I'm about to make some Mustard Milk (man it's going to be hard to sell my friends on trying a flavor with that name ;) haha) What is your recommended steep time on that recipe? The hardest thing I've found is waiting for flavors to steep! "I WANT IT NOW!". I'm going to post an edit to my post that lists all my flavors since a few other posters have asked for them as well. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Also, as a question specifically for you, what recipes are your favorites and why aren't you doing business for FE anymore?
Ha! I just post on here a lot but thanks for the vote of confidence.
Mustard Milk is about 85% of the way there straight after mixing (the 2-ingredient version). The cream aspect will deepen a bit after about a week. The 4-ingredient version needs maybe 5 days or so for the diketone-free cream to settle. Both versions are good as a shake-and-vape, to me.
I hate waiting for a juice to be "ready" too, so I reject most things I create if they need more than a week...it's an indication I need to go back to the drawing board.
My favorite recipes? The ones I've posted here (either as independent threads or as comment replies) tend to be things I repeatedly mix. You can check out /u/Botboy141 for some great recipes, and recently /u/Enyawreklaw has been posting some great stuff – his palate and mixing style closely matches my own.
Regarding Flavors Express/Tobacco Express/eCigExpress there's not much to it. I spoke with sales at ecigexpress several times about using their flavorings in commercial recipes. I need a Certificate of Analysis on flavorings in order to bring them into a gCMP/ISO mixing room. Keep in mind a COA isn't an ingredient list or chemical analysis or anything that would remotely jeopardize the understandably secret nature of their formulations – it simply shows they keep records on the products they produce, have some level of traceability, and operate their facility in a clean, documented fashion. They were totally unwilling to provide any information and openly hostile toward me. I was told Flavors Express and Tobacco Express come from an unknown manufacturer in China, but they would not disclose who it is (though they're easy to find on alibaba) or assist with getting a COA. ecigexpress also refused to provide any documentation on their rebottling operation. The sales rep hung up on me on my last call. I won't tolerate that in business, you know?
Persist my friend, also a great and easy recipe is Fizzmustards "Mustard Milk"
6% Strawberry TFA
8% Vanilla Bean Ice Cream TFA
Mix at 70/30 (vg/pg)
Also, maybe try and leave things like EM etc out until you are sure of what your flavors are doing.
First, what recipes are you using that aren't working for you?
A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Haha. The responses on this thread definitely helped me more than a lot of the info from the sidebar did (not to diss the sidebar). I think my main issue was trying to create "my own" flavors without practicing basic mixing skills first.
All my mixes are around 5-8% flavoring. Took me a long time to learn to tone it down.
now take this with a grain of salt since i have only ever mixed with TFA flavoring, but from everything posted on this sub that doesn't really seem like an accurate generalization. TFA is regarded as being fairly dilute, while other brands seem to be more concentrated in flavoring. 5% TFA with a few of my recipes doesn't really taste like much of anything
Post a list of what flavors you have and I'll try to give you some tried and true recipes using your flavors.
As far as the sweetness thing goes, I prefer "layering" sweeteners (or sweet flavors), rather than blasting a mix with a single sweetener. Sucralose is good as long as you don't go over 2-2.5% at the most; more than that and it starts to get that gross diet cola/artificial sweetener thing. I also don't use EM above 2% unless I'm also wanting it to impart a hint of cotton candy flavoring. The problem with EM is that it can dull other flavors at higher percentages.
My third go-to sweetener, which also adds a nice moistness (and light flavor) is Marshmallow. I use TFA almost exclusively, but most marshmallow flavors seem to work. It's not a sickly-sweet flavor like a marshmallow out of a bag, but it's fairly light. It's nice with creams and other dairy flavors, but I put it in a lot of my mixes.
There are other flavors that also add sweetness, although I'm a little out of it tonight and can't remember specific ones offhand. I'm sure others can chime in, but I know some vanillas work, as well as TFA Brown Sugar (great with "dark and rich" recipes.) By layering sweeteners, you can build the complexity of flavors and get more sweetness, without one single sweetener overpowering the whole thing.
It's probably also a good idea to mention that most commercial juices tend to over-do it with sweeteners. I can understand that from a sales standpoint, but if you bought something really sweet and then let it sit around for another month or two, the sweetness because almost nauseating. It helps to not automatically shoot for ALL THE SWEETNESS, which is unfortunately what most juice vendors do. If you're doing a shake-and-vape I think it's okay, but if it's a recipe that needs to steep then back off on the sweeteners.
You're right about the commercial juices. They're very sweet, but that's what I love about them. I'm the guy that buys one 30ml bottle and uses it within 5 days so steeping was never a thing for me before I started DIY. I think that stems from me always buying one pack of cigarettes from the gas station every day, instead of picking up a carton.
You're probably using too much flavoring.
Most of my mixes are usually 1% and 2% for each flavoring -- even for TFA.
Post a list of your flavors though -- that'll be the first step in the right direction.
I definitely didn't have too much flavoring. I've made a few tiny batches and got used to knowing what "too much" flavor was. I think my problem is just that I'm just not good at balancing my flavors. After my initial post here though, I've used all of the advice and have already made a few flavors that are infinitely better!
I started DIY back in February and began with simple 1-2 flavor mixes. The highest % of flavoring I've had success with is around 15%. Generally all my mixes tend to be under 10% flavoring. The best advice I can give is start simple and light on the flavoring. Make some single flavor batches and up the percentage if its not enough. Less is more. I used EM in the beginning but no longer use any sweeteners. I've read that The Vapor Chef does not use sweeteners in his mixes. Good luck!
I started DIY not that long ago and I had a similar problem, no flavour.
Firstly, I can tell you that the PG/VG ratio makes a huge difference. The first couple of batches I cooked up were Max VG and I was disappointed that I had barely any flavour. VG doesn't carry flavour very well without a while to steep. Try making your flavours at 50/50 and you'll get a better result.
As I said before, steep. Steeping is a vital part of juice making, leave your flavour to steep for at least 1 day before vaping, the difference in the amount of flavour is huge.
I definitely think your advice on steeping is valuable. The flavor certainly changes a lot. I haven't done max VG and I don't really plan to because I like the little TH from the PG in the 70/30 mixes. 50/50 is a bit too much for me while subohming, so I've avoided doing that. My main complaint was that my flavors were "not good" instead of "not enough". I appreciate the input though!