I'm not selling or buying e-juice, so from what I can tell this sort of discussion should be fine here. Let me know if I've messed up.
My partner and I have been working on a line of e-juice for the last several months with the intention of eventually starting our own business. My main concern revolves around the environment that we're making said juice in. The goal is to have our own purpose built facility within the next few months.
For the review samples and the samples that we make for ourselves, we've been using a gourmet kitchen (that sees no other use, aside from what we do inside of it) that is routinely sterilized from the ground up. Portable commercial HEPA filters are used to pull particulates out of the air after door gaps have been sealed. We wear hair nets, splash guards, respirators, lab coats, and elbow high laboratory grade gloves.
Basically, we're practicing our "good laboratory habits" in anticipation of founding a full blown business and moving to a real facility.
Here's the kicker, though. We'd like to launch our website and sell a fair bit of product before we buy a building. I don't want to use a gourmet kitchen for this, despite the precautions that we're taking to ensure that our juice is free from contamination. I have a very large wine cellar/nuclear bomb shelter that's roughly 15-20 feet below the surface of the ground and I'm thinking about using that "facility" to produce our first couple of commercial batches.
The room can be hermetically sealed and we can remove particulates from the air in no time at all. The walls and ceiling of the nuke bunker would be fitted with clean room plastic, and positive air pressure would be used in place of an ISO grade air lock. Hell, we might even name our juice after the nuclear bunker we'd be making it in.
What are your thoughts on this? If all of the precautions that I've described are used, would this be an acceptable environment to start our business from? The very last thing that we want to do is to put people at risk.
I don't really have any answers for you but it sounds like it will be more sanitary than 90% of the other juice "labs" out there. Hell, B&Ms mix their juices right out in the open like Starbucks. I'd buy juice from a bomb shelter, but maybe that's just me
i would buy bunker juice...
Nuke Juice?
Ground Zero Vape?
i like that ground zero idea but i think it could be adjusted
juice ground zero?
like with juice overhead and then ground zero in a non stereotypical form
theres even a few good names for the juices themselves
- fallout
- survivors
- mushroom cloud
IMO you are taking the paranoia approach to this.
If you are mixing commercial juice, I agree that a sterile environment is ideal. I would especially recommend the use of HEPA filters with charcoal filter vent hoods where the raw nic is involved. Rubber gloves, eye shields and other normal precautions are advised.
However, I have been vaping "bathtub juice" for 2 years with no ill effects. I make my juice either in my basement, which doubles as a woodshop, or my dining room table. Neither of these environments is sterile, and this does not concern me a bit.
Why? Because each and every drop of that juice is going to be heated to the point of boiling in my atty. Boiling is the transition from liquid to vapor, and AFAIK it kills ALL bacteria and viruses, and probably all fungi and anything else nasty that might make you sick.
TL;DR - be reasonably clean, but your juice probably doesn't need to be pharmaceutical grade to be safe.
Best of luck in you new venture.
There are thermophilic bacteria and viruses that can last past the point of boiling, and if I remember correctly, fungal spores are made to outlast any sort of environment.
But you are already breathing those in, if applicable, in the room you're making your juice. So if they're going to hurt you, the room is easier than your pen, know what I mean?
I understood some of those words, but it looks like you are agreeing with me.
Yes yes I am. I meant to say that whatever you're breathing is as toxic as what falls into your DIY. Which you vape, and some of it dies, but the rest you've already got in the air around you.
Thermophilic: loving heat. The Botox thingy won't be killed with normal levels of heat, thus it is thermophilic.
Um... What else..
Thank you for saying this. I have been really confused over the extreme sanity conditions that people talk about lately for making e juice. I mean, people act like you are injecting this stuff into your body rather than burning it and inhaling the fumes. How many people keep their RDA in their pocket during the day and get all kinds of lint and fuzz in there that they don't even realize?
I do agree that certain levels of caution should be taken since no one wants a cat hair or something like that in their e juice, but sanitary conditions are far more practical than sterilization when it comes to this industry.
I also like to remember that my rda is far from sterile as well. The cotton touches my hands, as well as the coils themselves. the rda touches my mouth, and pulls in from the air. It's also in my pocket, laying about, etc.
I make sure everything is cleaned nicely but going for absolute sterile if you DIY your own juice doesn't make too much sense to me.
Wash hands. Wear gloves. Clean equipment well. Boom. Done.
Well, an idea popped in my head, and I don't know how much I should hope for it to come around, but with fallout 4 on the horizon, maybe you should contact Bethesda software, and ask for their permission to use their imagery for a line of Vault juices? Yes I'm a nerd. But at least I'm in good company.
Screw the eJuice... I need more information on this:
>I have a very large ~~wine cellar/~~nuclear bomb shelter that's roughly 15-20 feet below the surface of the ground.......
More on topic though, you're doing a fantastic job so far, if you wanted to bring it in-house for a bit, I would suggest to dedicate a room/space and build a "room within a room" type of system, or alternatively you could buy a pre-fab "grow tent", which are fairly cheap and can be bought/built quite large if need be.
Once it's air-tight with an IN and an OUT, just hook up your ventilation so you have a positive pressure zone within your ~~grow~~mixing room. The positive pressure will prevent any particles from entering the space anywhere except your filtered and conditioned intake. Keeps da nasties out!
All that is based on an above ground style... "house", not a bomb shelter... feel free to adjust the concept to fit your location :P
After that, the rest is just common sense cleanliness and safety.
And irrespective of everything else, congrats on taking your DIY to the next level!
>Screw the eJuice... I need more information on this:
Haha, I absolutely love telling people about our nuclear blast/fallout shelter. My main account is riddled with posts about it; I'm always bringing it up.
The home (and shelter) were built in the mid to late 60's by a very skilled and very paranoid tradesman. All of the electrical for the house is sheathed in an incredibly thick metal piping; this was before any sort of metal tubing was used for residential wiring, and it's still incredibly overkill when compared to the insulation techniques that are used today. We have to explain this to any and all tradesmen who come over to do install cable, satellite, etc., it always freaks them out.
The attic contains a full blown, fully functioning 1960's style switchboard and the house can (well, could) technically function as a telecommunications hub during the event of a nuclear attack. We're not entirely sure as to what the original builder was expecting, but it seems as if he was anticipating a complete societal breakdown.
The nuclear bunker itself consists of roughly 2' or 2 1/2' steel reinforced concrete, and was fully stocked with barrels of dried food when the home was purchased in 1989. We also found a "fallout timer" inside of the basement; a device that could be used as a countdown timer for resurfacing, taking into account the level of blast material that is still in the air and the amount of time that it takes for said material to settle.
Aside from that, the home itself has actually been in Home and Garden magazine a number of times. His wife was big into landscaping, and we've carried on with that tradition. Massive pool, more than an acre of land (which is a bit rare for homes built within the boundaries of this city these days), and a ton of fruit trees. The second story of the house is technically below the first story, and would be classified as a "finished basement" for appraisal purposes.
It's an odd house, but we love it. Oh, and that grow tent idea that you brought up is positively brilliant. I was seriously stoked after clicking on that picture; I'm going to try to get my hands on one.
Have you considered the impending doom that is the FDA? To truly last in this business I am assuming that you will need your stuff made in an ISO 7 lab eventually. To build they are like 150-200k which unless you have that much leaves you with having another lab make it for you. You can do it this way which is totally fine and way better than a lot of other companies out there but it's not going to last indefinitely. Make your money while you can I guess then switch to a lab.
>Make your money while you can I guess then switch to a lab.
Welp, that just lit a fire under my ass. I'll do my best to get ahead of the game before the hammer comes down.
>I am assuming that you will need your stuff made in an ISO 7 lab eventually.
Yup, we'd like to establish ourselves as an ISO 7 facility as soon as humanly possible. I'm not sure that it would be that expensive, though. ISO 9 is essentially regular indoor/outdoor air conditions, and the requirements get more stringent as you move down to 1. It'll be a fun challenge, but ISO 7 should be pretty easily obtainable for people in my position.
Hope I don't end up eating my own words; I guess we'll see. Thanks for the advice!
For DIY, I always suggest that personal protections is a must and that if you are not going to be making it for others to use then no harm no foul. Just be safe and make sure that you know what you are doing
Agreed, we'll be approaching this with due caution. On a side note, are you a juice manufacturer? Have you guys looked into ISO 7 production facilities?
I'm currently looking at the ISO 7 (Class 10,000) soft wall enclosures. If the FDA were to bring the hammer down, would you guys survive the regulations?
I mix my personal juice in my home office which is a disaster.
The juice I sell is simply mixed in an FDA approved kitchen space that is sterilized very well before I mix there once a week.
/shrug
Just waiting for the FDA to shit on my head now...