I've been reading a lot of delicious recipes calling for the infamous Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (TFA). I have a 15ml bottle, but I have used, maybe 2ml of it.. I would love to hit these VBIC recipes, but.. my VBIC smells and tastes off. It doesn't smell like ice cream, that's for sure.
It smells like freshly-ground black pepper, minus about 95% of the black pepper "odor", but with the equal amount of the rough, thick, nasal sensation of black pepper. It's not the "make-you-sneeze" part of black pepper, but the body of the smell.
The taste is almost the same: thick, rough, black-peppery, with little to no sign of vanilla or ice cream..
Sorry if my description is not clear, I hope you can kind of visualize what I'm sensing.
Anyways, what does your VBIC smell and taste like? Should I give it another shot and buy a fresh bottle from TFA?
Or, what would be an equivalent substitution for VBIC? I have about 6-7 types of vanilla cream/french/etc. from TFA, as well as the usual Vienna Cream/Whipped/etc. from FA..
Thanks for any help.
EDIT: Sorry for the (super) late update. I thought that since this thread lost traction that people wouldn't be interested anymore, although I did update after the single-day open bottle breathing. /u/highso lit a small fire under my ass to make this edit. Thanks, dude!
Anyways! Cutting-to: my VBIC still tastes like black pepper. I open-bottled it for a total of 4 days, with vigorous shaking every day. My home office (where I mix) smelled of the black pepper cream. Each day, I would put my nose up to the bottle and still smell that dang black pepper. Incidentally, my TPA Vanilla Custard also has that black pepper smell, so I also open-bottled that for the same amount of time. This also still retains the black pepper smell.
I did a straight 2% to VG mix of VBIC and (you guessed it): black pepper!
I'm intrigued by this, but not so much as to perform further investigation. I'm trying to find an alternative to VBIC, and thankfully, not many recipes that I see call for TPA's Vanilla Custard. A possible substitute for VBIC could be Vanilla Bean Gelato, as suggested by /u/Daztastic.
Thanks to everyone for their advice and conversations, at least I know that I'm not alone in this black pepper phenomena.
While others have pointed at cyclotene as a possible culprit, I've never heard any flavor engineer mention any pepper notes. One or two have said it has a green pepper note in it, but I've never noted that myself!
The interesting thing is that a LOT of people have tasted black pepper in vanilla custards for years. Last year there were two different mentions and you can go back to 2013 if you dig far enough and see similar issues.
I am assuming this flavor aroma happens BEFORE you mix in nicotine, correct? Or did it appear after mixing the nicotine?
To me, I always wondered if there was an aroma molecule that actually speeds up oxidation of nicotine. I've never noticed a peppery note myself but I only tried TFA vanilla bean ice cream once or twice. Will order some today and see if I notice it, too.
Thanks for your input, abdada. To answer your question: the black pepper aroma comes straight from the flavor bottle. I just opened it up right now to breathe overnight and took a whiff: yup, black pepper. So, I'm not certain that nicotine has anything to do with this.
Yes, if you could, please order a bit of the vanilla bean ice cream from TFA.. would be nice to get your real take on this.
Already ordered. I actually make my own PG-free vanilla bean ice cream that is really good so I don't use premixed concentrates, but I've heard this complaint for years so I definitely want to get to the bottom of it.
I don't see ANYTHING that should give off a peppery taste. Ethyl butyrate isn't. I use cyclotene in 75% of my own concentrates I make and never once had anyone mention pepper. Really curious.
While not the flavor your asking about... but I recently ordered Vanilla Custard from TFA and immediately mixed up a 30ml bottle of it as I had been completely out of it for several days. As soon as I vaped it, it had a noticeable licorice tinge to it. I checked the the flavor bottle and noticed it there as well (should've checked before mixing).
What I ended up doing was to leave the cap off the flavor's bottle for 24 hours, put the cap back on, then shook the hell out of it. The smell of licorice was not noticeable anymore and a new batch tasted much, much better. This has happened a few times with some of the routine flavors that I've ordered. Sometimes they are off from either not mixing enough or just needing a little air... almost like needing to steep ejuice.
I'll try that. I'm actually in the middle of letting Orange Creamsicle by CAP sit with the lid off.. I think the alcohol in that flavor is making it hard to vape (harsh, rough throat hit, so can't use enough flavoring). I will do the same with my little bottle of Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.
Please let me know if that helps you out. I only know from my own experience and would like to hear out it works for someone else.
Okay, just woke up. It's been about 6 hours since I took the caps off the Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and Vanilla Custard. I took a whiff just a minute ago and.. I was taken aback. The black pepper scent seems to be reduced considerably, if not almost totally.
I don't want to jump to final conclusions yet, as it is first thing in the morning for me, so my senses might be dulled. I'll report back when I get back from work and my senses have stabilized. But so far, this cap-off method is looking promising.
This, I had a bad time with Vanilla Bean Gelato from them, the 20 mls I made took two weeks maturing to taste ok but once the cap was taken off for a day the change in flavour was quite noticeable. I haven't taken the cap off the actual concentrate yet but will do now.
Hi,I'm curious when you make Vanilla Custard from TFA what percentage of flavoring you use normally?
Mine smells like uncooked yellow cake batter, and it's delicious.
No black pepper kind of thing? If it's an uncooked cake batter smell, then I think I can imagine my bottle smelling/tasting similar.. but you say yours is delicious.. mine is definitely not. Could be another case of the Pineapple..
Mine isn't like peppery at all, are you absolutely certain it's not the nicotine you're using in the mix? I always hear people say that nicotine can take on a peppery smell/taste.
I had made a thread about identifying a peppery flavor found in certain juices, and I remember Cap. VC, TFA VC and TFA VBIC were mentioned as smelling somewhat peppery by some users. So your batch might be ok, and you may be one of those people who smell the pepper note in these flavors. (Which I also am)
Anyone in that thread say that they find nothing wrong with vanilla bean ice cream?
Here is the thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/3877u5/black_peppery_custard_note_what_flavor_is_it/
Bingo, I also have TFA Vanilla Custard and it, too, has the black pepper scent. No wonder the little bottle is full, untouched!
So, there must be some consistent ingredient/molecule in at least both Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and Vanilla Custard TFA.
For the record, I have not found this aroma in Cap stuff, VC1, VC2 or Vanilla Cupcake v2.
Gerard Mosciano in P&F 25 in 2000 said that ethyl vanillin aromas tasty of "sweet sharp vanillin, creamy with spicy clove-like nuances".
Is this what you're thinking is peppery?? Ethyl vanillin DEFINITELY has a clove/eugenol/guaiacol taste to it in higher amounts but I wouldn't call it black pepper.
/u/flipwich /u/greybucket /u/billgarmsarmy /u/0158014 /u/flavchallenged /u/skiddlzninja
I suppose it could be considered a "clove-like" nuance. Although, for clove, I would also think it also possesses "cinnamon-like" feel, which this does not have. But all-in-all, with the slight spiciness, I do think it can be considered clove-like (the smell and somewhat the taste).
Have you tried their substitute for VBIC? It's called Vanilla Bean Gelato. I've never tried it myself but it's their "clean" version (no Diacetyl etc.). Maybe this might work better for you...
Yikes, I have a 4oz of Vanilla Bean Gelato and think it tastes great. I guess because of the strange black pepper in my vanilla bean ice cream, I never thought the two were interchangeable! Thanks for the tip!!
Which vendor did you use? It might be a vendor specific contamination issue or a mislabel.
Purchased direct from TPA. I also did have a butterscotch that smelled of urine, but re-ordered and the new bottle was fine.
I was thinking it might be a contamination issue for my VBIC, but posed the question here before making another order of a bottle. Looks like it might be affecting others, too.
EDIT: so, how do you find TPA's Vanilla Bean Ice Cream?
It's not in my rotation at the moment but I've never had what you are describing, even when fresh. I am going to order some soon which is why this worries me too. Send TFA an email and tell them the notes you are picking up and that you are not satisfied. I'm sure they will at least try and work with you.
/u/abdada, any idea what aroma molecule may be doing this?
My money is on cyclotene. MSDS
By manufacturer, some link I found about wine they compare the chemical analysis with human testers. (Green pepper note)
And I looked it up in the "a reference book on fragrance ingredients" Where it gets a : sweet very strong, caramellic spicy, walnut, maple , celery.
Hmm.. this is not a green pepper (fresh vegetable, I gather?) aroma... it is a cured/dried, ground (grinded?) black pepper scent..!
I think this is endemic to cream flavors, specifically. I stopped using Sweet Cream for the same reason (In my experience the Sweet Cream is most likely to have this flavor issue), it had a funky chemically "old milk" smell and taste to it with a hint of licorice or rancid spice. I've also noticed this to varying degrees in a few other creams I've worked with, cheesecake and cream cheese icing and bavarian cream as well, but it's only one batch of flavoring once in a while that has it, and not every bottle will have that funky taste, and not all to the same degree either. I'm not sure what causes it though.
I recently tried the Mustard Milk recipe and instantly got that same taste. I let it set for a couple of days and it's still there.
I've used VBIC in many recipes before and never noticed it but none of those recipes used such a high percentage. I mixed up another of my recipes using it at a lesser percentage and I'll compare it with the Mustard Milk after they have both steeped for a while.
I don't know if it is Percentage, Steeping Time, or a bad batch but the Black Pepper thing is there...