Hey everyone, this is my first post on here, I've been making some basic flavorings recently. So I'm new but not brand spanking new. I'd still be glad to hear any advice if you have any. Although I do have another main thing to ask. So in college I have entrepreneurship and business classes and people around the college, family members and friends want me to make them juice so they can buy it. I'm going to do his for me and them because of costs, tastes, and it's a good hobby. I've been told I should implement this into my classes as a grade and a way to get more business. Does anyone have any suggestions that could help me maybe mix faster, or special steeping methods that could help me? That way I can get the juice out faster and more efficient and still have it taste good. Cause right now I'm only using the syringes and shaking them by hand.
Definitely look into getting a scale accurate to .01, it will speed things up by 5x alone. If you want something for mixing options look into magnetic stirrers, or even hotplates with magnetic stirrers, and handheld homogenizers. The latter is much more expensive, but works amazingly.
Mixing by weight. Pre-mixed flavor bases. Milk frother or magnetic hot plate(the prior being less expensive. 500mL LDPE squeeze bottle for filling bottles quicker.
Wait, what do you do with a milk frother?
Make lattes while you DIY, they palette cleanse for better tasting, you should try it.
(Mix e-liquid)
Sorry, I forgot what real frothers look like. I have a nespresso (I know, not the best espresso out there, but it's convenient and pretty delicious imo) and their milk frother looks like this. So I was wondering how I would go about mixing with that. My bad.
Mixing by weight, and having a set list of iron-clad recipes. Once you start to memorize the percentages by weight of the common recipes you make, it goes by an awful lot faster. Having the exact weight for your nicotine bases in 3,6,12 mg or whatever you choose written down at your station will also help.
mix by weight. use squeeze bottles for vg/pg. i use pipettes for the nic and flavor. takes like 2 min to put everything together. in a beaker i mix on a mag stir/hotplate for an hour. donzo
Can you explain your hotplate setup? Do you mix in a beaker then transfer you bottles? What temperature to you run at? Which hotplate do you have?
damnit you actually made me get up and check the temp lol.
so. yes you mix in the beaker on the scale then xfer it to the stir. and, after it's done mixing i poor into the bottles via funnel.
i mix at 60 C. somewhere there was a thingy about stuff breaking down at a certain temp. i think i can go a weee bit higher but that's the temp i mix at.
the cheapest reliable stir hotplate i found: http://www.amazon.com/Scilogex-86143101-MS-H280-Pro-Circular-Top-Magnetic/dp/B00AYGIFCA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1440949309&sr=8-2&keywords=stirrer+hotplate
Scilogex 86143101 Model MS-H280-Pro LED Circular-Top Digital Magnetic ...
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ive heard mixing by weight is incredibly faster, more acurate, and has less cleanup time
as for steeping, you can get a device that will do 3 weeks of steeping in about 15 seconds for about $5000, other than that keeping them protected and placing them in a dryer (may not have one on campus but a laundromat will do) has had proven results
good luck, it would be cool to hear about your results and any bumps you have making and selling in a college setting
>edit, my est was wrong on the super machine, its about $1600
The nice thing is I'm in my own apartment, so I can try the dryer and what not. I'll have to see about mixing by weight and getting new stuff. Definitely could not get a machine for $5000 though hahah. But I appreciate the input and I'll see how it is going in the following weeks to come
A few things you can do is if you have a flavor for each person you can just make a base for each recipe for 5-10 bottles or what have you and mixing by weight will really aid you in this process. If Jeff loves his raspberry jam toast and your overall weight in flavor is 5g or 5ml by volume(for simplicity) than make Jeff a base x let's pretend he stops over 5 times a month. You'll have a 25g or ml base and you can just put that into each bottle now ready to go for the next month.
What's this magical steeping machine?
Definitely find some recipes that sound good to you, then buy your flavors primarily to make those recipes, and only buy other flavors you want to experiment with after you know you're set for 100% guaranteed tried-n-true recipes (unless you have some tasty blends that you've formulated yourself, of course :) )