So i've noticed that a lot of people compare Cap sweet Strawberry to TFA Strawberry, and a lot of other people say there's nothing similar, and/or SS is just not good and has no strawberry taste, just the sweet. For a long time i agreed with the latter, i kept trying to find the strawberry in SS and kept coming up short. HOWEVER, i think i finally figured out where i and perhaps some others have made a mistake that gives us this impression: the steep. With TFA strawberry, i can throw it in a mix, shake it up, speed steep it and it's basically completely ready to go. Every time i'd been making juice with Cap SS i'd been doing this same thing basically, and was getting zero strawberry and a lot of perfumey sweet flavor that i hated. a few nights ago, i ran out of tfa straw and was like "oh well i guess i'll just use cap," mixed up some strawberry custard based roughly on mustard milk, did a speed steep, tasted it to find the usual perfume taste, and put it on the shelf in disgust to squeeze every last drop of my precious tfa version. today was out of the tfa version and picked up the SS adaptation, and lo and behold--exactly like tfa strawberry. i know everyone's pallette is different, but for those of you who may have done what i did, give it another try and let it slow steep for a while. you may be surprised. if anyone else has any experience with this i'd love to hear it. i'm not exactly new to mixing, but i'm definitely no master and love getting input.
Damn, I don't find them similar at all, but I love them both. I find SS tastes better mixed with other Capella custards/creams than with TFAs.
hmm interesting. my recipe was something like Strawberry (ripe) (TFA) 2% Sweet Strawberry (CAP) 7% Bavarian Cream (TFA) 1% Vanilla Custard v2 (CAP) 1% VBIC (TFA) 6%
Interesting, I like CAP SS but have been playing with FA Strawberry lately with INW as well. The INW steeps out really juicy tasting at ~%1. I will revisit the CAP version this week and see what it tastes like after steeping. I usually combine a couple of strawberry flavors in my recipes. I made this recipe below to round out MM.
- INW - Strawberry %1 (Not the INW Wild it's tastes like dirt)
- TFA - Strawberry %4
- TFA - VBIC %6
- TFA - Sweet Cream %2
This is my new ADV.
Hey /u/twisted_dick, I've got two questions for you. The first is can you detail what steps you take to do a speed steep? Also, what did you do to your CAP SS at the end of the story to better the flavor like that? Cheers!
my speed steep is pretty primitive; i just boil water in my electric kettle, pour some into a measuring cup, let it cool down from boiling for a minute, and put the bottle in till the water gets cold. oh and i take it out and shake it a few times throughout the steep. definitely not an optimal process, but it's necessary for me due to my schedule, budget, eliquid consumption, and limited bottles.
honestly, the SS just needed time. mixed at ~7%, and i might have thrown in 2% tfa strawberry ripe, cause i know i made a plain strawberry that was that recipe and it had a pretty similar flavor.
the SS tasted to me like a TFA strawberry, but maybe more green. it was very sharp too. imagine if you found a strawberry plant that had mint leaves, and picked one of the strawberries off of it that had juuuust turned ripe--you know that kind where it's ripe enough to eat, but it's not soft and squishy and the tip of the strawberry is still green--and you ate it with the leaves still on it (mint leave i mean, not the kind they have irl). that's what it tastes like after a slow steep to me.
now i wouldn't tell you "if you don't like CAP ss you will after this," but the long steep definitely changed the flavor from an overpowering sickly-sweet perfume to a legitimate strawberry imo. to be honest, i still prefer a 50/50ish mix of the tfa strawberry and strawberry ripe overall, the main difference i notice is a little nebulous. i think that what it is is that when i mix the sweet strawberry into creamy flavours, the end product is a strawberry flavoured cream, whereas when i use the tfa mix, it's like biting into a strawberry that's so ripe and juicy it's about to pop, and the creams are just sorta there. it's hard to explain though, and i've already written a damn essay haha so whatever. i don't know if you've ever had it, but madvapes came out with their own max vg line a while back, and the 7% CAP SS + 2% TFA straw ripe tasted exactly like their strawberry juice in this line. I hope this helps!
First of all, don't worry about the wall of text. I'm the kind of person that likes detail; your lost was very informative and satisfying (we're still talking about ejuice, right?).
I'm a complete beginner to DIY and although your post was like the Dead Sea Scrolls to a neanderthal, it has helped me in picking flavouring, which is where I'm at now. I've been populating my cart all week long and I'm checking out tonight. Cheers!