Is there any benefit to be gained by mixing single flavors by preferred % and then (after steeping) using these to experiment with flavor combinations?
I would love to hear feedback if anybody has tried this. I didn't see anything when I searched
It's a perfectly valid way to experiment but the problem for guys like me is the math one you find something you like
When I started DIY I made 5-10ml of each flavor for just this reason and honestly I couldn't tell the difference from right after mixing to several weeks later.
As for ease of mixing, well sure, you can just add one to the other. But you can do that with the undiluted essences too. The tricky part with testing flavor combinations is in how you vape it without tasting what you previously vaped, not so much how you mix.
What I didn't realize however when I made all my batches though was that for every combination I made, the overall flavor percentage would remain the same and thus each flavor would get much weaker. Say that you mix 10% apple with 10% cinnamon base, you end up with 10% apple/cinnamon, but each individual flavor just dropped to 5%, so you'd be forced to add essences, which kinda takes away the whole point. Needless to say I stopped doing this. Just mix from scratch :)
Thanks. So you keep same percentage in a mix that you do in a single flavor?
If you premix two flavors separately at 10% each and then combine them, then each flavor will only be 5% in that mix, so the more flavors you combine the more potency you lose for each one.
So if you combine premixes with 10% strength, no matter how many, the total amount of flavors will be 10% in the mix, yea.
I would imagine it would give you a clearer idea of how the individual flavors will add to the profile/recipe you are working on. On the cooking shows the experienced chefs always taste their ingredients separately so they have a better understanding of how they will fit in the recipe they are making.
Flavors need to steep together. You're basically talking about dilutions, the only reason to do this imo is to work with flavors that require very little volume.
Things like FA Honey, FA Blackberry, Medicine Flower, and Cinnamon Ceylon being diluted (2:1 if not incredibly potent and 10:1 if "holy shit i opened it and the whole house smells" are my preferred ratios just for ease of use) make them easier to work with, especially in small batches.
My thinking was that I could measure up the individual flavors, say a strawberry sweet, and a cream with vg, nic, and flavor. Then I could just squirt a little bottle half cream and half strawberry to grab and go. That is I was looking to be a less intensive process. Also I thought that this would allow me to have a cream mixed and some flavors that I want mixed with cream and have them separate until I decide what I want to vape that day.
I sample single flavors in multiple percentages to know how a flavor works, so i can have an idea of how the flavor will work in a mix with other flavors I have sampled.
otherwise I would have to guess, which equals waste materials when im pouring out all the failures.
I vape failures