I am mixing now for more than one year. I mixed about 1000 recipes from here and other forums and created about 300 of them by my self. I have the best nic, vg available and over 400 flavors. A week ago I bought sample bottles from my friend, he got them on Vape expo in Pariz. He sold me some Cutwood, Suicide Bunny, Mountain oak vapors - Creme de la creme,....
I was blown away with the mouth feel that these juices have. I realized that not one clone on the web is close to Unicorn milk or Mothers milk when we talk about mouth feel. I vaped these juices before I started DIY and forgot about them.
You will say "you need sweetners or additives for that kind of feel". Believe me, I tried everything I found and I just cant get mouthfeel I want. Although I can create the flavor I want.
Did anybody found out what are they putting in these juices for mouth feel???
sucralose or em and STEEPING. STEEPING and homogenizing the flavors into the vg will give you much better mouthfeel.
dont be lazy and make a big batch of your favorite dessert or bakery and watch the magic happen. dont touch any of it until a month has passed.
Aging is a must. EM and sucralose is not the answer, because I vaped 30 ml of Creme de la Crema juice in a tank and coils are not gunked much and the mouthfeel is amazing. From now you probably know what EM and sucralose does to the coils.
How deep are you wanting to go with this? If you're wanting to get into buying specific aroma volatiles then we can point you in the right direction. EM can give a pretty good mouthfeel at the cost of muting flavours.
Abdada has recommended aconitic acid as a compound to combine with EM to give a solid mouthfeel, no studies about it being bad in vaping as I understand it. Here's a link to his post
If you're wanting pre-made concentrates then here's what I recommend:
For creams these contain diketones:
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TFA Marshmallow: Adds sweetness and smoothness,
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TFA Bavarian Cream, CAP Vanilla Custard V1, TFA Graham Cracker Curst, TFA Whipped cream ect: All provide a solid cream aspect. Very solid mouthfeel although don't overdo it, a lot of companies just pile as many diketones in as they can to force that overly buttery creamy mouthfeel. Imo not good
Creams without diketones:
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CAPs new cream range is good but not as easy to work with as creams with diketones. Some of them seem to mute flavours, some just provide a horrible taste to me in anything over a few percent. If you want a smooth creamy mouthfeel without the diketones this is for you.
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TFA Vanilla Swirl and TFA Sweet Cream don't contain diketones but can add a smooth creamy aspect. Specifically with the sweet cream, keep it below 2% max or it'll make your juice taste like vomit. Does provide a light creaminess. Between a new CAP cream and sweet cream you could get a pretty decent mouthfeel and it wouldn't gunk up your coils super quickly.
If you don't want any gunking of your coils and you're willing to sacrifice some mouthfeel but want a creamy taste, FA Custard at 3-5% combined with FA Vienna Cream at 2% and FA Cream Fresh at 1% will provide a very complex and interesting cream mix. It'll be delicate though, adding seemingly small amounts of fruits, bakery or spice will destroy the flavour.
Now for other additives
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Acetyl Pryazine - Adds crunch, is a solid roasted nut flavour but in 1-5 drops per 10ml (0.2-1%) it adds that crunch.
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INW Kaktus - Adds juiciness, only in 1-3 drops per 10ml. Very floral flavour but a near essential for juicy fruit mixes.
Hope this helped man.
This right here is some high value reddit posting that I'd like to add too.
Many people think making juice is just dumping some flavors and sugar in a bottle with VG and Nicotine. It could be, but making really superb juice is a culmination of multiple factors:
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Flavor interaction: Things taste good together. Sometimes in equal parts, sometimes in 1:2 ratios, sometimes in odd balances. You have to find that sweet spot.
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Enhancement of Flavors: People put a squeeze of lemon on fish. There's a reason. The oils in fish are exceptionally rich and the lemon adds a brightness and enhances those rich flavors. Ejuice is even more intense, and can be exceptionally rich, so things like balance of acidity to richness can be a huge difference. Finding little things you can add that give a certain flavor that POP will make your juice shine.
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Texture and mouthfeel: Some of the well known tricks are above. This is why sampling every extract you use on it's own in varying percentages is crucial. Things like Amaretto, marshmallow, custards, swirls, lemon, bavarian cream can add a textural component in small percentages without adjusting the overall flavor balance and profile. You can't trust your instincts here, you have to educate yourself through extensive research and detailed notes as to what ingredients in low percentages can achieve the textural components you desire. Cactus is an excellent example here because it takes just a drop to add an extremely juicy characteristic, while it tastes like aloe at any normal percentage.
Also, get outside that box when making flavors. You want Strawberry cheesecake with a graham cracker crust? Build it on your own, don't just buy strawberry and cheesecake flavorings. Think about what ingredients would go in the real thing and how the actual recipe is made and build up your own version using your arsenal. You'll get a superior overall product by doing this.
Final note: Find a successful baker, and ask them why people can't get enough of their desserts, and almost everyone will tell you This one thing you won't believe that makes their sweets better - a pinch of salt.
While most of your "tasting" comes from the smells and aromas, your tongue can only sense a few things: Sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, astringent. Some might argue you can add "umami" to that list, but the fact is - if you can touch upon multiple taste sensors you will find that a simple flavor can become an extremely complex flavor because you touch upon both the aromas the sense of smell can detect, and multiple taste sensors - throwing the person tasting it into a sensory overload which tricks their senses into believing they are enjoying something significantly more complex than they are. Add a acidic component and their mouth is left watering wanting more of that deliciously satisfying flavor right away.
Fuckin saved.
All that cream info is helpful. I have all of those creams but im not experienced using them. Im mainly a fresh fruit and candy guy and got about 5-7 creams abd caramels to travel a caramel apple sucker recipe or to add a little fun yo some fruits.
Great write up :)
I use all of them above, because I vape only custards, creams and bakeries. CAP creams are not good for full mouthfeel for me. Anyway with all those flavors I cant get mouthfeel that I want. EM is great for mouthfeel but not for flavors.
Maybe there realy is something on that aconitic acid and juice companies are using it. I read the post from Abdada. This is just what I am looking for, mouthfeel without muting flavors.
What the fuck is "mouth-feel"...
Ever have a nitro beer instead of a carbonated beer? That's mouth feel.
You have been DIYing longer than me and made more batches than me more likely but I feel like I should put in my 2 cents, because I have put hours upon hours into research, mixing and tweaking and remixing and re-tweaking....
I find it best to mix a flavor you know you like in BIG batches, like 250ML-ish batches, then you have no problem letting at least some of it steep (especially if you have 5 of these and a bunch of 30ML's around like I do) When you want to vape it refill a 30ml with the 240, put it back. DO NOT speed steep, when it comes to flavor AND mouth feel, old fashion steeping works the best.
Also you should be aware different flavors change differently, fruits tend to have smaller molecules than say sweets such as caramel and what not, therefor the flavor of your strawberry will weaken the more the bottle is exposed to air (when your mixing it or w/e you do to your juice).
Heat BREAKSDOWN juice, but you have to be educated, it is okay to refrigerate some flavorings, and some its not, again like fruits are generally okay to be refrigerated, where as marshmallow or something could get "crystally".
Find out what each flavor and each brand of those flavors bring to the table, just because one brand has a good feel/taste to it doesn't mean the other one doesn't or does, it means they are different. For example, Wal-Mart cheese square crackers don't taste like cheese-its, they taste like cheese squares, which are almost like the cheese-its, but not quite, they have different texture, different density, different flavor and are overall not the same thing.
DIY is LOTS of time, research, notes, experiments, and much more. For example, I have been trying to replicate KVS Funny Bunny since I started DIY because I could vape that all day every day for weeks and still love it. After 6 months I still haven't gotten it even close.... BUT I have come across a lot of other things that are just as good if not better since then!
Also some times if I want to test a flavor at around 10% I will put 9-10 drops of base and 1 drop of that flavor that I want to taste into my RDA, vape some unflavored base till the flavor is gone and then repeat with something else, or instead of using 10 drops of unflavored base, I will use a juice I already mixed up, and then add 1 drop of a new flavor just to see what effects it could have on my juice.
Is this method of the 10-1 drops exact? No but it gives you an idea and a direction you want to go in with it. Like my fruit loops I made (by accident btw, but tastes better than any clone I have found) I thought "Hmmm how about strawberry?... Nope muted everything else at a 10-1 in my fruit loops, okay how about 20-1, not as muted, but still overpowering...."
TL;DR = Experiment! Try new things, don't be lazy or you won't get anywhere and... RESEARCH.
I was speedsteeping my juice in my firs two months with all known methods and found out that this sucks. From that day I only do wait steeping. I have a ton of steeped juice in my stash.
I'm sure you have read these also? Flavor Descriptions
Also have you checked out /r/Deeper_DIY A lot of useful information going on in there too.
The "mouthfeel" you talk about came from the use of flavors with diketones that's what the brands you talk about are using, that and a bunch of Acetyl Pyrazine like Creme de la Creme. We as DIY'ers are more concern of using diketones than those companies are, there's your "mouthfeel".
I'm currently awaiting my first DIY supplies to arrive. My current E/ADV is Claim your Throne (suicide bunny creation) and your post has me slightly concerned. The slight texture I get while vaping that is what hooked me, even though the flavor is also great. I've been doing a ton of research into DIY over the past week or so and haven't seen any noticeable mention to texture. Real or imagined.
Thanks for this post, I'm really looking forward to the replies.
Mouthfeel = the sensation of texture, real or imagined.
That's how I personally define it. With vapor, its hard to actually define 'texture', but some juices vape in a manner where there's no other true definition of a term that fits. I say 'sensation of texture' and the OP says 'mouthfeel' (from the looks of it, it might be an actual vape term?).
I don't think it is as much of a "Mouth-Feel". I think this is all refinement of a recipe. Most of these best selling premium juices are just recipes that someone has created and designed to have a very balanced flavor scale along with concentrates that work in harmony.
I have seen a few recipes on here that I feel are just as good or better then most premium juices of that flavor. Most recipes I see on here end up not close to premium IMO. Maybe they do to other people. Also I feel that all premium juice is too concentrated and even my favorite premium needs to have at least 1/3rd more VGPG added.
Even though juice is simple to make it is very hard to get the correct balance in the right percentages and concentrates, I feel that in time this scene will grow and you will see more and more recipes.
This is still a very small scene for the amount of people who vape. Still a lot of hate out there. Still a lot of false rumors out there. Go to your local B&M and ask about DIY. See how fast they start telling you stories.
For example: IMO the well known recipe for Unicorn Milk tastes like premium to me. Yet I had to cut the Strawberry down to one fourth and the rest of the concentrates down to half. After Steeping a week it tastes like a very premium strawberry creme.
Many of the lower end premiums I have tasted in B&M are just TFA Strawberry mixed with random cremes. Nasty!
I think a lot of people use too much of their main flavor and then try to bump up the lower flavor notes until they can taste them over that main flavor. It ends up a mess.
What about removing some of the throat hit?
I mix max VG, but with fruity flavours, I always seem to get a bite in the back of my throat.
Is this just a function of not steeping enough?
I've tried reducing the flavours, but I end up with more of a plain old VG flavour.
It almost feels like a shortness of breath, but limited to just the back of my throat.
As if being out of shape, and going for a long jog on a cold frosty morning.
Also, its not my build, before anyone suggests this!
yes, i feel this the same way with max VG as well. I've been mixing 30/70vg, or even 35/65 and it feels alot better. I feel like its just preference of the person. also, steeping will help that too i think.