I've been vaping about ~2.5 years and doing DIY e juice for about 1.5 years. I only use TFA flavors. When starting out with DIY I got a lot of recipes online like here on reddit (like the TFA mega-thread thing). I know taste can be very subjective, but I've tried a lot of recipes people claim to be really good, and well.. quite a few of them are absolutely terrible.
My best guess would be that out of every 10 recipes I try online, 1 is really good, 2-3 are alright, and the rest are just really bad. I've let my friends try a lot of these recipes as well, and they generally say the same thing.
I'm not trying to offend anyone here, and I appreciate you guys submitting these recipes. But.. I'm just curious.. Those of you who try out recipes you find online.. what's your experience with that? Are most of them good? bad?
Honestly, at least 70% of them are bad. It's come to the point where I don't make recipes unless I see good feedback from others first. This is purely my assumption, but I believe most of the recipes are just conceived out of thin air. I've vaped recipes which made me think... "WTF was going through their mind".
That's why I'm all for notes. Some people hate it. Call it gratuitous. But I think it's a necessary evil. You get to see whether someone actually puts in the work.
I think Reddit has a better record than most. Most aren't bad, just many are not to my liking. As my flavor stash grew, I had a better handle on what would please me. And the notes might seem self aggrandizing at first, but they help learn not just about the recipe, but mixing itself. As well as the best insights to an actual flavors usage, not just a description of the flavor. I never would have bough INW Biscuit without a push (due to price), now I'm thinking about getting 120ml (it's great). So keep on mixing folks. If I don't like your recipe I'll still thank you for posting it.
I use flavours from most of the big companies (tpa, cap etc.) and I agree with what you said 100%. 1 will be great, 2 or 3 will be OK and the rest will be awful. If I browse the interwebby thing for recipes I generally tend to look at the date it was created. I always go for recipes created since the start of 2015 as they seem to be designed for the modern setup.
Edit: I also wanted to add that there are a few mixers who I always look at as they are always decent recipes (even if they aren't to my taste). u/enyawreklaw, u/botboy141, u/thirdworldorder , u/notcharlesmanson to name but a few.
/u/coop34, /u/fizzmustard, /u/tranceinate
<3 I still owe you a bottle or 3 of milfs milk. It'll come soon, promise.
/u/psyki is a very good mixer and his approach/notes to DIY is very solid. He's not a household name because he doesn't have a ton of recipes yet, but I've enjoyed what he has released. Check him out here.
Wow, thanks for the mention! I've only been mixing since October but I'm soaking up as much as I can, mainly from this sub. Such an awesome resource we have here, and ELR is indispensable when it comes to getting a quick idea of a particular flavor or percentage to start with.
I know I'm super late to this but I'm interested in your Saratoga clone. Having just spent a ridiculous amount of money on that juice during their Christmas sale, and just now finishing it, I need to ask if you've let this mix steep for a long time?
I thought their mix was heavy on the Graham and cream and that the strawberry really didn't come out until around 8 weeks. I actually didn't enjoy this flavor at all until around that time. I sold one bottle I had thinking it was a dud for me. I kept about 20ml thinking it's better than nothing. I picked it up again after seeing others say the strawberry pops after ten weeks and fuck me it did.
So I wanna mix this up but how does the steep do to compare?
This thread makes me feel a bit better. I've only been DIY for maybe 3 months. Out of the 9 recipes I've tried, I really only like one of them. Maybe 3 or 4 are absolutely terrible.
In fact I found a recipe for a Cuttwood Boss Reserve clone. Really high percentage of flavor, like 18%. However it was highly requested by a coworker who said he'd buy gallons of the stuff. Well I mixed a batch and for some reason beyond my comprehension, vaping the stuff makes you light headed. Zero nicotine and its been resting on a dark shelf for nearly 60 days. Even if you take it way down to 20 watt, when this stuff hits your lungs you get dizzy and oxygen deprived. Smells on point, but it's garbage with this after effect.
With all the money I've invested, its difficult to stay positive, buy new flavors, and try again. I know thats the only solution, but failure doesn't feel good at all.
Glad it makes u feel better :) I've invested a good bit of money too (for a college student). The best part is when you at least find recipes that you yourself really like (even if other ppl don't). Then you can make your own e juice supply. I can make 15ml bottles of ejuice for about $1.25-$1.50 instead of buying them at shops for $8-13 so that saves me a TON of money. Once I start buying in bulk it will be even more cheaper. Just keep your head up with making recipes. Take notes and don't lose them like I did once hahaha! Just a tip though. I've noticed the more flavors you add to a recipe, the harder it is to get right. Some of my best flavors are only 2 maybe 3 flavors total.
I agree. The only one I really like is HIC's Mellow Vanilla, which is only 4 flavors.
I have a PDF of "clone" recipes. Most of which are very complicated and very high in flavoring. The Boss Reserve I made and Cosmic Fog Milk&Honey were both really complex and neither came out well.
Thank you for the encouragement. I'll definitely keep at it. Until then I'll keep hitting the Mellow Vanilla.
Same percentages cover eliquids I buy.
Taste is subjective and even regional or cultural.
Why I started DIY right there ^^ At least if it tastes like shit it cost me $2.35/30ml instead of $23/30ml.
That's how I look at it. And considering that I probably throw out 500ml a week of utter crap I made, I'm probably losing money to DIY but it's fun to find some magic.
I agree with that estimate and for that reason I rarely mix recipes exactly as listed. They can be a great source of inspiration however! I love to find a combination of flavors that I can tell has great potential and just try infinite variations of it. It might just be a matter of figuring out what you like and don't like to vape, and how to tweak ideas you see to your own liking.
Yeah, I generally make one 15ml test bottle of the original recipe, then continue to make more tests based on which flavors I think are too strong or too weak until I either get a good enough flavor or give up on it ha.
So how do all of these premium e juice brands make really good flavors? I mean, they definitely have some bad ones.. but I've found some amazing gems in my time vaping samples at the vape shop. My personal all-time favorite: The Dude by Alpha Vapes and my most recent favorite Hearst Castle by Khali Vapors.
I actually made a Dude clone that I let the vape shop owner try and he really liked it, but we both agreed it was very close and tasted good, but not a perfect clone. Unfortunately I somehow lost the recipe for it, but I'm working on it again hahaha..
Ack, sucks losing a recipe! I always write the mix down as I make it, but I often neglect to makes notes after trying it out, which is just as bad tbh.
Hmm, I guess you just need to put more work into perfecting a juice that you're trying to sell, if you have such ambitions, and you'd be more willing to go through a lot of trial and error or just cheat with sweeteners etc. Since I'm the only one vaping my mixes (it's not really a thing in these parts and most people I know have quit smoking by other means), I never bother to finalize anything. It's not that I'm content, quite the contrary, I always feel I could tweak this or that, add this, remove that. It keeps me happy :) And off the cigs which is all that matters for me in the end.
Yeah, I've started letting my e jucies steep then test them 3 times over the course of a week or so. Each test I write down my thoughts on it and how I think it needs to be changed (if it does).
I've never really had good results with sweeteners.. I've used TFA Cotton Candy, TFA Marshmallow, some specific other sweetener (sucrose? or some other sweetener I heard about on the forums), EM, and other stuff like that, but I always find they either add a weird taste on their own, make the overall juice taste weaker, weird, or "off" or something. In the past few weeks I decided to remove ALL sweeteners from all of my juices.
> So how do all of these premium e juice brands make really good flavors?
Time, experience, and several revisions.
Also sweetener... Lots of sweetener.
What sweeteners do they use? As I stated in my comment above, I've used several different ones and they either weaken the overall juice, make it taste weird, or something is just "off". A lot of them that I've tried just have their own taste that messes up the overall flavor.
I've made quite a few recipes (50?) from here, ELR and VU. Most have given me ideas or inspiration but I would only mix one of them again (I usually mix 10-30ml). I've mixed some with the most glowing feedback and couldn't manage to get through 10ml (before during or after the recommended steep). Some of the most awful ones (Castle Long) gave me a new appreciation for a flavor that I swore off like TFA Coconut. Some of them just aren't for me. I loathe FLV Strawberry therefore Milf's Milk isn't my ADV. I sure used the fuck out of that base idea for my own recipe though! I swore off mixing others recipes for a few months bc I decided it's me, not them. I've started back with a few here and hope to at least get some more ideas. Tried Rhodondite and it's looking like I'll finish off that 30ml but the next version sure won't have INW Raspberry in it. And less FA Almond for my tastes. I'm sure glad I tried it though.
Tl Dr - I've made 50ish recipes I found online and only made it through about 5 of them without dumping them and would only mix 1 (verbatim) again. It's been over a year since I had that one so I might not like it anymore either. Also, my recipes would be so much shittier had I not tried all those and learned what I did like about them.
If you didn't like any of mine, I have your address. I'll come throw a bag of flaming shit on your porch.
Hey bitch bring it on down. Would love to meet you. I have beer and the juice mixing/music listening room is functional now. Actually I don't think I've tried one of your recipes yet. I never have all of the flavors. Post your favorite and I'll mix it up. Need to place an order soon anyway. I will also post about how shitty or glorious your recipe is in great detail.
Only because I'm pumped as fuck about this. Other than that, PM me (or just continue our week-long romantic chat) what kind of stuff you like and I'll send out a bottle of something.
That one dude who posted all those cereal recipes last year...got all pissy about something, deleted them, and left. Don't remember his name or the recipes, but they were shit.
60%. My biggest disappointment was gambit v2.
Really? I was about to buy the flavors to make this
Honestly, I'm not sure if I've had more than 5 juices that are just straight up "bad". I've been vaping for about 3 years now, and the only one I can personally think of off the top of my head is HCF by Mr. E. Not trying to throw them under the bus or anything, but that juice stained my coils and my tank for days.
Anytime I sit down to mix, I generally make up anywhere from 6-12 15ml "testers" of whatever recipes caught my eye that week. My first few outings had way more misses than hits, but, once I familliarized myself with the people of Reddit and ELR whose palates and ability to articulate tasting notes I trusted, my score went way up.
This is simply because when I see a posted recipe has enough "amens" from those people, I know it's unlikely to be bad. It may not always be to my taste, but, it won't be end up in the loss column, either, because it's still going to be light years more interesting and educational than a juice I bought.
Pretty much everyone I see "paged" in this thread, IMO, is an excellent resource for both recipes, and feedback on the recipes of others. They've certainly raised my mixing satisfaction index level.