I recently picked up a 120ml of 100mg/ml (100pg) nicotine from Liquid Barn. Every bottle I've made has been ridiculously harsh. Let me say first of all my go-to vape is the noisy cricket, and I'm rocking at about 120-150 watts throughout it's battery life, and sometimes the first few hits are unbearable. BUT I've also tried the same build on my mech and even at about 30 watts I get a strong throat hit with little flavor. My most recent batch was max VG, and so I mixed at around 2mg/ml (0.6ml of nicotine/30ml) because I knew it was harsh, so this puts me at around the 15/85 pg/vg range, so I know it's not the PG. I've vaped plenty of 6mg ejuice at around the 70-80 watt range and didn't get near this type of throat hit that I'm getting off this "2mg" batch. So I'm imagining that this juice must be at least double if not 2.5 or triple as advertised, OR there's something wrong with it that would make it strong. What should I do now? Mix it with about half VG? Send it back? I'm currently out of base so it's just annoying that I'm having to vape such strong liquid.
NicSelect or US Nic? Definitely buy a kit and test every batch of nic you get. I learned that the hard way from the whole NN deal.
I have a liter of NicSelect from LB and it tested close, within the tolerance of the test, and it has no taste or bite to it.
Sorry if this is old news but what's the whole NN deal? Link? I'm curious because that's where I always buy my nicotine.
Check /u/project_twenty5oh1 submitted post history, there are three posts that should answer your question.
There was an issue with Nic, they upped their testing procedures, and now include nic strength testing and gcms results in every sale. Was way overblown at the time, but the past ~10 gallons they've delivered have been very well received in our lab.
It was NicSelect.
Hmm, not sure then. Contact them, from my experience they have excellent customer service. /u/liquidbarn. A quick search pulls up a couple with the same issue recently, NS could have sent them a bad batch or perhaps there was an issue with the transfer of the product.
I actually just had the same issue with my first nic order, and posted about it a few days ago (here). The smell was overwhelming and the taste was overshadowing all my mixes, and its also a bit harsh (but I'm a low watt vaper, i can imagine it would be terrible at higher power). I contacted bobby (Bobby@liquidbarn.com) and they've sent a new bottle, hopefully i don't have the same issue with this one :/.
Edit: I'm thinking the nic is oxidized, based on the smell being peppery/rubbery and how hard the throat hit is, I don't have a test kit atm to test the strength but I think it's just a bad batch. Based on what others have said here and in other places, the nicselect from them should be relatively odorless and this isn't even close to odorless or clean tasting.
Update: received my replacement bottle on friday, it's barely better than the first (also a little bit clearer but still has a pinkish tint to it) but still pretty much unusable, going to be calling them on monday. Also my a bit harsh comment was probably a little bit of an understatement since I only tried a few hits of the first bottle, I tried vaping a tank of the new stuff at 10mg at 8w and it was irritating the fuck out of my nose and throat, had to dump it out after about 20 hits.
I purchased US Nic from LB and am experiencing the same issues as OP. Have yet to test it though - planning on it. Do you know of any difference between NicSelect and US Nic?
Other than what is on their website, i do not. In another thread i asked LB the extraction method US Nic used but US Nic would not provide this information to LB or us. The other thread mentioned some of the same issues as the OP which is why i asked why product it was as it was US Nic. The other thread is why i went with NicSelect instead of US Nic.
I purchased 1 liter of 100mg in PG of NicSelect to test it in my mixes. I have been quite happy with it. I still feel that CarolinaXtract is the best quality nic that i have tried but the product i bought from LB is as good as anything the other top vendors are selling.
I'd say get a nicotine tester to see if what u got is 100mg/ml
what's my cheapest option? I'm not as worried about the true strength as much as I am it affecting the quality of my juice.
You cannot accurately guess at nicotine concentration, especially not from throat hit.
Of course, but what else might cause the throat hit?