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Weekly New Mixers Questions Thread - Week of February 22, 2016
submitted over 9 years ago by AutoModerator

OK new mixers, this is your thread to ask any questions you want of the DIY eJuice community. All posts are allowed, but we still encourage you to use the sidebar and search features before asking any questions.

  • Placing your first DIY order and want to make sure you have all you need?
  • Not sure about how to mix your first bottle?
  • Want to get started but aren't sure how?
  • Any other questions? ... then this is the thread for you. FWIW, the answers to the first three questions will eventually be found in the wiki (still in development); link at the top of the page.

Ask away!

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2 points
 
by adifferentkindasillyover 9 years ago

Best way to shake your liquid wothout destroying your arm

5 points
 
by bobbysavageover 9 years agoResident Tobacco Specialist

Bottle taped to sawz-all (reciprocating saw)

2 points
 
by BuryMeInSmokeover 9 years ago

Add your flavours and PG to your bottle, quick shake, add nic (if desired) quick shake, add half your VG, quick shake, add remaining VG, semi-decent shake.

Each shake doesn't need to be too vigorous.

If that sounds like a hassle you can try heating your bottles slightly (after mixing). Just a run under hot tap water for a minute or two which will reduce the viscosity and make shaking/mixing a lot easier.

1 points
 
by Blaggyover 9 years ago

Put it in a sock and spin the sock in an erratic way. Other ways are to get a magnetic stirrer or ultrasonic cleaner. You can try speed steeping methods as well.

2 points
 
by teamherosquadover 9 years ago

https://youtu.be/JiBSrocGagM

Trying to shake new juice

1 points
 
by Dancin_Joeover 9 years ago

I thought it was gonna be this

1 points
 
by thearlonianover 9 years ago

Learn to juggle, then juggle them. It's fun and gets 3 bottles at a time

1 points
 
by Philosaphuckerover 9 years agoProud Sidebar Reader!

Historically, I've learned to embrace the exercise. Just make sure to switch up arms to get an even burn. I've seen people rig a clamp up to a drill and do it that way though. I'm going to be exploring this avenue pretty soon...just a little DIY to go with your DIY!

2 points
 
by backdoorchickenover 9 years ago

'ello all :) How long do flavorings last, like shelf life?

2 points
 
by bobbysavageover 9 years agoResident Tobacco Specialist

months to years. depending on how old they were when you got them, what the constituents are, how much oxygen heat and light they encounter, what they are stored in.

2 points
 
by Philosaphuckerover 9 years agoProud Sidebar Reader!

It really does depend on the flavorings. General recommendation around here is to just get the flavorings that you will use in the next 90 days. That's not a rule, just an (albeit conservative) preventative measure.

2 points
 
by thearlonianover 9 years ago

I've seen a lot of posts saying you should start with small batches in zero nic when trying new flavors. I understand doing small batches, you don't want to waste ingredients on something that might taste like crap. But why zero nic? Wouldn't the absence of nic change the flavor if you normally use nic? (FYI I mix by weight so I can be relatively precise even with small batches)

2 points
 
by Philosaphuckerover 9 years agoProud Sidebar Reader!

There is a distinction to be made in most cases between testing flavors and testing recipes. Flavor testing is usually done to determine the taste/profiles/characteristics of individual flavorings. It is rare that we are mixing up single flavor recipes. Frankly, I don't know of any flavor that I can stand to vape stand-alone and I have several flavors that taste amazing like FA Fuji Apple (nor do I consider myself a connoisseur)...it would get too boring. So the idea behind using no nic for flavor testing is to give you direct access to the profile that is offered by the concentrate that you are investigating. Oh and yeah...why waste the nic?

2 points
 
by thearlonianover 9 years ago

that makes sense. you get a better sense of what the actual flavor is. Thanks :)

1 points
 
by Rhinox04over 9 years ago

Hey, as a new mixer I'm kinda curious about this myself! I think part of the answer is too avoid getting nic sick from sampling a bunch of single flavors. I think when I start doing my single flavor samples I'm going to just do 3mg cause that's what everyone I'm mixing for uses and I'm a heavy chain vaper anyway so I'm not worried about the sick.

1 points
 
by I_am_Norwegianover 9 years ago

How much does the RDA/Tank affect flavor? I recently got my Cuboid and a Mutation X4 RDA in the mail. This is the only vaping equipment I've had, except for the Aspire Premium starting kit. I've found that it didn't really feel like a huge upgrade. I also miss the mouth to lung hit of the Aspire Nautilus Mini.

I think it could be because I don't know how to build good coils yet. I mean, the one's I've built so far function fine, and they glow from the middle out, at the same rate, but between different builds, the flavor has been somewhat inconsistent, so has vapor production.

I know this isn't strictly related to mixing, but it's relevant in that I want to be able to taste my juice at it's best. I have also found that the taste is pretty different on the RDA. It's more airy, and not as potent, but it's also easier to taste the different elements of the juice, which made me realize that several of my mixes weren't as good as I though they were. Really, the only success I've had so far was a mix with Watermelon, Peach and Bavarian Cream. Wonder if that would be better with some Fuji?

2 points
 
by phantom240over 9 years agoPâtissier

What kind of mod are you running those tanks/RDAs on?

There's most definitely a difference in both vapor production and flavor when comparing tanks with RDAs, however the flavor aspect is more a product of coil/wicking moreso than RDA choice, imo. Others will disagree on that, but in my experience (been dripping since before RDAs existed), each RDA will have different flavor when paired with one specific coil. For instance, on my Velocity, I currently have a simple 12 wrap 24ga dual coil setup, with a final resistance of .55 ohms. This would normally be a pretty poor performer on most devices, as the airflow is insane, and requires a lot of power to ramp them up quickly. That's why it is used on my 26650 in series box. The higher voltage ramps them up quickly, and the extra airflow keeps the vapor comfortably warm without killing the cotton. The flavor on just straight 24ga coils is decent, but nothing special. I had a set of claptons in there, but were almost too big for the deck. They made fantastic flavor, but had to go.

What I'm getting at is that nearly every RDA can produce great vapor and great flavor, but it takes time and patience to get the build right. Voltage/Wattage has a lot to do with flavor/vapor production just as much as your choice of RDA/Coils.

1 points
 
by I_am_Norwegianover 9 years ago

> What kind of mod are you running those tanks/RDAs on?

Joyetech Cuboid.

Thanks for the rest of your comment. I think I'm just bad at building coils thus far. I only have 28AGW kanthal at the moment, so I guess I'll step up the resistance in favor of some more surface area.

1 points
 
by phantom240over 9 years agoPâtissier

I'm not familiar with the Cuboid. What's the max output on that one? More surface area will just require more power to push it, but with as little as 60w, you should be able to get a good amount of vapor production. I'd recommend cutting the airflow down on the Mutation X v4, unless you like a super airy draw or are running ridiculous amounts of power on big coils that can take that kind of power.

1 points
 
by redhotmonkeyluvover 9 years ago

Twisted 28g kanthal is a good option and you should see a noticeable improvement. It is very easy to DIY and provides more surface area without a long ramp up time.

1 points
 
by teamherosquadover 9 years ago

Vape at 40 to 50 and let me know what you think then

1 points
 
by MachineryOfJoyover 9 years ago

I have a hard time getting how to move on from premixed base liquid. I have been using premixed vg/pg baseliquid with 6 mg nicotine but i want to move on to using the vg and pg seperatly (because the premixed is 70/30 and I would like 80/20).

My vendor has pg or vg bases with 0, 32mg/ml or 100mg/ml. So lets say I want to make a 100 ml juice with 15% flavor and make it 6mg, how would I accomplish this? Would I need to have VG with and without nic and also PG with and without nic to be able to mix this together? The penny has not dropped at all for me although I been trying to find the answer to this using both the sidebar and other posts..

Thanks in advance

5 points
 
by bobs_atza_my_penisover 9 years ago

If you don't already use a calculator to mix, which I'm sure you do, it does all the math for you. Buy your nicotine base in either PG or VG, your bottles of VG and PG, and your flavors.

2 points
 
by Blaggyover 9 years ago

So, let's say you want buy the 100mg/ml.

If you have 100ml of that you have 100mg/ml

at 90ml of your base with 10ml "other" you have 90mg/ml

and so on until you get to

6ml of your nicotine, 94mg of "other", for 6ml/mg, out of 100.

32mg/ml make the ratios a bit more difficult, but remains the same:

100ml nicotine:0ml Glycol: 32mg/ml

90ml Nicotine:10ml Glycol: 28.8mg/ml (32*0.90 = 28.8)

18.75ml Nicotine: 81.25 Glocol: 6mg/ml (6/32 = 0.1875)

You remember those VIR triangles from physics? http://i.imgur.com/O8yJdHg.png

To get either of the bottom 2 numbers you divide the top by the other bottom. To get the top you multiply the bottom numbers.

1 points
 
by MachineryOfJoyover 9 years ago

Thank you so much! So lets see if I have grasped this finally:) Say I want to make 100 ml 6mg (80VG/20PG) with my 15% flavors. The recipe would be

  • 15 ml Flavors
  • 6 ml PG 100mg/ml
  • 68 ml VG 0 nic (0,8 * 85)
  • 11 ml PG 0 nic (0,2 * 85 minus the PG with nic)
2 points
 
by Blaggyover 9 years ago

Looks like you have 68vg/32pg there because most flavours are PG based. This will result in 6mg/ml 79/21 vg/pg

  • 15ml Flavours
  • 6ml 100mg/ml PG Nicotine
  • 79ml VG

If you had VG based nicotine for 6mg/ml 80/20

  • 15ml Flavour
  • 5ml PG
  • 6ml 100mg/ml VG Nicotine
  • 74ml VG

15+5 = 20ml (20% of 100) PG

6+74 = 80ml (80% of 100) VG

2 points
 
by simpsons6575over 9 years ago

Use a ejuice calculator the novice one in the side bar is fairly easy to use.

If I was you I would buy a large amount of vg a small amount of pg and 100mg vg nicotine.

If you want to make 100mls of eliquid with 15% flavoring at 6 mg at 80/20 you would do this.

15 mls of flavoring so you need another 5mls of pg to get your 20.

Then 6mls of 100mg of nicotine to get 6mg. Then you need 74mls of vg to get you to 80.

1 points
 
by MachineryOfJoyover 9 years ago

Ok, for some reason I was stuck in thinking that I should use the PG as the carrier for nicotine but I don't know why I was so set on that. Bonus stupid question, the flavors are commonly PG-based, so I should factor that in as well?

2 points
 
by simpsons6575over 9 years ago

The reason you should go with vg nicotine is because at 6mg the highest amount of flavoring you can use would be 14% with a 80/20 mix. And yes most flavorings are pg based so you add that towards your vg/pg total. A calculator will do this for you.

2 points
 
by Blaggyover 9 years ago

You might decide to go with pg as the carrier because it's so much easier to deal with PG than VG in needles.

1 points
 
by iAMxinover 9 years ago

Hi! I'm really interested in doing DIY for my own juice and I'm still on the fence because it will be my first time making such. I did all my homework of reading the Beginner's guide and watching some tutorials and such. I'm really into strawberry flavored ones and with that I visited the Clone recipe thread in which I saw a recipe that I really really want to try. So, I went to a local site which supplies all the ingredients I need (even the brands) and added everything I need into my cart. My total was around $40 which comes with 200ml of VG, 100ml PG, and the concentrates (still without nicotine and empty bottles).

My concern now is that I'm not too sure if I'll even like the recipe I found and if so I'm afraid of tossing that much money (well it is kinda huge where I live - not in the US) just for trying out one recipe that I might not even like even though it is within the flavor profile that I love.

5 points
 
by BuryMeInSmokeover 9 years ago

You could try the recipe for Mustard Milk by fizzmustard on this sub.

It only calls for TFA Strawberry and TFA Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and is a popular and well-liked recipe.

2 points
 
by iAMxinover 9 years ago

I'm still new on this sub and still finding ways to navigate around it. There's so much juice recipes that I get confused sometimes and tend to stop looking. I'll definitely look this up! Thanks!

2 points
 
by BuryMeInSmokeover 9 years ago

Agreed, there's a lot to go through.

Try sorting by 'Top' rather than by 'Hot' - https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/top/

Only works for the recipes that have been posted as their own topics though. Generally here stuff that's been upvoted a lot is pretty good.

1 points
 
by redhotmonkeyluvover 9 years ago

Which recipe?

1 points
 
by iAMxinover 9 years ago

/u/zeuther posted this one

The Milk Man by The Milk Man

  • TFA Ripe Strawberry - 1.68ml

  • CAP Sweet Strawberry - 1.12ml

  • TFA Whipped Cream - 0.56ml

  • TFA Sweetener - 0.14ml

  • FA Custard - 0.28ml

  • CAP Vanilla Cupcake - 0.56ml

  • CAP Marshmallow - 0.7ml

Mixed with 22.12ml VG

Adding Dairy Milk at 1.5% is a more authentic note

Here's the % values

2 points
 
by redhotmonkeyluvover 9 years ago

I've not tried this recipe but it does look good. If it's not to your liking you can always post to the weekly "suggest a recipe for my flavors" thread.

1 points
 
by Xexistover 9 years ago

Ok I have some rather generic but important to me questions:
Okay so as a new mixer I have about 20 flavors in my stash. Wht is the best (most efficient) way to try as many flavour combinations as possible, and finding ideal percentages?
Also what is the most efficient way to pick up new flavours (ie, should I pick up new random flavors that sound good to try, or should I stick to only buying flavors with good recipes already out there and just start playing from there?)

1 points
 
by Blaggyover 9 years ago

Make 10ml batches of 10%. Check out this site: http://e-liquid-recipes.com/

Other ideas are to get a shotglass with a shot of water, put drops of your flavour into it. Mix flavours and drop amounts.

1 points
 
by Xexistover 9 years ago

Yeah I use ELR. Notes on flavors and flavour amount suggestions are all over the map, and I dont like that you cant filter it down to just simple recipes (ie if I want to limit a search to 4 flavors or less). Im trying to start simple before I start in complex mixes. Not because they are really difficult or anything, but because I have a rather limited flavor selection.

1 points
 
by Blaggyover 9 years ago

I generally just do really simple mixes, nothing more than 3 ingredients since my tasting prowess ain't that great. Make your 10ml batches and see what you can mix out of them, or give them a whiff, or do the shot glass method. Creativity is key. .

1 points
 
by Famooshover 9 years agoPâtissier

Definitely just check out the flavours on ELR for starting points. I don't pay too much attention to the median mixing point of a flavour because its all dependent on what you're mixing up, but the average standalone percentage is normally pretty useful to give you a starting point.

1 points
 
by Xexistover 9 years ago

Thanks ELR is great but it seems there is like a handful of recipes for each flavor that are highly rated and 500 pages of 1 rating or no rating. My biggest is probably I wanna mix like 100 different recipes and have no time to vape it lol. Bronuts seems popular. I think Im going to at least get the ingredients to try that and a few others missing from my tool kit, and see where that takes me for options.

1 points
 
by EbiCrossover 9 years ago

Hello. I tried mixing 75%vg and 25% pg zero nic in 10 ml batch. Steeped for a week caps on the bottle

  • 10% TFA strawberry ripe = tastes very little strawberry
  • 15% TFA strawberry ripe = medium flavor strawberry but its still boring
  • 5% TFA double Kiwi = medium to good kiwi flavor but it got a horrible veggie aftertaste and boring
  • 8% TFA Pineapple = Good flavor and i enjoy vaping it

Can someone help me please? increase % or which flavor company to buy from? i also seen people say mixing strawberry from different brands gives a flavor pop

im using Essential Depot VG n PG i still have TFA Mango and Bavarian cream

1 points
 
by atlas_parableover 9 years agoProud Sidebar Reader!

I ran into an issue similar to your strawberry problem. I did 3 test bottles with TFA Hazelnut (2%, 5%, 10%), tasted them every 3 to 4 days for a month. They did have different strengths regarding flavor, but in combination with other flavors everything above 2% is WAY too overpowering, it will taste very wooden.

I'll suggest to up the steep time and maybe experiment with the PG / VG ratio. PG is for taste after all!

1 points
 
by EbiCrossover 9 years ago

Alright thank you very much, i will try a lower VG mix and steep longer

1 points
 
by atlas_parableover 9 years agoProud Sidebar Reader!

Can I sub TFA Champagne with INWs Champagne? Does it have the same 'carbonated' effect?

I also saw some people use koolada for adding fizziness - is it similar?

1 points
 
by redhotmonkeyluvover 9 years ago

Koolada won't give you the fizzy effect you're after. It provides a cooling effect but starts to taste chemical-y at ~2% and up.

1 points
 
by RuntDastardlyover 9 years agoOne of "The Damned"

Has anyone tried Inawera "Purple Gum"? Is it grape gum? I hear purple and automatically think grape (want!), but, then, it could be a straight bubblegum flavor (don't want!).

Kinda' curious if anyone knows for sure, because it's a newer flavor, and there don't seem to be any reviews around.

1 points
 
by JKomikoover 9 years ago

I'm a new mixer/lurker. My question is for the mods, is there a way to pin this Weekly New Mixers Questions Thread to the top of the page? This is not an easy thread to find even in the search as you have to wade through all the results to get to the current week unless you are knowledgable enough about this sub to put in the exact search criteria. I didn't even know this thread existed before last night, maybe I'm just not Reddit savvy enough?

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