Creams, custards and cakes are to a lot of people an acquired taste. I myself gagged the first time tasting custards, and now I drool simply thinking about them. Fruits generally seem to be the preferred taste for beginners, tobacco others. The thing is that they seem very much harder to work with than fruity flavors, especially because of their high steeping time. It just makes it so much easier to get an idea of how to DIY when you can actually taste your tweaks instantly, and in the 4-6 weeks a cream and custard heavy juice will require to steep, you might actually have surpassed your skills tenfold; most will have.
I beg of you pros to reflect back on your journey, and find all the important milestones in your early DIY. The ones that made you said: "Damn, I've got this shit down", especially if it is simpler ones. Your earlier stages of success. I keep feeling that without 150+ flavors, 6+ months of training and rigorous tasting and note-taking, that most of us are simply not trained enough to understand why your flavors work together. And I can imagine that the simpler juices are not the one that feels showcase worthy. But seeing simple recipes work, and being able to tweak them instantly is SO much more helpful in the entry level DIY.
I feel like a few years ago was the time to begin DIY'ing. The cream and custard market were negligible compared to fruits, and most mixes were simple and easy to clone. I'm not saying that we regress, but I feel that you guys have prospered to the point where new users stand no chance of catching up, and it's a bit frustrating to me. Both in the sense that I am flailing in the dark myself, and knowing that others are.
I hope that my request makes sense, and that I'm actually onto something. It could just be my experience. I just doubt it. I have a feeling that there's a plethora of 3-5 flavor mixes, using more available flavors like Capella and TPA just waiting to be shared, and be the cornerstone recipes that can be used to jump start new mixer's knowledge! If anyone can do it, it's you guys.
I encourage you to check out /r/ShakeandVape if you haven't already. It's not incredibly active as of lately, but it's full of mostly simple fruity juices.
Damn, that's extremely encouraging to see a subreddit is already dedicated to this exact request. Too bad that it is not more popular than it is, though. I feel that shake'n'vape recipes are essential.
They're essential, but kind of also one-off recipes. While you're gaping that simple shakenvape, you're learning how to make it better, so it just kind of becomes obsolete.
True. They are just the first quick steps. But when finding step 10 easier than step 1-9 it kinda sucks for the new vapers. I can totally see how these things are organic though. If the demand had been there, the supply would be met. I just think that a lot of people misjudge the difficulty of creams, custards and cakes and choose to ignore it because they are the stable flavors currently. Yeah, iono.
From a noob perspective, I agree with you it would be great to see a lot more simple recipes posted here (even if just in the monthly threads and whatnot) buuuut I totally have to disagree with
>I feel that you guys have prospered to the point where new users stand no chance of catching up
The thing is, there was a time not all that long ago really where everyone was starting from scratch, a certain small percentage put in a lot of time, probably a lot of $, and basically scienced the shit out of it, trying everything, finding what works and what doesnt etc. If anything new DIYers have a huge advantage over what they did when they started, we have guides for this and guides for that and tons of recipes to look back on, sites like diyordievaping.com and a lot of other resources. Learning still requires a big and active effort on the new users to make their own mistakes and learn what to do, what not to do, how to be more efficient, but there is nothing at all preventing someone new who joins from mastering the craft.
Thats just my opinion one noob to another.
"Stand no chance of catching up" was a wrong way to say it. I should have phrased it more mildly like: "I feel that you guys have prospered to the point where new users will have a harder time starting up, than they used to have"
ELR is a good example. It used to be flooded with fruit flavors in the high ranking spots, now the entire first page of highly ranked juices are creams, custards or cake type flavors. Fruits only begin getting somewhat popular a few hundred recipes in. People will be referred to there to there when starting out, and will probably do the same as me; jump directly into creams and custards and basically leave yourself more or less screwed when trying to venture into crafting your own flavors. I am not saying that this[custards ranking highly] is wrong, and no matter what it will regulate itself to suit peoples needs. But I just have a feeling that we have potentially lost of a lot of important milestone recipes floating around on the forums, old ELR accounts and in the brains of the flavor pioneers because they are not popular flavors anymore, and are not spread through ELR and here, because of the relatively low demand.
Coming in super late, I think our biggest flaw for new guys is what we suggest for starting flavors. We have a list of 'HEY BUY THESE' and you drop say $100-150. But then you say 'OK, now what can I mix?' and you're kind of stuck. You dig through recipes and try to find things to mix, but you're always missing that ONE flavor. I think we need to completely revamp our 'first order' forum that is currently just a list of flavors that, while great, don't always have a strong overlap, to instead be along the lines of "Here are our 10 'Hall of Fame' flavors that aren't to hard to mix and have a lot of overlapping juices. Here are the juices you will need to make them' and have that be our baseline to go off of. That way every person gets to make a ton of flavors on their first order, instead of being like me for example where I buy 25 or so flavors but can only find a handful of recipes to follow.
While I'm still just starting, I just put in for my second order for ingredients based off of what I'm suggesting, and what I think I am going to do in about a month or so is make up as many flavors as I can with what I have, find what I personally like best, and then make a list of what I think is a perfect starting point for buying say 15-20 flavors (spending less than $100 for the first order being my end goal). If anyone who has more experience would like to take my idea from me, by all means, and if that doesn't happen than I'll just give it my best and hopefully get some great feedback to help improve it.
Haha I totally went through something very similar. Got my first order, was super exited...... then placed my second order like 2 days later lol.
Yep. I'm honestly dropping a lot on these flavors, but I'm really hoping this is going to be a fun hobby for me so fuck it. Right now though I know I'm nowhere near good enough to make a recipe, but I feel like what I can do is use my position as a new guy to help other people out. Cause while I love this place, the barrier to entry is terrible when it comes to getting your first flavors. Maybe (with a little help) I can change that.
Melon Fruit Cocktail
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Wild Melon (FLV) 2.8%
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Dragon Fruit (TPA) 2.6%
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Fuji Apple (FA) 2.2%
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Mojito (TPA) .24%
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Pinch of sweetener to taste (like S&P)
Sweet, fruity, and refreshing was my thought process for this recipe. I wanted a Melon dominate but gave it some tasty friends: Dragon Fruit and Fuji Apple. Each taste amazing on their own but together create a very fresh, very sweet, very fruity vape. At a low percent the mojito brings some very unique notes! It gives the fruit a fizzy and very refreshing mouthfeel. The fresh zing of the lime and the almost koolada cooling effect from the mint both play so well here.
Cheers!
Have you noticed FLV Wild Melon fading with steep time? I feel like I have noticed and want to know if it's just me or not. Also, curious why you went with 2.8% instead of rounding to 3%.
To be honest I haven't been able to steep any of my Wild Melon long enough to notice. I may have to try some as a single flavour and test that out. It could also be that it doesn't hold up to other notes and can become a background or enhancer note.
After a few attempts this is what I ended up liking the most. Totaling 10% flavourings and preferred 60/40 vg/pg ratio
I make it a point to post beginner recipes with staple flavors every so often (see my most recent recipe). They are rarely only fruit, but they are usually simple and well known flavors, that can usually be shake and vaped.
10-18% LA watermelon & 1% koolada
10% tfa honeydew & 3-8% tfa cucumber
Edit: forgot to hit enter twice
Have you even tried this? TFA honeydew is incredibly potent and anythingm above 3% just tastes soapy. Don't recommend whack percentages if you've never tried it.
Here's a simple-ish recipe I made myself yesterday. A nice cucumber mint with some absinthe.
Cucumber Diablo
- Absinthe (FW) 2%
- Cool Mint (CAP) 4%
- Menthol(CAP) 1%
- Cucumber (CAP) 6%
- Watermelon (TPA) 0.75%
The absinthe helps take some of the sweetness out of the cucumber and adds a really nice twist to the mix.
Strawberry watermelon
TFA watermelon - 6% TFA organic strawberry - 4% TFA juicy peach - 1%
This is a good shake n vape but the watermelon comes out over time!! Of course you can change any flavor percentages where you think appropriate this is just what i like!
I hope so! I love my fruity flavors. I'm new to diy.
I started a couple months ago, made a few batches that just tasted/vaped like shit.
Zample box ran out so I broke out the kit, mix some LA Pina colada with a hint of bevarian cream and it was fucking delicious.
Now I'm waiting for my new order (mostly fruity flavors). It still hasn't hooked me yet, but I've only made one decent flavor so far.