Yes, you read that right.
No, it isn't April 1st yet.
Yes, I am serious.
After months and months of blood, sweat, and tears I'm finally done. My journey is over. I have finally ^^mostly recreated..
- 4% FA Mandarin
- 1% TFA Vanilla Swirl
- 3% TFA Whipped Cream
- 5% TFA Cotton Candy
- 6% CAP Harvest Berry
- 1% CAP Lemon Lime
Shake hard and long and then enjoy. For best results, allow it to sit for a day or two.
Now let's break it down.
FA Mandarin
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This always seemed like an obvious component to me. It has the same type of orange that we get when smelling and tasting Shurb. There were a few times I wavered and tried other oranges, but they were always far too sweet or far too sharp.
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The percentage is a tough one. Too low and it adds virtually nothing. Too high and it becomes far too strong and sharp and alcohol-y to work.
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You should shake all your flavorings before you pour them in to the bottle IMO, but this is doubly so for this one. When I forget to shake this before I use it I can tell. Ends up tasting harsher to me.
TFA Vanilla Swirl
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To be honest, I'm not sure I believe this is in the real deal but it was the best I could do. It was in almost every attempt you find and for good reason - Shurb has a very slight vanilla hint on the exhale. It is almost unnoticeable if you're not thinking about it. There is no doubt a vanilla cream in Shurb, but nothing else I tried stayed in the background the way it needed to.
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Looking at the analysis of Shurb and the components of this flavor, you'll see that it almost matches up perfectly. It has a high amount of Ethyl Vanillin and Vanillin (just like Shurb does) as wel more EM. There are only two components that don't match up.
TFA Whipped Cream
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This seemed like an obvious one to me as well. It matches up except for a single component that wasn't on the analysis. But interestingly, Shurb has a very high amount of triacetin - a major component of things like TFA Smooth. So does TFA Whipped Cream. TFA Smooth has more to it that isn't in the analysis though, so it seems pretty clear to go with this one. This adds a creamy mouthfeel and combats the potential harshness of the citruses.
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Too much of this stuff leaves an almost oily feeling in your mouth due to the triacetin. I have a bottle of triacetin and the same effect is seen when you add more than like 0.1% of it to something.
TFA Cotton Candy/EM
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I almost want to say "duh" and move on but I guess I won't. We've all known from the start that there's a ton of EM in Shurb and the analysis proves that. While I originally started significantly higher like most people, I eventually lowered it down to where it is now. This is due to the fact that a lot of our other ingredients (see TFA Vanilla Swirl) have/are likely to have more EM themselves.
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Once you get above 6% or so you'll start to notice your coils gunk quicker and at some point things will start to get this weird burnt sugar taste that we don't want.
CAP Harvest Berry
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So this shit was a revelation. The second I tasted it in a test mix I knew I was a fucking idiot and every berry flavor I've ever tried was a waste. /u/flipityfloppity messaged me after my last post and mentioned it as something I should try (AND even offered to ship me some, the absolute madman) because it has something that Shurb has that causes a lot of confusion for me - an unpickable berry flavor and a slight herbal hint. Sure, we know raspberry is in Shurb. It's obvious. But looking at both the analysis and just tasting it we can see other possibilities - strawberry, blueberry, etc. This is all of the things we taste. There is no raspberry in Shurb. There is only Capella fuckin' Harvest Berry.
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This was mentioned to me a long time back by people who I can't recall (sorry!). I stupidly skipped over it because I was 100% sure it was a specific raspberry and maybe a strawberry too. When I'm on my deathbed and somebody asks if I have any regrets, I'll use my dying breath to tell them I should have tried Harvest Berry sooner...
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If I had to pick one thing that I know for a fact is in Shurb, it would be this. There is no replacement or substitution here - it's Harvest Berry or die.
CAP Lemon Lime
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The citrus was hard as hell to nail down. It seems obvious that Shurb has some sort of lemon type flavor in it, but almost every lemon out there is either too sharp, too harsh, or too sweet like a candy. The infuriating part of it all is the damn lime. Everybody tastes lime in Shurb. But everyone who tries to clone it says there is no lime in Shurb. Every lime that I had/could think of was again too harsh or too sharp or too sweet. But CAP Lemon Lime isn't. CAP Lemon Lime takes care of those problems and more - it adds that stupid fucking soda-like note. Yes. I am serious. There is a soda-like note in Shurb. If you have a bottle, smell it. Smell that? It's almost like you're smelling a bit of carbonation.
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/u/NotCharlesManson (the beautiful son of a bitch who isn't a serial killer) takes the credit here. I never got around to trying this one because I was too worried about nailing everything else down. The recipe just isn't complete without this amazing shit. Without his suggestion on the last thread I would've just never realized this stuff was sitting in a warehouse somewhere waiting to solve a mystery for me.
Finally, some afterthoughts.
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This shit took me way too long to figure out. I've wanted a clone of it since the day I tasted it. It had everything I needed in an ADV and more. But god damn, I can't be buying 120ml of it every other week.
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Some percentages can be tweaked still. For example, I'm still stuck between 1% and 2% for Vanilla Swirl. The Harvest Berry might also need raised just a bit to get a jammier berry.
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I learned a really valuable lesson - no matter how many drawers full of flavorings you have (a lot. I have a lot) nothing beats asking for a little help. I was arrogant when I started off and thought I'd nail this on my own. I never wanted to ask for assistance. But you know what? I did and holy hell did this community come through. So many suggestions that I never in a million years would have thought of on my own. I appreciate every single one of them. Except for that guy on e-liquid-recipes who told me it was just TFA Rainbow Sherbet and some other stuff. Fuck him.
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Massive shoutouts to the following people: JTJM for somehow managing to liquefy crack and sneak it in to an e-liquid. /u/vaperous for being the original Shurb-obsessed maniac and laying the groundwork for this unique opportunity to clone a juice partially using the components in it. /u/botboy141 for his Shurb-like recipe which kept me going on this insane trip. /u/flipityfloppity AND /u/The_Perrycox for the insanely genius suggestion of Harvest Berry. /u/NotCharlesManson for solving the infuriating mystery of the citrus. /u/abdada for getting me interested in "deeper DIY" in the first place which caused me to become so invested in cloning this recipe. And finally everybody who offered me a suggestion or egged me on despite it being fairly clear that I was becoming clinically psychotic.
I love all of you. I'm going to go vape Shurb for the rest of my life now and die happy.
disclaimer -- Everything above is hyperbole and this is by no means a perfect clone of Shurb. However I do believe it will be the closest I will ever get, and I'm happy with that. I might tweak the percentages more but I've been riding Mr. JTJM's Wild Ride long enough and I'm tapping out. Feel free to pick up where I left off.
and disregard the disclaimer because of course there are fucking
EDITS!
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~~I'm second guessing some things after going through more of this recipe. Things I didn't think I'd ever second guess. The FA Mandarin seems wrong now, the Vanilla Swirl needs reduced or removed, and I'm like.. 90% sure there's another fruit in here boosting the Harvest Berry. EDIT AGAIN Scratch that. FA Mandarin and CAP Harvest Berry are there. I'm still unsure on Vanilla Swirl and I'm actually unsure about the CAP Lemon Lime as well now. But we'll see..~~
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~~I sent an email to TPA inquiring about the GCMS results and whether sucralose would show up on it or not. Stay tuned.~~
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Aaaand I think I got it. After more tweaking, I think my percentages were just too low. I kept trying to keep it under 15% but let's be real - Shurb isn't a 15% flavoring kind of juice. Especially considering the EM is probably at least 5% itself. So the recipe has been updated. I'm very pleased with it now.
I love the detail in this recipe/notes.
Thank you for toiling over it.
Now for the fucking shitty question, having every other flavor what should I sub in for the CAP Lemon Lime? It's the one flavor I don't have at home :( :( :(
FA Lemon at like 0.5% can work as well. It boosts the fruits but doesn't give any lime note. That was my citrus before the CAP Lemon Lime came in. It's still tasty like that.
I plan to try FA lemon Sicily at .3% and add in maybe .3% FLV lime to get that lemon/lime note. I've never had shurb, but I've always loved trying clones and recreating them for myself. I was also thinking a drop of CAP blueberry jam/20ml along with maybe 1 drop INW ras/20ml just to accentuate the harvest berry. :) can't wait to try it. Also dude I have no idea how old this flavor is, but do you think vanilla whipped cream is in it? I kept thinking of that when you were talking about whipped cream/vanilla swirl. Literally like 4%ish would probably compare close to 3% whipped cream TFA and 1.5% vanilla swirl.
Harvest berry!!!!
#FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU^UUUUUUUUUUUU^UUUUUUUUUUU^UUUUUUUU^UUUU
Have 2 unicorn bottles on me my juigga, /u/changetip
captaincannibal received a tip for 2 unicorn bottles (2,602 bits/$1.07).
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Of all the fucking things.. fucking Harvest Berry.
Aw you're too kind man, thanks so much!
Just FYI...
/u/flipityfloppity mentioned harvest berry here as did /u/the_perrycox here.
I have 500ml of the real Shurb and I add my sour acid mix to it. Sour Shurb. It's awesome.
Fuck yeah, AMAZING job man! I can't fucking believe I was on the right path a year ago and abandoned harvest berry. Great job on the Citrus, of course it's one of the few I don't have lol. I'm so pumped to mix this up.
I should've listened when I saw that post. Salty about it right now. But let me know what you think - as I said it isn't perfect but it is as close as I think I'll get. The Harvest Berry was key.
Already got the Cap on the way, I will definitely let you know. Great job sticking to it man. I got aggravated and moved onto other nonsense. I'm stoked now!
Holy shit! You finally did it haha. I'm so glad CAP Lemon Lime worked for you here. I have all of these, so I'm going to go mix a big batch of this......right now.
Looking forward to your thoughts. It definitely benefits from sitting a bit and it isn't perfect and I think the Swirl needs toned down a little but I'm pretty happy with it.
Mmmmmmm the shitty "tiny drop on my hand" taste test is so good. So unique. If this vapes as good as it tastes, you may have extinguished my hatred for Harvest Berry.
Been following your quest for Shrub with much interest and I am absolutely thrilled for your success! Thank you for sharing this with us. What pg/vg ratio do you recommend or can we just mix it at our preferred ratios?
Personally I vape the 3mg/all VG Shurb and that is what I based this off of. But your preferred ratio should work fine as well.
~~Hopefully nobody gets annoyed with this but.. I'm already testing a little variation of this. After vaping it for a day or so I started to second guess some stuff. So yeah, I'm going to continue tweaking this a little more. If I make any major changes I'll definitely make a post, don't worry.~~
Percentages have been updated. I'm happy now.
out of curiosity, what are you second guessing?
A couple of things that I really didn't think I'd be second guessing.
The FA Mandarin almost seems too harsh to me now. I'm considering TFA Orange Mandarin again. It also isn't as sweet as it needs to be so I almost feel like more EM is needed. I also want to drop the TFA Vanilla Swirl down to 1% because it was adding a dairy note that shouldn't be there.
Even then a side by side comparison makes me feel like something is missing. Whether it's a citrus note or a berry note or just the insane sweetness I can't tell.
Would sucralose be out of the question? With 5+% EM already present in the recipe that's probably your answer. Also I noticed (in cereal killa clone) that a little sucralose calms down the harshness big time. At least to me. Maybe that will help with taming mandarin too.
RIP the stock of CAP Harvest Berry. Already sold out at most of the typical vendors.
You managed to clone Shrub and not go crazy? Congrats! I have a few flavors to order but I'll be trying this very soon.
Mostly clone it.
As for the going crazy part, my psychiatrist would beg to differ.
Congratulations! Can't wait to mix this one up.
I'm thrilled that you finally (mostly?) nailed it, but, I can't be the only one that will miss your long, exquisitely detailed screeds as you wrestled with this mystery.
It wasn't schadenfreude that made it a fascinating read for me; it was the learn-den-ing.
I'm glad you enjoyed. Don't worry - despite my disclaimer I'm already thinking about some tweaks.. sadly.
Oh, I got that, trust me. Just keep us posted on the updates.
If the day ever comes when you feel it is 100%, we can expect every one of those flavors to be sold-out, Bronuts style.
I'm sure that's already happening, in fact! (checks the much-lauded Lemon-Lime on the wishlist. (whew) Still there. That'll surely be out by the time my other desperately-needed ingredients are back in stock, I'm sure!)
Any thoughts on dropping some vape wizard in this BC I just did 8 drops into my 120ml mix
120ml already? Damn you're brave. I don't think the Vape Wizard would ruin it or anything. Probably wouldn't even make an enormous difference. Let me know how it goes though.
So far so good. I like it, I think every other flavor compliments harvest berry very nicely. The vanilla swirl and whipped cream mute the citrus as IMHO they should while giving it body. I love it and thank you again
Message u/botboy41 he knows what is inside shurb
* /u/botboy141
I don't believe he does since he created his own attempt at one point. I know he has an idea of what it includes but I'm not sure he knows the recipe.
Well, I've never tried the original but this recipe sounds really good. My order is in. I'm going to try the mandarin (cause I like that flavor), and I'll cut the Vanilla swirl down to 0.5, either way, I'm sure it will make a great vape.
I've got everything but FA Mandarin, any suggestions for a percentage of TFA Orange Mandarin?
Probably around 5%. TFA's is sweeter whereas FA's is sharper so it won't be the same. Should still taste good though.
I...cannot...stop...vaping this. So good thanks a bunch!
For anyone wondering next time I'm going to try something like 6%-8% TPA Orange Mandarin. I can bairly taste the Mandarin at 5%. I'm for sure going to get FA though. (I'll update this post with my favorite percentage of TPA Orange Mandarin.)
Edit: 6% is my preferred, 5% is OK, but any lower you can't taste it and any higher than 6% is overpowering.
I hadn't even heard of Shurb until you started posting your trials and tribulations and it sounded so interesting I picked up a bottle and holy shit it instantly became my new favorite. I had to pick up a few flavors so it'll be a few days before I can try but this is an awesome update. Thank you for your service.
Sorry if I've missed this in your other threads, but have you tried FA Oba Oba in this recipe? It has a light vanilla tone and generic "fruity" notes that could work well in substitution for the TFA Vanilla Swirl.
I don't have CAP Lemon Lime on hand or I'd try it myself.
I'm so glad you mentioned this because I had no plans to try it out after vaperous said he couldn't get it to work. I still can't 100% tell if this is adding the missing note I had or if I'm just tasting my previous tank of Shurb but I'm definitely going to work with it more.
Any thoughts on percentages with this stuff? I kept it around 0.5% or so for now since I've never worked with it before.
It's pretty light; honestly I would start with at least 2%. I'd even try 3%. I use Oba Oba in a recipe at 3% that reminds me of some Shurb notes. It's sweet and it wouldn't surprise me if it contained EM.
Any further updates coming mate? Gonna be placing an order in the next few hours. And congratulations. I remember you being involved in the conversations with /u/vaperous back last year. Cheers
I'm actually still working on v2 but I can't say how long that will take. Two steps forward, step and a half backwards.. every attempt. Might be a week or two before I have another version.
For now I'd say you can try this out. If you want a 100% Shurb clone I would just wait. But if you're cool with something "kinda similar" for now, go for it. Personally I'd leave out the CAP Lemon Lime though, maybe add like 0.5% of FA Lemon instead at most.
EDIT: Just to add, I have some flavorings I'm working with right now and some more on the way that I have a good hunch about. So again - if you want something similar now, go ahead and order. If you want something as close as you can get, I'd wait about a week. A little less if ECX ships quick enough on the order I just made.
welp, see you in about a week!
now that it's been 24 hours, how are you feeling about your (current) recipe?
I like it and I'm pretty happy with it but I'm still tweaking here and there just to see what else I can do with it.
Right now I'm trying it out with no Vanilla Swirl, no Lemon Lime, some various other limes, and some Oba Oba. interesting stuff. The recipe in the OP with the latest percentages is good but I think I'm going to keep tweaking this over time until I can get something that is absolutely spot-on.
Ive made up 100ml of this. Tastes bloody good and very very close to Shurb. My only concern with it is the chronic throat hit it's giving me. Has anyone else noticed this? I made it 80/20 VG/PG to try and push through the flavours at touch more. Kinda regretting this now and should have went with max vg, but, saying that, I only added an additional 2.4ml of PG.... Main pg content was the flavours... Hmmm.. Maybe after a few more days it may calm down.
I've noticed it myself, yes. One of the many reasons I'm still working on a second version.
I'm still trying to figure out the cause. I thought it was the FA Mandarin but the same recipe with TFA Orange Mandarin has the same problem. It does calm down some over time.
I'm hoping to have a second version up soon, hopefully before Friday but we'll see.
Made a 30ml of this today. A few flavour notes, bear in mind that I'm a noob, but I hope my comments can be useful.
Its close. I think the CAP lemon-lime is a bit tangy, and here's a slightly 'soapy'? taste in there. The smell is a bit lighter and fresher then JTJM's, kind of lemonade like, where his seems a bit more like a boiled sweet/candy. I wonder if this will come closer with some resting time.
Tasting the raw juice, the JTJM seems 'warmer', again this may change as it ages. It will be interesting to see how the colour develops over time, whether it goes from clear to brown, or if it will take on the amber/gold hue that the original has.
Thank you for all the effort you have put in so far. Keep at it. I really look forward to the v2 update.
Got a few missing flavors in, mixed this and tried it fresh because I'm impatient. This is SUPER close to Shurb. So much so that I don't see myself buying another bottle of the real stuff. Thank you for your work! This was one of the last commercial juices that I would occasionally crave and had no means of making.
Does it change much over time?
I've been vaping this recipe for a while now and I have to give you super KUDOS!!! Dear lord, this is the best damn dyi I've made thus far. The other day, I noticed I was out of Whipped Cream, I took a risk and used Vienna Cream instead... Not going to lie, it was just as good. Brought a new sweeter cream note but it helped blend the flavors so well. Thank you for this recipe!!!!