Hey guys. Just jumped into DIY the other day. Made my first few batches, and it's pretty fucking cool to see how much you can make for such little effort/cost.
I was wondering what is the best tool/product you've bought that makes your life easier in regards to mixing. Mine would probably be the scale, as I see people measuring by ml and I'd honestly die due to it taking so long. I'm sure some of you have some weird tools that work for boosting your productivity and I'd like to hear your ideas.
Scale will be #1.
For me, the magnetic heat stirrer. VG doesn't homogenize until 45C and really doesn't homogenize until 60C. Anyone playing with max VG without heat stirring is missing out on a lot of flavor potential.
Just don't heat stir nicotine ever.
I finally got my heated magnetic stirrer in yesterday, and I have to say it does wonders. I don't have a temp probe for it yet, but just setting the surface to about 55c and running the stirrer at 1200rpm makes quick work of mixing.
As far as stirring nicotine, I know heat causes it to oxidize quickly, are there other reasons?
Just the oxidizing. Gross harshness quickly even with top notch nic.
Lately I've been doing some flavor sampling at different temperatures, too, and it definitely makes a difference as your VG goes up.
And get a temp probe!
This guy.
The Stephen Hawking of ejuice.
2016 is going to be the year that the DIY community will start updating recipes to what temperature they stirred their concentrates at before adding nic. It's going to change everything, from premium e-liquids to stuff made in one's mom's basement before meatloaf is served.
The difference in flavor between mixing at room temp and mixing at 60C (or higher in some cases) is amazing.
A few weeks ago I posted here asking people about florally concentrates. I am now doing some heat mixing testing on some of those concentrates and finding out that heating some of them up to as high as 81C actually shoves those floral volatiles away and leaves a pretty good concentrate.
In the past people did heat steeping and microwaving and had bad results, but that is because you have to add concentrates at certain temperatures and then heat steeping in steps. I add the "hottest" concentrates first, then lower the temperatures and add others.
The final step is nicotine at room temperature (actually 20C exactly) and then using my vortex to shake the bastard up.
The heating step matters, but one temp does not fit all flavors. So now I am going back over all my flavor notes and adding temperature notes.
Stupid question probably, but about VG not homogenizing; could one heat the VG in a microwave prior to adding it to recipes to achieve the same result?
One could but it's a dangerous idea -- VG can heat up really fast and at boiling temperatures (or even below boiling temperatures) it can scald the hell out of you. People have been injured doing this.
If you want to heat VG up safely, put a pot of water on a stove and put a thermometer in it. Get that up to 60C (140F) and try to keep it there. Then put your VG in a flask into the water and leave it in there to heat up.
Before my heated stirrer I was using a sous vide bath to get it to 60C but the magnetic stirring rod really helps mix it all up.
I also have a homogenizer probe that I use to actually force the concentrate to homogenize fully (at 60C) but that step is optional.
The immersion idea makes more sense than a microwave, which was a quick thought process on how to homogenize the VG. Which I think may be an issue in my juices. Tried water bathing the finished product, but that hurts the nicotine. And is harder to label wet bottles. Will try that next time!
Any recommendations for a magnetic heat stirrer?
> Any recommendations for a magnetic heat stirrer?
Any that have a good 1 year warranty. I've sent all of mine back for repair or replacement within 30 days because of bad temperature readings of failed stir motors.
If they last longer than 30 days, they don't seem to fail.
A wax warmer! Steeps my juices in mildly warm water for a period of 24hours max and it's perfectly done!
I have this one.
PS: remember to do the steeping only on glass bottles folks.
Does it have temperature and duration controls? How about a timer or turning off without having to unplug it?
Scale, but it's not just* for flavors. Having a scale makes it so you don't have to measure VG with a blunt needle and syringe, just put your VG in a giant squirt bottle and dump it into your juice as needed.
Aside from that: a solid tackle box with multiple trays. It allows you to organize and display all of your flavors for when you need to grab them, it keeps light away from everything, it's portable, and it's easy to toss in the back of a closet or other cool dry place for storage. Plus better tackle boxes are pretty good about keeping everything in place.
*edit
An abandoned powerplate machine at the gym my misses runs. Cut out a bunch of holes in a cardboard so my plastic bottles don't fall over, tied that to the machine with some rope and then let it shake my bottles. Currently recovering from a tennis elbow (that's how we call it), so that saves me from a lot of pain.
For me aside from the scale it's my ultrasonic cleaner. Had a hobby paint shaker but now I can run more through it at a time and I use it to clean my bottles and RTAs as well
I used to use the ultrasonic cleaner my self but then figured out it was actually hurting some the flavors.
Oh really? How so and what types of flavors?
Ultrasonic cleaners supplant too much energy into the bottles and juice, possibly damaging flavors.
Remember that the flavors we use are already volatile, so adding any extra energy such as heat, vibration, and light can cause many flavors to evaporate out of a mix.^^Just^shake^it^and^leave^it...
Got a link to where you bought yours?
Sure, this is the one I bought. Been using it pretty extensively for over 2 months now and it still seems to operating great.
iSonic D7810A Ultrasonic Cleaner, Digital, 110V, Black/Silver
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After using syringes for 6 months obviously a scale is #1 on the list but #2 is a reciprocating saw with an Irwin Quick clamp super glued to the blade for shaking the juice. I put the bottle in my pocket for a 5 min to thin it out then about 15 seconds on the saw and it's shaken real good.