It's time to drop the base!
Today we will be discussing the most important aspect of your recipe. Your base.
If this is your first time in here, or just want a refresher, I suggest to go check out /r/ModestMonday for my previous posts since this is a bit of an ongoing lesson. You may feel out of place without the back knowledge.
The base is the primary flavor profile you will taste and dictate how your entire mix will turn out. These flavors can't be substituted without fundamentally changing how a juice will taste. For example, TFA strawberry and CAP sweet strawberry are very similar in taste profile but once you start layering them with other flavors, you will begin to notice their subtle differences and how they are interacting with those layered flavors.
Before you start a new recipe, you want to try to come up with a clear goal of how you want it to taste. What kind of mouth feel and texture do you want? What major flavor properties do you want? Sweet, sour, doughy, bready, fried, etc. Which base flavors will help you achieve the profiles you are looking for.
To identify where you want to start, we will first address the different bases. We have three main types:
- Fruit
- Cream
- Dessert/Pastry
Fruit
This is probably the most versatile of the bases. Where a certain fruit flavor sits in the recipe (Base, background, top note) usually just depends on how you use it. Of course, there are indeed fruit flavors that fill a certain role better, or exclusively. For example, TFA Strawberry Ripe will almost always be a base flavor. If you don't put enough in, you can't taste it. Put too much in and you'll just mute your whole recipe with maltol. These kind of qualities make it ideal for base.
Steep times for a fruit base are generally between shake & vape to 3 days.
While fruit flavors tend to be strong and forward, they are very sensitive to accompanying cream flavors and can be quickly muted. They tend to pair well dessert flavors.
In addition to Strawberry Ripe, we have some other examples of classic fruit bases. As previously mentioned, take this list with a grain of salt. There are more fruits that work as good bases than I can possibly name, and probably even more I have never used. The composition of your fruit base is heavily dependent on the other flavors being used.
- TFA Strawberry Ripe
- TFA Raspberry Sweet
- CAP Strawberry Sweet
- TFA Orange Cream
- LA Lemonade
- CAP Golden Pineapple
- LA Banana Cream
Cream
As I previously mentioned, a lot of creams are very similar in taste profile. Vanilla, egg, cream, butter with varying levels of mouth feel. This is how you should think about your creams, in addition to, does it have any defining special characteristics? Catalan cream has a bit of a spiced flavor to it for example. TFA vanilla bean ice cream has some strong butter notes.
Steep times for cream bases vary between 5-10 days. Very rarely do I feel like it needs a full two weeks, but very heavy creams need a little longer than a week to fully come together.
Cream flavors tend to be weak in forward taste relative to their counterparts, but they are very dominating in a recipe. Very useful in muting and boosting certain flavors. I've yet to find a fruit flavor that won't meet it's demise against CAP sweet cream.
Examples of iconic cream bases include:
- TFA Bavarian Cream
- FA Fresh Cream
- TFA Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
- TFA Vanilla Swirl
- FA Catalan Cream
- CAP Sweet Cream
- FA Vienna Cream
Dessert/Pastry
First things first, lets take a moment of silence for our dearly departed, FW Yellow Cake. You were a staple in our lives, fluffy and sweet. You will truly be missed.
.
.
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Dessert flavors are by far the most challenging and advanced level of flavors to work with. Each flavor is unique and in a league of its own. Knowing how to masterfully use them takes time and patience.
One aspect of why it they can be difficult to master is that your selection pool for a certain type of dessert can be very limited. For example, with FW yellow cake out of the picture, there are simply no other direct replacements. Nothing even comes close to replicating that neutral cake flavoring and texture. A lot of people choose to continue using FW yellow cake for this very reason, despite the health concerns.
Getting the texture right on a desert flavor is especially important. As you are testing your dessert flavors, take particular note of whether the flavor is dense and greasy, fried and crispy, fluffy and flakey. Be sure to take extra note of their off flavors as well, because these types of flavors seem to be where they are most prominent. CAP cake batter has a very dense and greasy flavor you probably don't actually want in a cake or cake batter, but could make it a good place to start if you want to make a funnel cake. Learn to work with what you have.
Steep times generally start at 2 weeks, up to a month. Rhondonite is a perfect example of this, as I'm sure most of you have experienced. This is the other part of what makes these flavorings difficult. It can take several months to perfect one of these flavors simply due to how long it takes just to get feedback on your recipe.
These flavors are very strong and forward, but docile. They play well with both creams and fruits.
Staple flavorings in this category include:
- FW yellow cake
- FW cinnamon roll
- FLV cupcake batter
- CAP cake batter
- TFA graham cracker clear
- CAP waffle
- CAP cinnamon Danish swirl
So now that we have identified the bases and what to look for, we'll go into the beginning processes of creating a recipe.
First, determine which of the bases you will be needing to incorporate, and what qualifies from those bases you need.
For example, I've recently been working on Cinnamon Roll Popper, like what you would get from Taco Bell. I know I want the outer crust to be flakey and crunchy, with an element of ooey gooey icing. We have two components to the base that will need addressed. I don't necessarily write them down, but I will mentally decide which flavors could make for a good base, then I will systemically test them out trying to determine which ones worth best for what I need, and what percentages they work best at.
Pastry – FW Cinnamon Roll, CAP Cinnamon Swirl, CAP Waffle, FW yellow cake
Cream – LA Cream Cheese Icing, FA Vienna Cream, CAP Sweet Cream
Then once I have the base nailed down, the hard part will be done and then I will move on to the top notes and background flavors.
That's all folks! Let me know if you have any questions. I had to leave a good bit of info out for the sake of actually getting some work done today.
Great content!
^(Strawberry ripe only has plain maltol though)
You are right. TFA strawberry is the one with EM
> As you are testing your dessert flavors, take particular note of whether the flavor is dense and greasy, fried and crispy, fluffy and flakey
I promise I'm not trying to be rude, but this is exactly the kind of guidance/advice that makes me feel like I am never going to have that "a-ha!" moment in DIY. It's just never going to click for me, because there is no way in hell that I'm going to be able to differentiate those particular characteristics from one another in a juice/vape.
For some reason, adjectives that apply to real food just do not translate to DIY for me. At all. I actually have the hardest time even being able to compare single concentrates to their real-life counterparts. Some are easier than others (pineapple, orange and blueberry are always dead ringers...), but that generally only applies for fruit flavors.
I feel like a lot of what it boils down to is that I have no idea what it should taste like to vape a birthday cake, because I can barely recall what actual cake tastes like. This is just one example, but it applies across the board to me.
Here's another example: I've made Rhondonite before, and let it steep for 4 weeks. While it was steeping, I purchased some of Bigglesworth Lab's Amalfi. I decided to try both of them around the same time. Now, to anyone with even a slightly discerning palette, I would imagine these are two very different juices. To me? They tasted very similar. And that was in their own devices, with their own fresh wicks. Two entirely different types of bakery, and two entirely different fruits...and yet I could barely tell them apart.
Mostly what ends up happening is my brain logs information based on what it isn't, rather than what it is. Like with the aforementioned example, the only way I can tell there's anything but fruit in either of those mixes is because some of what I taste is definitely not what I would expect fruit to taste like. I actually have no idea what it is, though. I just think to myself "bakery," because its some form of non-fruit sweet flavor and I have no idea how else to identify it.
I think what compounds the problem for me is that I can barely break through the barrier of judging a juice as "good" or "bad" based solely on whether or not it is harsh or comfortable for me to vape. There is many a mix/juice that I will vape solely because I can chain vape it at high wattage without destroying my throat.
In any case, sorry for the long reply. Honestly, thank you for your post. I've gotten a lot out of reading these, including some of my go-to mixes. I don't want to seem unappreciative just because I don't understand this one.
No offense taken. I had trouble with this kind of stuff at first too.
May I ask if you are doing single flavor test batches?
If you are, I'm must apologize. I'm not really sure what other advice I can offer.
I tried them for a while. I got a little utility out of them, but again...mostly in the context of identifying concentrates that were harsh or smooth for me.
If I'm trying to think of reasons why I never got much out of doing them, maybe it was because I didn't take the time to let them steep. I was also kind of lazy changing out my wicks, if the concentrates were different enough. Also, because I was worried about running out of bottles, I would make a batch at say, 5%, and then just add more to that batch using a juice calculator to make it a 10% mix. I don't know if these are all no-no's or not, but even "cutting corners" it still took me hours to test just a couple flavors, which was frustrating.
Ultimately, I still just have trouble relating the taste of a concentrate to its real life counterpart.
Expand your pallet. Vape all the things. Make every recipe you think looks good, or is highly rated here. I was like you at first but eventually you'll find that you can taste what a certain flavoring does to a mix. Buy bottles by the 50/100. Especially 10ml.
I had similar issues myself. The only thing I can say is you need to buy some cake or make one and then vape birthday cake or vape and eat it at the same time. You should try to do this with every recipe you can and overtime you will start to notice the similarities in taste. Then it will all start to come together. Believe me I'm no master but eating it and vaping it has really helped me get out of the flavor hole that you are currently in. Hopefully one day I can make a recipe that is worthy of the masters of this sub to try. Until then I will continue to read and learn.
It's amazing what a sip of something before a vape can do for the flavor, it's really inspirational when you're trying to come up with a new recipe or just trying to nail a taste. Juice before a fruit or berry vape to find matches or similarities, coffee before chocolate or bakery to find what blends well and what sticks out. I haven't done much testing side by side with edibles but I imagine it's a similar experience.
Good post. I still hate you though.
Wait til he posts to /r/Vaping about "how to DIY over at /r/diy_ejuice"
He already tried to do that, he took it down shortly after. Allowing the neanderthals in /r/vaping in here will turn this sub into countless posts titled "FIRST ORDER HANDCHECK!!!"
love your content dude!
Glad you like it. Hope you find it useful.
I was feeling uninspired writing this one and has having a hard time coming up with content that someone may actually consider useful.
At one point, half of it was just a rant on all the bakery flavors that suck.
i definitely find it useful.i've been mixing for a couple of months now and there is still so much to learn.i'm glad that there are people like you out there who make things a bit easier so you don't have to commit tons of mistakes before you can come up with something that you really like
Yellow cake lives on.
FA Fresh Cream, not Cap.
Unless they released that one last week.
Cut me some slack. I typed all this up on my phone.
I'll change it when I get home.
If you don't put enough in, you can taste it.
Not sure if this was a typo, just letting you know might add some confusion.
At about what % do you think it mutes also? I've seen people use upwards of 10% and I usually keep it at 5 or so, but have yet to really taste it.
Great stuff as always! I always look forward to your posts, makes my Mondays a lot less shitty.
Also, FA Fresh Cream vs FA Vienna Cream, can somebody post their thoughts on the difference? I can't decide which one to order, I don't really want to get both but I very well may do that.
My terminology for describing taste in English is too limited to even attempt to describe Vienna Cream, but it's kinda sour and bitter at the same time, requires a fair bit of steeping to shine in my experience. A pretty situational flavor. Fresh Cream however is just what you'd expect and works pretty much anywhere you want a regular cream.
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Thanks for your great posts Vurve, very helpful! I'm in the process of SFTesting which will take me a while since I just went ahead and bought around 60 of the most used flavors... In your flavor tasting post of last week you say that you take everal bottles and mix at different concentrations. But is there a good way to calculate accurately when increasing the percentage in a single bottle? I prefer not mixing below 5 ml for accuracy reasons and I would be wasting too much if mixed defferent percentages in individual bottles.
So, for most flavors, your want to start testing around 0.5-1%. In a 10ml bottle, that's 2 or 4 drops, respectively. Each drop weighs about 0.025g. From there, I will increase to by increments of 0.5-1%. The increments really just depends brand. INW usually starts, and increases, by 0.25%. This isn't exact since you are removing some vg/flavor at each increment when you test. However, it's perfect for just trying to gauge flavor at different percentages.
This method only works for fruits, and some creams. Bakery flavors are much complex and must steep to get an accurate feel for how taste.
When I actually do about test, I use my Royal Hunter with a single Clapton. One airflow slot closed off. I will wick just the coil itself. No tails or worrying about wicking from the juice well. This allows you to rewick faster between flavors.
I plan on making a video to show this whole process and post it for a separate Modest Monday, so keep an eye out of anything seems confusing