Happy Monday everybody! It's that time of the week again.
Last week, I went over why you should be doing single flavor testing, but after about 20 private messages, I realized my instructions for how to do so could be better. So, that's what I'll be doing today. Teaching you how to prep for testing and how to do so.
#Setting up your atomizer
You have a few different options to go with here. None of them are right or wrong, it's just a matter of what you want to achieve.
For your atomizer, you ideally want adjustable side airflow. This seems to give the most well rounded flavor profile. Bottom airflow is still a good choice if that's what you have accessible, but it seems heavy on the middle and bottom notes, ultimately muting the top notes. I avoid top airflow completely. I've yet to try one that doesn't feel wonky and mutes flavors overall.
My weapon of choice here in the Royal Hunter. It's smooth, adjustable side airflow, good flavor, and you can run it single or dual coil. As for how to run your atty, you have the following options:
Wickless
Clapton wire is an absolute necessity if you are going to run this option due to its ability to act as a wick and hold juice. Ideal diameter is about 1.5-2mm at 5-6 wraps, no spacing. This setup allows the coil to hold as much juice as possible due surface tension. With no extra juice or wick to cool the wire off, you want to be around 15-25w. You will get exactly one hit from this setup.
- Pros - Very fast tasting method. No need to stop and rewick. Especially helpful if you have a big back log on flavors that need tested.
- Cons - Hard to get a good grasp on less potent flavors from the mere whisp of vapor. You'll probably be vaping wire at some point.
Half Wick
Single coil setup, empty slot closed, Clapton wire at 2.5-3mm diameter. Wicking is pre-measured and rolled to fit exactly the length of the wire. No tails on wicks. I'll have about 20 or so wicks prepared before I start testing so I save time. This is my favorite setup. Good for when you get a new order and need to taste 5-20 flavors in succession.
- Pros - allows for a more full flavor than wickless. You get about 2-3 full hits. Still quicker than a full wick.
- Cons - a little slower than wickless, still does not provide a 100% full vape flavor. You could run it dual claptons with half wicks to increase overall flavor, but then you are making the process even slower.
I suppose a picture is worth a thousand words. Hopefully the concept is clear through the potato quality.
http://imgur.com/a/FjknT
Full Wick
As the title says, it's a full wick. Use your preferred wire setup. Claptons are still encouraged, but not necessary. Your wick will be providing juice from the well and you don't have to count on the wire to hold all of it.
- Pros - allows for a full, true flavor. Good for analyzing a certain flavor over a longer period of time, perhaps for something more complex.
- Cons - takes a good deal of time to repeat this rewicking process for each flavor. If you don't rewick, the flavor will be contaminated with the previous flavoring.
Don't forget to catch /u/matthewkocanda and I on the BeginnerBlending show on the DIYorDie podcast network tonight.
If you're new or want to catch up on my older Modest Monday posts, you can check out /r/ModestMonday
I save your posts more than any other contributors here. Solid info as always, thank ya Vurve.
Unrelated, I tried your dreamsicle, spot on flavor. I get a bit of harshness when dripping but it's great in a tank. I plan on trying to introduce something to combat the harshness of the terpenes in the citrus flavors, have you played with adding EM or some MTS wizard to the recipe? I plan on doing so, but wanted to see if you had and hear your thoughts. PM if you want to keep unrelated discussion off this post or if you care to!
Thanks for the recognition.
Yes, I used to get a fair amount of harshness from dreamsicle and have tried all of the additives. EM muted the oranges, TFA smooth almost had a heat steep effect to it. It was good the first few days, but all the flavor was gone within the next week. Mts wizard was just a bad fit. It's more for bakery style flavors.
I got rid of the harshness by doing one simple thing. I started shaking the shit out of all the flavors before I added then to the bottle. This made sure I wasn't getting too many of the turpenes, which can be very harsh.
Letting the juice steep for about a week helps as well
That's a good consideration, I usually give my bottles a quick shake but with concentrates like peanut butter I shake the ever living hell out of it, that would make sense for citruses to fall into that category as well. I'll be sure to do so.
Is it necessary to steep at all when testing single flavors?
You say you don't like top airflow because it mutes flavor. I'd have to disagree. I think the Sapor is excellent on flavor and I've only read great things about the Vector (in terms of flavor).
I know the Sapor is supposed to have great flavor, but I haven't tried it yet.
I bought the cheapest RDA I could find, and then a pack of prebuilt clapton coils. I dripped a few drops on it and hit it, and it's not perfect, but it will give you a sense of what it taste like. Last night, I fired it and took a taste, and then for some reason it didn't go off... the coil heated to the point it was glowing out of the air holes.
I yanked out the batteries and now I think I will retire that setup... ha.
I'm not sure it's always necessary to rewick every time you change flavors. I use Mutation X V4 with bottom airflow for testing with Koh Gen Do cotton. I don't put too much cotton, that way it never burns even if the wick is dry. Basically I drip and vape untill the wick gets dry, then I drip another solo flavouring. Sometimes it helps to drip some VG, vape it and continue with the testing. This method works for me, that way I can test around 5 different flavors without them getting in each others way. Depending on the flavors used in testing of course. Usually I'm not crazy about being quick, I don't typically test more than 5 flavors in a row, I like to vape each flavor for 20 minutes or so to familiarise myself with it better.
Can you explain how you pre-measure and roll wicks ahead of time for the half wick setup? I've tried a couple different things, but it sounds like whatever you are doing is a lot more effective than the ways I've tried.
Possible dumb question... when you talk about tasting 5-20 flavors in succession, you mean mixes right? Not the concentrates?
Would that even be something worth trying, testing the concentrates themselves with the wickless method?
Yes, I am talking about tasting a flavoring concentrate by itself mixed at a determined percentage with VG. This thread may help you gain a better understanding of what I'm talking about and how this thread relates to it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/4fdevi/modest_monday_reviewing_flavors/
If you have any other questions after reading that, just let me know
You definitely don't want to do that, it would be way too strong. As opposed to the ol' finger taste test, you can try tasting them in some water to get a general idea of what the flavoring is like. Might be a good idea to do it like wine tasting though and have a spittoon.
Great post great podcast really enjoyed what you guys are doing I've been following Wayne since the beginning and I should be a lot better at this than I am back to basics. I have 3 little boys a wife a job and a house and no time for testing, the suggestions made here have definitely made the process easier just tried the half wik method what a time-saver you're a genius. I'm curious during the show and reading through the post I did not see anything about palate cleansing do you or anybody else have a palate cleansing method in The Culinary world it's usually shaved ice with some sort of flavor but that sounds counterintuitive in this case.
Menthol! Or any tobacco flavor really, as long as you're not mixing tobacco flavors.
Also, copious amounts of water.
If I'm testing lots of different types of flavors, then I don't really worry about it.
Thx h2o it is I can't stand mint but I will give it a try was testing 10 different flavors second to last one was lemongrass and even after replacing the cotton and burning it out that flavors still stuck on my tongue.
Ahh, in the case of exceptionally lingering flavors, like some of the nasty coffee ones which immediately come to mind, I'll eat or drink something non-related to what I'm trying. Sip of whiskey, Gatorade, etc.
However, at that point, I'm just trying to get the flavor out of my mouth, not palette cleanse.
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I know I'm late to the party here but this post sent me on a coil building/learning journey. Can't fit a Clapton in my Derringer which is my only dripper for now. Settled on a single twisted coil after binge watching several hours of coil building tutorials. In the second pic you see long wick draped on the top, ended up cutting it but thought it might allow me to drip less lol.
Fun as shit and looks badass but to be honest flavor seems way muted. 26 guage, 11 wraps, .99 ohms. She barely fits but I wanted to get as close to 1 ohm as possible. Coils heat evenly from inside out, no hot spots. Maybe too many wraps, maybe my taste buds are just tired after a long day of vaping.
TL:DR Any tips for most flavorful Derringer build?
what about wickless in TC? does that still give you wire taste? also, when vaping in general, it always takes awhile for me to get a juices full flavor on new cotton. like somewhere over 10+ pulls to get rid of the cotton taste. doesnt that bother you at all?
Great post, brotha. Never thought to try a half-wick method. Will be giving that a shot soon.
It works great if you're going to a vape convention and have a lot of juice to sample, too.
It's even better if you have a friend that likes to vape, but doesn't want to buy his own mod. Keeps their grubby little hands off my mod.