cross posting from my sub for visibility because I know theirs more tobacco lovers out their to share the good news with
Ok, finished my blacknote gunking experiments :
*Up front note here, I was not trying to disprove any "claims" by blacknote , they make no claims about their juice vs other NET's , let me quote them specifically here "No “Gunk” Factor Our liquids do not contain chemical additives, artificial flavors or sweeteners, which means vaping our blends does not degrade replaceable coils." [on the printed flyer that comes with the juice they specifically mention synthetic eliquids here as well] - I'm using blacknote as the benchmark because they're the only company producing on an industrial scale - so they make a good benchmark because of high quality standards and presumably use of lab grade equipment etc
All tests done in smok tvf4 tanks with obviously matching coils @ 33.4 ohm
First run was the blacknote sample pack so I got an impressive 57ml deep on blacknote using the "TF-Q4" coils before it was done (too burnt/ gunky)
Same coil on my diy juice (vacuum filterd to 2 microns , its a mix thats 85% lane limited BL/WB and 15% captain black original [white pouch] @ 4% by volume concentration) 46ml
Next I did a run with TF-CLP2 coils, this time I used the "sonata" blacknote juice - a european style cavendish that they do very well. 53ml before gunkification.
For my own juice, same filtration and still @ 4% concentration but I used a cold macerated mcclelland 2025 (which states its a european cavendish - tastes like a very toasty virginia - would make a good addition for a cigalike recipe but i'm side tracking...) 48ml
I was also going to do a temp controlled run but I didn't set the coil up at room temp right and wasted 15ml before realizing and this stuffs a dollar a ml so "meh"
So first let me bring everyone up to speed, my last attempts (using kanger protanks) and indeed what the consensus seems to be on ECF left me burnt and gunked @ 15ml (except using PGA solvent) so these are huge improvements.
Those differences seem small enough to just assume its coil technology / increased surface area (these are big honking coils) that leads to the improvement
but the fact that my homebrew juice, even when comparing the same maceration (cold) and curing method (english cavendish) faltered 10-20% earlier gives us pause to think that blacknote is actually doing something different to reduce gunking , these coils if purchased in bulk would run maybe 2-3 dollars a piece - at these gunking levels and say 15ml a day thats only 6 dollars a week to enjoy NET goodness without having to drip - however , 10-20% improved performance is going to wind up being quite a bit of money over time.
I have a new theory that it is not free sugars in the tobacco extract (because different leaf varieties don't show major differences and if this was the case you'd see a big difference between say burley or virginia)
Neither is it the waxes (diterpenoids etc) - these constitute a small amount of whats in the leaf to begin with and are also where lots of our flavor molecules hang out.
Its polysacharides (amylose and amylopectin) , the amylopectin being the smaller of the two but also only making up 23% of the polysacharide content. Now from speaking with some chemists its almost a pipe dream to try and simply filter these out of solution, At this level you're dealing with specialized filters and you'd need the filter down to half the diameter of the offending molecule to hope to capture it.
I spoke to some folks over at ECF and was told that you do see some gunking reduction at 0.5 micron but that its a trade for taste which makes the whole process a catch 22, I'm going to do it anyway.
I wont bore you with citation but from the information available to me that would be half of 0.0285 microns, I went ahead and got 0.03 micron nuclepore filter paper and we'll see whats what. Even if it only captures the longer stringier amylose molecules a cleaner NET mixed with the improvement in coils could be a breakthrough by itself.
The idea of filtering is very interesting. I'd really like to have the citation. :-)
Here is a discussion about another application but it might be useful here too.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_anyone_have_advice_on_how_to_remove_starch_from_samples_I_am_running_for_sugar_using_HPLC_RID
Precipitation by 80 % ethanol was mentioned.
Another idea which comes to my mind is column filtration through a small amount of aluminium oxide. http://www.aacash.com/aloxide.htm or here: https://www.alfa.com/media/Aluminum_Oxides.pdf
This might enable getting rid of most polar compounds. The majority of flavour compounds is not very polar but saccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides are.
The drawback is of course some non or less toxic apolar solvent is needed which is easily removable afterwards. The variety is not very big, ethyl acetate or diethyl ether for example.
Edit: spelling error. Whait a minute, is saccharides soluble in ethyl acetate or diethyl ether at all? If not this might be an easy task just to get the flavours into solution followed by filtering.
A mad scientist by my own heart! :) , I'll pull up my notes later for ypu. Unfortunately the idea here is to reduce gunking in a way that can be done at home by most people - otherwise I'd just be tinkering ala /r/deeper_diy (leffingwell has a list of tobacco flavor molecules to play with for instance)
Also I believe some of those solvents might destroy the aromatic molecules.
Ethanol wotks great for cigar flavor though - that precipitation idea might work for that applicaion
I'm completely with you. The easier the better. The idea of aluminium oxide was just what came to my mind in case nothing else works. Dust is also a problem which comes with this method.
Your OP animated me doing something I wanted to do for a long time. I've fermented self grown virginia and oriental tobacco here. Some time ago I did a steam distillation which worked and had a nice taste, but was not very effective and a huge waste of energy.
Some hours ago I've started cooking 15 g finely ground tobacco in water which gave a brown soup and now I'm extracting it with ethyl acetate. Later on I'll put it on the balcony as a mild method for getting rid of the solvent. The phases don't separate as easily as I thought it will do. But the extract I've already collected is yellowish-translucent, looks even fluorescent. That was also the case for my steam distillation trial.
> I'll pull up my notes later for you
Thanks in advance!
> Also I believe some of those solvents might destroy the aromatic molecules.
I'm familiar with problems of boiling off the solvent. There is some loss for sure. A theoretical possibility for problems with ethyl acetate is transesterification or hydrolysis due to acetic acid impurities. But for diethyl ether I can't think of any reactions going on, it's very inert.
Cross post youre research at /r/diytobaccoejuice , im trying to get everything organized into one place for people.
Curious as to your steam disillation meyhod as well , I used a vertical glass contraption (basically the "heart magic" setup) and turned 6 ounces of dimestore tobacco into less than 1/3rd of a q-tips head worth of "something" it tasted like tobacco but I was thinking I might have just pulled pesticide.
I didnt bother to try again with whole leaf or anything quality like that.
So the ratio of amylose to amylopectin with cain length
Obv the amylopectin brancyhes off so I needed to know the diameter of that to have any hope of "filtering" it out, I found the size of a glucose molecule and used that as a reference for monosacharides - I found another study (can't remember what I was googling at this point and didn't save the URL) that gave me the actual diameter of the molecule and a lower level of 19 glucose units for the amylopectin found in whatever variety of tobacco they were using.
Arrived @ 0.0285 for the lowest "size" so I need a filter half as small to actually get at it all but since my upper measurement was 0.039 I was ok just going forward with the 0.03 micron nuclepore membrane paper.
What made me think polysacharides instead of monosacharides is that we dont see huge difference in gunking using leaf varieties that have known difference in sugar content (burley gunks just as fast as virginia)
I considerd doing something to the solution to force the starches to agglutinate (starch binders?) into larger units and then filtering this out but I couldn't see a way of doing it that didn't just end up introducing more contaminants / destroying the fragile flavor / aromatic volatiles.
one nore on sacharides solubility in ethyl acetate or eietheyl