Ok, so I got my DIY starter kit from nude nicotine. I also ordered some extra flavors from TFA. I got my starter kit yesterday and started mixing, the results leave a lot to be desired...
1st Flavor: Very Berry, tastes like cough syrup, horrible and chemically. I have not tried to steep this one yet so there may be hope.
2nd flavor: Melon Madness, Just tastes sweet, no melon, nothing, just so sweet it's gross. Tastes like I'm drinking syrup. I let this one cure for about 3 hours in a hot water bath and tastes exactly the same. Willing to give it some more steep time but it's really bad so far
3rd flavor: Citrus Slap, only flavor somewhat palatable. Smells like lemon pledge, and has a decent inhale, but leaves a really bitter taste in my mouth afterwords. I also let this one cure in a hot water bath for 3 hours.
All juices are 3mg with 70/30 VG/PG. I did not add any sweetners to any. Am I doing something horribly wrong? Do they just need to cure for longer? I just spent a ton on flavors from TFA and I really don't want them to all taste awful like this. Any advice would be appreciated.
Edit: Forgot to say all of them were 5% flavor. I used a calculator online So I'm pretty sure I mixed everything correctly. The exact recipe was as follows.
10 ml batches
Nicotine (36mg/ml in 50/50 pg/vg) .8 ml
PG 2.6 ml
VG 6.1 ml
Flavor .5 ml
I can't speak to your specific ingredients but I'll offer some advice from an only slightly more experience mixer. :)
Do not underestimate the importance of steeping. Some flavors work great as a shake and vape, others taste chemically or otherwise gross until they chill out. It really depend on the specific flavors in the mix as to how important it is. It also depends on the person tasting it. One of my recipes I think is delicious as a shake and vape but my friend doesn't enjoy until it's sat for a month. Another friend thinks CAP Sugar Cookie taste like vaping fireworks so individual taste and perception play a huge role.
The hot bath trick is about as effective as running cheap vodka through a water filter. Sure, it helps, (and it does help) but it's no substitute for time... which is the bane of mixing. Right now is the suckiest time you'll have with mixing if you stick with it. You waited for your kit to come in the mail, so excited to get it, and bam, you're faced with the reality that you have to wait some more. I know, it's fucking weak.
Another point is that you might not like the 3 flavors you have. 50-75% of the flavors I've purchased (up to 64 now) I don't really like; at least not standalone. My favorite flavors are mostly made up of ones I didn't particularly think I would like when purchasing. Dragonfruit? I fucking hate dragonfruit. Such an awesome name for such a shitty, seedy fruit. But I vape the fuck out of some TPA Dragonfruit.
I think it's perfect you started at 5%... when I get a new flavor I mix up 10ml and vape it at 5% to see where it lands. From there I adjust up or down, depending on how strong it is. There is a lot of great information on each flavor both here and at ELR so you can usually look up a suggested percentage to start with. Also just use your own judgement, I never tried INW Raspberry at 5% because after just taking the cap off I could smell that would be way too much. The difference in potency can be HUGE between flavors.
Since it looks like you like fruit flavors, I suggest you get a few other options that you might like to test with. Poke around on ELR looking for popular flavors that sound good to you. When you do get flavors, get the smallest size possible and order larger sizes of the ones you like.
Another route to go would be to say fuck mixing your own recipes and just copy other recipes floating around. There are a lot of godlike mixers here who, in there eternal benevolence, have posted no shortage of amazeballs recipes. If you mix them precisely and you're using quality nic/vg/pg you can't go wrong. But remember, it's like picking up any juice in the vape store... you might not like it.
I hope this helps. There's a huge learning curve so hang in there because it's worth it. Right now you're looking up to commercial grade ejuice. If you stick with it, it won't be long before you're looking down on it.
Thanks for the advice and encouragement. I appreciate it. I'm hopeful for now. I'll still be buying juice for now while I work on my flavors, but I'm sure I'll get there soon. I've already got plans, I dumped out the juice I had tonight, I just tried to many random things with it (hot water bath, too much or to little flavor, etc.) and tomorrow after work I'm going to start fresh. I'm going to make 3 5 ml batches tomorrow (10ml just uses so much VG I want to spread it out a bit) following the advice on e-liquid-recipes. I've already started taking notes on every mix and will be doing so on these so I can hopefully find a perfect match. I'm sure I'll get it down eventually.
I got mad and threw all of my NN flavors away when I first started. I thought they all sucked, because I thought everything was shake and vape. If you absolutely have to have something to vape while you play around with your mixing skills, make a highly rated but simple recipe like Mustard Milk, or buy already mixed concentrate from MBV or Gremlin DIY. This way you can get used to mixing and using your tools, and have some kick ass juice that you've made by yourself.
First off, do not use a hot water bath, except possibly to warm VG only slightly above room temp to ease shaking. Also do not breath your juice, as suggested by another commenter, this is almost never required, it's much more likely to screw up your final flavor than to help. Steeping takes a lot longer than a few hours. I would shake up what you've mixed really well, then set in a dark cool place (like a drawer or closed cabinet) for at least 24 hrs.
I'll look this up for you this time, in the future you'll have to do it yourself.
NN Very Berry. - try at 2.5% for single flavor
NN Citrus Slap - looks like 5% should be close for single flavor
NN Melon Madness - all over the place, looks like people don't really care for this as a single flavor
Go to http://e-liquid-recipes.com
At the top click resources
Select flavor list
Search for your flavor by name
Sort results by rating and pick the one with the most ratings
Look at what % other people are using the flavor at to get an idea where to start
NN is not known for their flavors, I mean some people really like some of them, but their primary business is nicotine, so using their flavors is kind of a crapshoot. You said you bought some TFA flavors as well, that's good because they are much more common. The best idea is to go find some highly rated recipes here or on ELR and buy those flavors, then make those recipes. Buying flavors because they sound good sometimes bites you in the ass because descriptions can be inaccurate.
Edit: formatting
Thanks for the website, that will be a big help, I wasn't aware of it (although I see it in the sidebar now). I will be using that in the future. I appreciate the advice. I'll give those mix numbers a try as well as use that site for my TFA flavors coming in the mail. Hopefully they taste a bit better.
ELR also has a feature that tells you what you can make from the flavors you have in your "stash" that may help you, depending on what you bought from TFA
It's better to sort flavors by the number of recipes that use it.
There's usually only one "real" result, and a bunch of others where someone named the same flavor incorrectly. I said sort by rating and pick the one with the MOST ratings, not the best, which should yield the same result as most people using it, except for very rarely used flavors
Very true, but the number of ratings is only listed for recipes. The number of ratings are not listed for flavors. For example, search for the flavor "yogurt" and sort by rating, the first one is Plain Yogurt from OOO. I can guarantee you that it is not the most rated yogurt flavor on ELC...
I have extensive experience with NN concentrates so I'm happy to share some of my thoughts with you. I started off on their concentrates before I knew much about mixing, but used them for about 1.5 years and have tried basically their entire line.
Out of those you mentioned, the Melon Madness was probably my favorite. I did it typically at 6.66%. It is kind of a lighter flavor. I also used a touch of EM which may have rounded it out a little more and made the melon flavor more noticeable. I'm surprised you mention it's very sweet since I didn't get a whole lot of sweetness out of it.
Very Berry I also didn't really care for too much either, I would say this one is good around 4%.
Citrus Slap I actually didn't have a lot of experience with, but I can tell you that 5% is pretty high for it -- I would probably do this one about 2-3%. It is going to be a little bitter considering the citruses that are being used in it.
One thing I might suggest is using 100% VG. I always did 100% VG with NN concentrates and I think it fared pretty well with them. You'd actually be surprised at how different ratios affect flavor. They are fairly concentrated considering they're intended to be solo flavors so having a higher VG ratio might help tame some of the stronger flavors. I think they're intended for 100% VG as is since they are VG based flavorings.
Another thing to consider is with them being VG based, there is probably some Ethyl Alcohol in there used to thin the liquid and help carry the flavor. Since they have the alcohol you will benefit from letting them breathe for a bit here and there.
What other flavorings do you have from them?
I will try to use a bit of EM with the melon madness with a bit more flavor next time. To me even the bottle of concentrate just smells insanely sweet, like I said, almost like smelling straight maple syrup. I will also try the very berry in a bit of a lower concentrate, that seems to be somewhat of a general consensus, might get rid of that overpowering cough syrup taste.
As for other flavors, that's all I got, Since I also ordered from TFA I didn't get anything anything other than the 3 that came with my starter kit.
I also noticed that the concentrates were very runny for being 100% vg, I was suprised because I expected them to be very thick, but they are basically as thin as water. That must be the ethyl alcohol. Breathing may help, although It seems there are mixed opinions on that advice.
The problem with breathing is it can allow smaller flavor volatiles to escape solution along with the alcohol. This can change the final flavor. It's best to simply give it more steep time, although you should try both methods and come to your own conclusions. You may not notice a difference and I am after all, just some dude on the internet :-)
Dang, they have some real nice ones but yeah those wouldn't necessarily be my top picks. I've never breathed mine and, looking back on it, I don't know that it would be necessary -- just an idea. If I had to pick 3 I'd do
- Shirley Temple
- Patchouli Vanilla
- Mayan Mocha
What all did you pick up from TFA? I think that Citrus Slap will come in handy though when you need a bit of a citrus kick for future mixes.
I'm a bit of a fruit fan, so I picked up Strawberry ripe (because everyone is crazy about it), blackberry, green apple, pomegranate, watermelon candy, as well as menthol liquid and koolada because i'm a huge menthol fan. But I'm gonna focus on getting the flavors right first and add that later.
what percentages did you mix at? or the actual recipe would help the most.
I'm glad someone else posted a thread like this because it's exactly where I'm at with my mixing. A lot of useful info here and for the sake of ease I'm gonna burn through my flavours quick and get some we know are good for mixing already because people have detailed flavour profiles on here. It's a shame to waste my first lot of flavourings but I can't be sure of any standard because they are re-labels of however many brands.
I'd just like to say thank you to all the people who replied helpfully to this thread you've made more than the OP a happy bunny with your wonderful encouragement.
DIY is not intuitive or easy, but it is well worth it, when you can finally make hundreds of milliliters of your all day vape for a couple of bucks. Take your time. Read the sidebar. Read all the posts. Treasure your successes. Learn from your mistakes. Don't speed steep. Buy a cheap scale.
36 mg/ml nicotine? Why would you ever want anything anywhere close to that? That's probably the main reason you're getting a horrible taste
I didn't make a mix I thoroughly enjoyed for a long time. Don't give up. Just start simple. Sometimes a brand just won't agree with you. I personally don't like Nude Nicotines flavors. I get harshness from all of them. I don't know why. Unfortunately you'll have to play around a while before you get a feel for what you like at which percentage. I know for me, my percentages are very low compared to others. I found that out the hard way.