Hey all!
In light of all the recent drama on this forum, it's time we get back things back on track, this forum is for housing knowledge and assisting all mixers.
What i would like to do, is start a discussion on flavor bending / combos that taste different when used together.
For one I found that sugar cookie at 3% and vanilla custard v1 at 4% tastes just like vanilla cake batter to me.
TL;DR: Post all your tips on flavor bending / flavor combos that create new or interesting profiles.
FA Pear is probably my favorite new flavor to bend.
It adds a wonderful fresh wetness to just about any recipe you need it, without the aloe vera after flavor like INW cactus.
It also has a nice fresh tang to it that compliments oh so many fruits and creams.
Yup!! Sometime Cactus is great, but it can get assertive AF, to the point you can taste it even at 0.25%, rather than just getting the wetness from it. FA Pear though, IME, a meek flavor whose actual taste of pear is easily covered up by bolder flavors, while the wetness remains. Everyone should have this concentrate, even if they are weird and somehow abhor the flavor of pears.
I found that FA Pear, if used over 4%, with pretty high percentage of INW Cactus (1,5%) and addition of a just right amount of INW Anton Apple (2%) creates a salty mineral flavour that is present in a sparkling mineral water. Just add any fruit/soft lime and you have a good spritzer.
I so want to like FA Pear but even at 0.5% I find it unbearably harsh and acrid. No NIC. I got this this to pair :) with FA Fuji. 70/30 2% of each one month steep and the pear has gone but the apple is now baked. Interesting but I really was after that freash, sweet, juicy profile. Without the steep it's unvapable for me.
Try adding a 2% TFA Dragonfruit and 4% CAP Vanilla Custard v1 and give it a steep for a week. It'll turn out much smoother.
INW Cactus. This flavor is not just a concentrate to me. It is a project. It is a spiritual journey. Give me a profile and I will do my very best to stick my Cactus in it and make it taste good. Endeavors such as these lead to all sorts of bending.
How's that Grasshopper Spit recipe coming along?
/u/T_Mace mixed version one. It has been 7 days...waiting on feedback...ahem
Vaping it now.. pretty tasty, this definitely has legs. For my preferences, cactus overpowers the mix, even at 0.75%. I think the Red Burley works well with the Cactus but I'm not sure about Black For Pipe.
I tried a v2, shake and vape because I just mixed it now..
INW Cactus - 0.75%
INW Dark For Pipe - 2%
FLV Red Burley - 1.5%
Initial impression.. bump Dark For Pipe up to 3.5%, bump Red Burley up to 2.5%, drop Cactus to 0.5%. I held off on adding other stuff but INW Garuda or INW Virginia Tobacco Absolute might help strengthen the Dark For Pipe vibe. Not sure how far you wanna go in experimenting with this but if up for bouncing ideas around let me know.
This is a great idea; thanks, Dr. Store.
TFA Kentucky Bourbon. A lot of people hate it, but I think that's mostly bourbon lovers expecting it to taste like a top-shelf bourbon (or even real bourbon at all). But it's an incredibly useful ingredient that should be in everyone's arsenal. As for flavor bending, try mixing it 1:1 with TFA Toasted Marshmallow. The result doesn't taste like Bourbon. It doesn't taste like a Toasted Marshmallow. It doesn't taste like anything in the culinary world that I can think of, the best way I can describe it is that it tastes like making love by a fireplace. It's the magic behind Coop's Kiwi Bourbon and there are plenty of other ingredients that could be used in place of Kiwi to mix with that sexy, sexy TM/KB combo.
Accidental flavor bending: CAP Sweet Mango, CAP Juicy Lemon, TFA Strawberry Ripe. Result: sugared tomato slice. Nasty.
/u/HocusKrokus come tell this thread about your FA Cookie pickle juice!
Thank you for contributing! I'm lmao at the sugared tomato slice. Somebody said earlier on facebook, that they want a tomato basil vape.
Well, there's always /u/Chrisdvr1's tomato soup recipe... In fact for someone wanting to vape basil tomato I'd probably tell them to try that one but without the Sweet Cream. There's been some of this savory talk lately. If you dig through the Custard Apple Flavor of The Week post, there's a recipe for BBQ sauce. Last night I made homemade tzatziki sauce and I was thinking... I want to vape this. Anybody know where I could get a good garlic concentrate? Because I like my tzatziki extra garlicky.
Homemade tzatziki is the best, I'd vape it. I have no idea how to capture that wonderful fresh dill and garlic taste though. Tzatziki protip: Put your cucumber(I prefer grated opposed to chopped) in a strainer basket and lightly salt it evenly. Let it sit and drain over a bowl for 2O minutes. The reduced moisture helps keep the tzatziki from separating later.
If /u/cwinthrop is still lurking around he's probably the best person to confer with on savory vapes.
As per your summons I have awakened!
So what are we looking at here? Savory vapes? I remember being scolded repeatedly with cries of "Nobody wants a savory vape!"
And yet, my barbecue sauce and Bloody Mary were extremely popular (even with the lack of stability in the Bloody Mary).
I feel like I'm the only person around here that wasn't that impressed with coop's kiwi bourbon. The Kentucky Bourbon/toasted Marshmallow combo gave me a strong "off flavor" which was hard to put my finger on. It got better over about 5 days but I only made 15ml so it was gone. Does it need a longer steep?
You're not the only one. I haven't really liked TFA KB in anything I've tried it in yet, including Skiddlz' Bangin' Borubon Bread and Philsophucker's Awwww Sheeeeiiiit!
To me it tastes like licking a piece of cardboard that's been sitting under a bar-top for a few nights.
I don't think it needs a longer steep. You probably just plain don't like it. Everyone's tastes are different, you know. And some are more different than others. There's a guy in this week's Berry Blends edition of FOTW who just vapes CAP Harvest Berry 15% standalone all day every day. I'd say not liking the KB/TM mix loved by others is a few rungs down on the weirdness scale than that. Though you're the first I can remember hearing from that hasn't enjoyed it, you're probably not the only person who wasn't impressed with that recipe.
Good point. It could actually be the FA kiwi giving the off note too, as I haven't tried it standalone yet. I'm familiar with the other 2 ingredients and never had this off taste before. I do have some kiwi freedom pie steeping though so we'll see if I have the same issue there.
It's essentially the opposite of Koolada.
It's adds warmth to a recipe, with a slight alcoholic taste. Goes best in bakery recipes, but it certainly has its uses amongst fruit as well.
I've heard you say that "opposite of Koolada" somewhere before. That's an absolutely magnificent description for it. I'm sure there are plenty of other things it can pair with wonderfully. But if you haven't tried a 50/50 mix of KB and Toasted Marshmallow and thought about the possibilities, you're doing yourself a disservice.
I still haven't fully narrowed down the cause. But this juice has a distinct pickle taste. I can't fucking wrap my head around it. I never released it, but here's the private link on ELR. What the actual fuck, pickles
That's 100 percent FA Cookie's fault. If you had used CAP Sugar Cookie instead that recipe would taste amazing and not at all pickley.
FW Hazelnut. What a low % does to milky creamy things to give them that malty, kinda savory quality, is just magic. Haven't tried it yet, but /u/matthewkocanda recently commented about its effect on strawberries, bringing out a "deep and dark sweetness to the strawberry. In TPA Straw Ripe in particular, it turns it from a general strawberry flavour into something more of a strawberry that is at that perfect stage of ripeness where it's dark red and bloody with almost none of that white fleshy note."
Personally, I think Strawberry Ripe already tastes like a strawberry that's so overly ripe you weren't quite sure you wanted to eat it (but are so glad you did), but for some reason turning it even more ripe, so ripe that it's bloody, sounds wonderful.
What drama did I miss?
DoD is literally run by the devil aka /u/enyawreklaw
The cowardly shitposter who started that ironically did nothing but good for DoD; just look at all the highly upvoted great comments supporting DoD. Meanwhile, all it did was hurt this subreddit, because now you've got people generalizing "the subreddit" as if that shitposter and a few others speak for the entire subreddit, or even more than a tiny fraction of it.
Not a very useful one as it doesn't last past a steep (and I also don't know how popular the fruit is in the US) but I guess interesting none-the-less...
TFA Strawberries and Cream + CAP Vanilla Custard V1 = Feijoa, more specifically like the Feijoa flavoured candy we get here in NZ.
I'm going to need some %s on that. I'll order TFA Strawberries and Cream just to make it. Had some feijoa candy in NZ and it was terrific, nothing like it to be found back in Texas.
Just had a quick look through my notes.
8% TFA S&C
1% CAP VCV1
I'm gonna remix this when I get home in a few hours to confirm, so please don't order anything until then haha.
I've got written down that it feels like it comes from that almost medicinal flavour fresh VCV1 has with something from the strawberry.
FWIW, I've also noted that this Mother's Milk clone had a similar character and Fizzmustard's Nana Cream clone with a couple drops each of FA Pear and TFA Orange Cream were also similar.
8%/1% gets it in ballpark but ugh - not as pungent and candy-like as I remember and closer to the actual fruit with some strawberry and cream in the background. This TFA S&C is around 2 years old though.
Maybe with some tweaks to the ratio or other flavours in there you could get it a bit closer, fresher S&C could help also. Just remember after a week or so steep it tastes more like how you'd expect that combo to taste.
0.5% FA Anise brightens up fruits and does amazing things to blackcurrant.
That's interesting i'm not a fan of Anise in food, do you taste it with blackcurrant or other fruits at that % ?
edit: corrected ont in not