Hi,
I understand the steeping process and color changing over time. But I have a bunch of custards steeping 2+ months that look the color of petrol now.
They already taste as well as they should / would and I'd prefer a lighter shade of yellow for next batches. Is there a way to stop the ageing and color changing process (there is a technical name for it that I can't remember) ?
How do store bottles keep their color on shelf ?
Why does the color matter?
The whole point of waiting to vape them is so the taste is at it's prime. I imagine you could wait to add the nicotine till you're about to vape it and the color wouldn't be as dark.
Store bottles cycle out old product first and new product is consistently replacing them. They don't actually "keep their color" they just don't keep it on the shelf for very long.
Good answer. I like to mix and steep 2-4 weeks, then add the nic. That helps a lot with keeping the nic still as fresh as can be (plus you don't have to have a "out of the fridge" work bottle of nic laying around). Basically mix throughput the week like you always do, and pull your nic outta the fridge every weekend or other weekend to add to your oldest steeped batches.
And yeah, if you make 1000ml of juice or something like that and your not gonna finish it for months, just throw the entire mix in the fridge (or put 9 of your 100ml bottles in the fridge and pull the next one out when your about done with the last one, or when you wanna hook a buddy up with a bottle or whatever).
I remember reading that keeping flavors or juice in the fridge can cause the flavors to be muted over time. But you suggest keeping bottles in the fridge to help them keep from aging? I mix a couple 100ml of my ADV and burn thru it pretty fast, but sometimes I wonder about a bottle or two thats a few weeks older than the normal steep. You'd advise putting these extra bottlesin the fridge after their steep to keep them from aging more? Is that a max shelf life you'd rec for juice in the fridge?
I'm not fully sure on flavors being muted in the fridge (I need to read up on that, let me know if you have a link to the discussion you're referencing)... I've definitely seen flavors go bad over time due to room temp conditions (I live in California, it's hot over here). I mentioned the fridge because you were looking to slow down or get rid of the dark juice color from older juice; this typically is always due to nicotine oxidation. So cutting down light and heat helps the nicotine slow that process.
But honestly, the best way would be to mix your juice, let it steep, then add the nicotine later. I used to keep my bulk nicotine in the freezer, and keep a 30mL "work bottle" of it at room temperature with the rest of my DIY stuff. I would add the nicotine to any mix that I made. But I noticed that overtime the 30mL bottle that sat at room temperature wouldn't be as fresh towards the end of the bottle, and it got darker as well.
Now I always mix without nicotine at first. I keep all of my nicotine in the freezer, and pull out my 30mL "work bottle" every weekend, let it get to room temp, then add the nicotine to the oldest juices I have steeping. My schedule seems to be adding nicotine to 3-4 week old juice (as long as I keep up on things). After adding the nicotine, I usually will let that bottle sit for 2 to 3 more days before vaping it (the 2 to 3 days after adding the nicotine isn't any kind of hard set rule, it's just something that I do. Obviously people make shake and vapes all the time and enjoy it. It just became a habit for me).
I make 10-15 60 ml bottles at a time. I keep them in the freezer for months and months. In one case I had a bottle of juice in the freezer for over a year. That bottle looked and vaped like it had been steeped for a couple of weeks. The freezer slows down the juice to a crawl (especially with high VG juices). It's all down to the fluid thickening in the freezer and slowing the rate of oxidation. Also amber glass bottles help by letting very little light and oxygen into the bottle.
You could transfer to a brown bottle that has had the air displaced with this stuff
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000DCS18/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_mop8yb42TSM66
Argon is much better for nicotine. That product uses a blend including nitrogen and C02.
Definitely right idea for long term storage though. Replace air with Argon in brown glass (like beer bottles) and deep-freeze. Adds years to nicotines shelf life.
Well I have a hard time believing (without a more thorough understanding of the chemistry involved) that this isn't orders of magnitude better than just air since N2 and CO2 are pretty inert. Plus without a cost effective way to dispense pure argon, I'm not sure what else to suggest.
That wine preserver also uses argon, it's a blend of those three, they're all inert gases and should at the minimum prolong the life of the nicotine by quite a bit
Ok that's really not realistic but theoretically, when you degas the liquid by a vacuum (hopefully the aroma won't evaporate) to get all the oxygen out of the solution, then replace the air on top of the liquid with inert gas and afterwards put it in the freezer, shouldn't it pretty much completely stop the degradation of nicotine and the flavors?
That stuff is what really interests me, how aging really works, because everybody has a different explanation of what it does.
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Color changes are not indicative of steeping. More often than not they are a result of the nicotine.
I've had 0mg juices go "dark" on me. The degredation is real (or at least to me)..
Yeah gotta respectfully disagree there. Color change happens even without nic.
Everything that isn't completely clear gets some deep color after a while. Although, I don't believe it is an indication of anything other than age. Doesn't seem to correlate directly to how completely steeped something is, nor does it seem to indicate "old and tastes bad". Some day we will get an organic chemist to pop in here and explain the whole phenomenon, but for now, I just know it happens, not why or what it means.
It's like both of you only read one word of my comment.
"More often than not" means exactly what it sounds like. My contention is that, more often than not, the flavor is the culprit.
The main reason I say this, is literally every single old forgotten test juice I have, with or without nic, does this, at the same approximate rate.
I read your comment just fine, sorry I wasn't clearer.
Edit: it looks like you didn't read all of my comment either, I specifically addressed the issue of color =/= steeped.
Dude bro! My ultra premium dank 15% sucralose juice turns dark brown without any of da nicotine! I can't believe how wrong you are right now!
Might as well start an RY4 conversation in here as well
What about argon, the inert noble gas? You can get bottles at nice wine stores. They put it in am opened bottle of wine and it displaces the air and oxygen because it is heavier. It will slow down oxidation considerably (which is the principle cause of colour change). So argon + freezer should help.