-The diyordie/ATF Squad are cringey, they think they are some sort of elite mixers but put couldnt put together a decent recipie to save themselves.

-Putting copyright disclaimers on youre shitty recipies is a complete joke, not to mention they are attaching copyrighted stolen artwork to them 😄

-'My recipie isn't shit people just have different pallets' is true to an extent but mostly used to defend a shitty recipe.

I have no fear of diketones. If i did significant damage to my lungs, it's from 2.5 decades of smoking. Vaping keeps me from smoking, and diketones keep me vaping. If they are shown to be really really dangerous I might consider reducing but not eliminating them from my mixes. Like Lemmy said - "I don't wanna live forever".

Mixing by weight is a complete PITA and takes 2x as long as getting busy with syringes. Yes the syringes take longer to clean up, but when you mix 2-4 bottle of a particular recipe at a time syringes are the way to go. Plus people freak out when they see a bunch of syringes on my dining room table, which is fun.

"Steeping" is a completely incorrect term and should never be used. Aging, even curing. Steeping is the soaking of a solid in liquid to extract the flavor, then removing said solid from the liquid. If you are doing your own extractions (I still have no idea why anybody would) you can use steeping. Nobody else is steeping.

As to aging: the purpose of aging is to drive off perfumey volatiles. 12 to 24 hours in a warm place (I use a coffee cup warmer) accomplished this as effectively as putting the bottle on a shelf for weeks. Even if the result is a little different, I like it and it's always worked for me. Also: if the lid is on, there's nowhere for the volatiles to go.

Now the semi-sentimental...

I love our quirky little community and I'm pretty happy with the way this sub has developed. We can be a little elitist, snobby, even clique-y, but we always help each other out... as long as the right threads are used ;). I'm glad that some of our group have gone on to bigger things and been able to make a few bucks out of this hobby and I don't resent it at all. I appreciate those that have stuck around here, but I also realize that this subreddit never will be (and really never was meant to be) the be-all and end-all of this hobby, and some have decided to move on. I wish them well.

I miss /u/abdada. FWIW, I miss /u/Botboy141 as well, but I bet everyone does so that's not relevant to this thread.

This is also not that controversial, but I'll restate it anyway. There really is no right or wrong in making your own juice. If you get something that you like, then however you got there is perfectly acceptable. If you are off the butts, vaping something you enjoy, saving money, and maybe even having fun, what more could you want?

Max VG is the biggest scam in the history of the e-liquid market. It tastes worse and costs less to make. They've convinced everyone that big clouds are actually what you want and that vegetable = better for you.

This subreddit is largely a circlejerk. I mostly only show up for the flavoring reviews by people like concreteriver, and to give advice to newbies.

There is nothing better than time for aging a bottle of juice. Things like heat and ultrasonic cleaners are just a gimmick that people developed with no scientific approach.

Anecdotal evidence is the biggest problem with DIY. If someone that everyone respects (you know who they are) says something it is immediately treated as gospel. I think that's why you see so much FA Meringue.

Most recipes by even the top mixers never taste like what they say it is. No one can pick out 12 diffrent flavors that are in a finished juice.

I don’t think mixing the popular recipes is the best way to get in to DIY. It’s a good way, but not the only way. In all my time doing DIY I’ve probably mixed less than 10 recipes that weren’t my own.

Diy or Die concentrates taste nothing like the food product they're trying to imitate. I still love them, but they're more like vape juice than food products.

Not every one needs to DIY, and people aren't making a mistake for buying eJuice. There are great commercial eJuices that are better than 80% of the recipes submitted to the top forums.

No one makes a decent cannoli flavor.

The biggest thing this sub circle jerks about is being a circle jerk.

Oh boy

• There are no hard and fast rules. Sometimes breathing can be good and sometimes heating can be as well. Yes, its almost always a bad idea but almost always isn't always. I know a lot of this stuff is to protect new users and its easier to just say never do X than it is to go into detail about why most people shouldn't do it but at the same time I feel that it does stifle discussion from time to time. It is okay for certain people in certain situations and shouldn't always be dismissed so readily.

• We don't know as much as we think we do

• I think a lot of times we get stuck on creating things that work in real life that don't always transfer to vaping. I think we also limit ourselves by trying to just recreate foods and drinks instead of taking individual flavors on their own, analyze them on their own merits and not what they are supposed to be, then taking those notes and creating something that wouldn't be possible or desirable with food. Working with just flavorings and not textures, preparation methods, etc opens up a lot of doors I think we often walk past.

• Sorry, that flavor you are single flavor testing does not have a "crunchy" mouthfeel. Thick, thin, how it coats the mouth, etc are all viable but some of these descriptions are too much.

• Yeah, oftentimes people go overboard with the amount of flavorings they use and it could have been done better with half as many flavors but that doesn't mean that some 10+ flavor recipes aren't great.

• Furthermore some flavorings just need a higher % than others. Just because something is at 20% doesn't mean its necessarily over flavored. Sure, it probably is if you are using FA, FLV, INW, etc and a lot of people do tend to over flavor but sometimes you do need those higher %s to get what you want if you are using some weaker flavorings.

• DIY is as hard as it is easy and as expensive as it is cheap. I see this all the time. Just get into DIY, its super easy. Well, yeah, the process is easy and if you have a couple of popular recipes that you want to vape forever then that's absolutely true but at the same time if you want to get into developing recipes that shit can be difficult and expensive. Single flavor testing 100s of flavors that may or may not change completely with the addition of some other flavorings, going through dozens and dozens of iterations of a single idea before you get it where you want it often with weeks of steep time in between isn't easy or cheap.

• Flavorah just dilute your shit to a reasonable level instead of charging out the ass and then making us dilute it 10:1 and then still only use it at 1% or less.

• Anti-Steep Nazis need to get over it already. We all know its not truly steeping but that is the name that stuck and what we all use now. This isn't exclusive the the ejuice community. Lots of words are applied to things they strictly shouldn't be. We don't need you to chime in every time someone says steep and let us know its not actually steeping. We already do.

• Speaking of steeping. Just because you are using flavors that traditionally need stepping doesn't mean they always do and use suggested steep times as a guideline. For the most part many mixes are constantly changing even if those changes are subtle and most juices will have a peak period before steeping longer either has diminishing returns or actively makes the juice subjectively worse. Taste your mixes once a week or so to see how things are developing. Not only does it help you learn how things develop but you might find you prefer it at a certain point. Also, I almost always see a max of a month. Some things can take considerably longer. I have a couple mixes that I hate at a month and don't really come up until 3-6 months later so next time you mix something up and it still isn't there after a month consider holding off a bit longer. This is especially true with tobaccos and NETs.

• NETs don't get enough love here

• TPA RY4 Double doesn't taste like tobacco and simple mixing it with bakeries, creams, and custards doesn't turn your juice into a tobacco juice.

• homemade extractions are more viable than people here think and its certainly not a case of never ever do it as long as you know what you are doing, do the proper research, and take the proper precautions. Nicoticket, TVK, N-E-T, RTE, and many others do in house extractions and sell on a commercial level and I guarantee I have more chemistry and lab experience than they do not that its strictly needed. Most of these extractions are not that difficult. Just don't fuck around with it unless you have done your research.

• If you mix something review it and if you mix something but sub 1/2 the flavors leave a comment letting us know how it turned out but don't rate it because your rating is useless and skews the results.

• If you see something, say something

Sweeteners are the shit. I use way more than recommended %'s. Diketones are where it's at.

You can mix good tasting juice by just eyeballing your measurements if you know what you're doing and have experimented enough with what you like. Random people that try my mixes love every one and I have never once measured a single drop

ELR has a problem with people reviewing themselves on alternate accounts. Fruits, florals, menthols, and candies can be just as complicated and hard to mix as any bakery or custard. It just depends on what you're going after. Marshmallow and toasted marshmallow ruin most of the recipes they're in. Throat hit isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes you really want that thump.

• TFA Strawberry Ripe tastes like green wet leaves. I bought (2) 10mL bottles when I started mixing and one is over half full, and the other one has never been opened.

• CAP Glazed tastes a lot more like a glazed donut than it does Play-Doh. Source: I've eaten both.

• FA Torrone is the best standalone flavor.

• CAP Sugar Cookie isn't that good, unfortunately.

• The sweetener trend is getting pretty annoying. Just because cancer tastes good doesn't mean you need to put 0.25% or 0.5% in all of your recipes.

• You don't NEED to wash out your bottles before mixing something else in it. Empty it upside down, rinse the tip and lid, and you're fine. Certain flavors and specific scientific conditions don't apply obviously, but 90% of the time there isn't a real reason to wash your bottles unless you're a total germophobe. On that note, when is the last time you washed your drip tip?

• Don't "speed steep" your juice with fancy expensive heater liquid vibrator thingys. Leave it sit in the cupboard like a normal adult. Your volatiles and taste buds will thank you in the long run. The juice left in your car on a warm day might taste good that evening or the next day, but a week or two later it's probably gonna be weird.

• Copyrighting recipes for your juice is like copyrighting your own lasagna recipe.

• Government regulation in vaping isn't all bad. It keeps the industry more honest (juice quality) and safer (mods/gear) for the most part.

• If you are new, don't feel the need to make a post here telling everyone so with mixing questions that can be answered via wiki. Low effort/no effort posts don't belong on our front page, and the vast majority of users prefer not to read or participate in the same but different discussions multiple times a day.

Oh man, watch the hate pour in for this one. I absolutely hate that damn near every recipe put forth on here has people tearing it apart or raving about it... BUT NOBODY HAS MIXED AND TASTED THE DAMNED THING!!!!
Oh look highy rated recipe!! looks in comments for reviews about how it tastes... "Hey man this looks great maybe i'll mix it next year", "Oh wish I had these flavors!", "I think you should change everything because blah blah blah, but i'm not basing this because i actually tasted it... that's insane!", and my personal favorite "I went home and mixed this up using entirely different flavors at vastly different percentages and it sucked, sorry man i just don't think you made good mix!"

Recipes with more than 5 ingredients are stupid. I don't usually bother with any that have more than 4.

I thought that one of the reasons to DIY was to get away from sweeteners. But now they are OK?

Following the latest "You've GOT to have this flavoring!" is a quick way to end up with a bunch of bottles of shit you won't use. For anything. Ever.

Stop trying to make eliquids taste like food. Make something new. Food is only a thing because if you don't eat you'll die.

0.1% this, 0.25% that. Yeah, right. Whatever, supertasters.

Tobacco flavors are much more than something for newly converted vapers, because smokers have shitty tastebuds. The flavors are actually really complex

Heating for homogenization can absolutely work to speed up "steeping" and doesn't negatively effect the flavor to any appreciable extent, as long as you don't go full retard on the temperature.

People in DIY make assertions and absolutions as to what works and what doesn't as if there is no debate. Just because some of the more active posters here and other places have come to some type of consensus, it has more to do with people parroting others opinions instead of being based in science.

Oh, and anyone stating they can develop a recipe down to 0.01% are full of shit up to their eyes. I've tried a few of these 0.32% of this, 0.64% of that recipes with 2.14% overall flavoring. Mushy mush mush yekk.

TFA RY4 Double is the most disgusting, wannabe tobacco flavoring on the market.
FA 7 Leaves Ultimate is the second most disgusting tobacco flavoring.
I'll only add AP 5% to my juice if I'm craving Fritos or Jiffy's cornbread.
I am tired of seeing recipes with .02, .1, or .00054% flavor. FLV Arabian Tobacco, FA Tiramisu, FA Arctic Winter, FA Dark Bean, and FA Black Fire are the only exceptions to the rule since you can literally run your car off some of these choices.
The over the top flavor descriptions for recipes on here and especially the DIY or Die site (that Wayne guy) are a joke. I've been vaping for years and have yet to taste half the flavor profiles people claim. Since that is the standard here, it makes me not want to share my underwhelmingly detailed recipes.
I'm not that active anymore, but folks like ID10T and Concrete are pretty cool. A lot of guys here genuinely want to help the new folks. I'm sure that opinion goes against the grain. Not a fan of these pickle and cucumber recipes, but I guess you gotta experiment every now and then.

FLV mango tastes like chalky ass

Fuck strawberry.

Since many of mine are already replicated in this thread, I'll go with my biggest "cardinal sin": There is nothing whatsoever wrong with mixing flavors by counting drops. Even when you consider that in absolute terms, a drop from a Capella bottle is a little larger than a drop from a 10mL FA/FW/TFA/whatever bottle, the difference in flavor between being syringe precise (or by weight) is past the point of diminishing returns when it comes to the extra effort.

If I had to sit down and make a top ten list out of all the juices I've ever tried/made, the commercial ones would easily outnumber the DIY.

Menthol recipes... all you need to do is get a fruit recipe and add the menthol... so wrong.

I already know that my preferences wrt vaping are not remotely popular which is why I had to get into DIY. It was either that or vape unflavored forever.

Scales. Forget them. We used syringes before they became a fad, and always go back to using them when the scale batteries die anyway. Save money and time. Use syringes.

>custard is disgusting

True.

> Sweeteners in ejuice are like salt in food.

Sweeteners in different concentrations are incredibly versatile. 0.5% sucralose can drastically change the mouth feel of a juice

Glycerin and Vegetable Glycerin has exactly the same chemical formula. So once you have Glycerin, there is no way to tell if it is made from plant or animal matter.

One is not healthier/safer than the other, they are exactly the same thing.

The only people that should be worried if it is Vegetable or not, are vegans/vegetarians/other people that don't want the products they consume to be made from animals/animal parts.

For those people there is good news, VG is actually cheaper than standard Glycerin because it is a byproduct of the biodiesel industry and each year more and more of the stuff is being made. Leading to regular price drops. In a few years supply will exceed demand quite easily as biodiesel becomes more popular.

Counting drops works just fine.

Artificial flavors never taste quite right.

I hate CAP Sugar cookie, Mustard Milk made me want to pull my tongue out, and sweetener is necessary to many more recipes than people want to admit.

Shyndo’s mango sticky rice is WAY better with FE Mango instead of FLV.

• Holy Vanilla is meh at best
• FLV Vanilla Custard is straight-up A&W Cream Soda (blech)

>Dragonfruit can help bind some fruits in your mix, but it's still dragonfruit flavoring.

This is a huge one for me. "It has triacetin which is an emulsifier so the fruits taste like they're all blended instead of separate" is one of those explanations that sorta sound right so they must be right and everybody starts parroting them. As a scientist it sounds so dumb it's annoying. It may be true but I'll believe it when there's actual evidence instead of anecdotes and "everybody says so on diy_ejuice".

I have never met a cream / custard flavor I liked. I’ve seen people recommend everything from marshmallow to merengue, sweet cream to custard, yogurt to ice cream, be added to a number of fruit flavors to give it “something extra.” Some folks really seem to love them, but I find that even at small percentages, they just drown other flavors to me.

Most sweetness are disgusting I can't stand juices which are overly sweet or leave the taste for minutes in your mouth.

Most recipes / one shots / premium flavors or juices taste like dogs end and are just overhyped. People buy them and vape them because the description tells em how they taste.

I wish I would never have started with vaping

Not every recipe or mixture ever made needs to be public.. There is a "private recipe" option for a reason.

Vendors... please give description of your flavorings...

Flavour Art... please make description of your flavorings that make sense. I won't buy it if I don't know wtf it is.

Supertasters are real... and it sucks to be one of them. If you think the percentages are too low... increase them... I always have to adjust the percentages on yours. It's only fair.

Scales vs syringes vs drops... Who cares... Use what works for you.

People are going to continue to call it steeping...

People still believing that since they don't hear about popcorn lung it must mean diketones are safe to vape .

That one always cracks me the hell up.

Believing that using profanity is a good idea in explaining things or using it intermittently in discussions as a whole.

*Mixing your syringes is perfectly fine. Just give them a quick rinse and you'll never know the difference

*Your PG/VG ratio is not the most important thing in the world. Eyeballing in a pinch is going to be unnoticeable unless you have some freak sensitivity. Want bigger clouds? Rough out 70%. Want an even mix? Just eyeball it.

*You can mix your syringes.

*Some of the most popular recipes taste like absolute b-hole

*You can mix your syringes between flavors. Just give a quick rinse

*Sterility isn't necessary and juice manufacturers who invested in crazy-clean labs early on were doing it for marketing purposes. This is the equivalent to mixing some Lipton iced tea, not breaking bad.

*Go ahead and mix syringes between flavors. Seriously, it's not that bad at all.

*If you don't keep up on your supplies you're going to fall into a cycle of paying 30 dollars for 1 bottle "just to hold you over," and before you know it you've spent 300% of your yearly DIY budget for a month's worth of over-sweetened juice.

*Mixing syringes is A O K.