I've been seeing a lot of Jam Monster clone recipes pop up lately on various forums. I've tried them all and none come close. To me this is the holy grail of ejuice, if I ever find an accurate recipe or manage to clone this one I will never buy premium juice again and vape only that because it's my ADV. Anyway, what I've noticed is that a lot of these recipes miss out on some key elements that may inform the flavoring selection.
For example, when was the juice first released and has the flavor/recipe changed since then? That can help rule out certain flavorings.
Then there's the issue of how the juice's color changes as it steeps. Jam Monster strawberry is actually a pretty interesting juice. From my observations, the first 3 months from the born date the juice has a pale yellow color, it's only in the fourth month where that deep yellow-orange color really develops. That could also play a role in determining the flavorings it uses, because some flavorings seem to change color as they steep more than others, and at different frequencies.
So I guess what I'm asking is, other than a simple taste test, what other subtle nuances do you look for when you're trying to accurately clone something?
Nicotine plays a huge part in taste as well when trying to clone. Believe it or not but some eliquid companies don't use the "best" nicotine that DIYers like to buy. Problem is some nicotine solutions actually add good flavor to a mix when it oxidizes a bit.
I used to buy an eliquid from a shop that wasn't that popular, and didn't have any dates or lot numbers on the bottles. Shop went under and I purchased straight from the company (same pricing). Straight from the company wasn't nearly as good. I steeped for 3 months and still not as good. It also hadn't developed the reddish deep color that I would get from the shop.
Left it in the sun for another month, and it got its color, and great taste back.
None of my DIY nicotine has been able to replicate that taste, even with the same oxidation. Nude is horrible when oxidized, NicRiver is boringly not good, CX is ok but lacks a bit of the bite at higher percentages.
So if you're trying to clone, clone 0mg.
The date the juice first came out can also eliminate flavors that are more recent. However... if a clone recipe produces a juice that tastes the same or better than the original, does it matter if the recipe is actually identical?
Is it possible for juice manufacturers to create custom flavorings for companies use only and not release them for the public?
I seem to remember Capella doing this. Basically giving out betas of flavorings to some companies, and then later releasing them to the public.
I know Artifact Vapor worked with TFA (i think it was TFA) to create at least one custom flavoring for his line.
And there have been others where they stopped producing their eliquids because the manufacturer has stopped making the flavoring. Even though there was no buzz on DIY about a flavoring being discontinued. So it might have been a custom flavoring from a well known flavoring manufacturer or a really unknown one simply stopped supplying them.
So yeah, sometimes it's simply not possible to clone even with a huge inventory and a perfect palette. But, something like Jam Monster which is a budget line probably wasn't that meticulous with getting a secret perfected flavoring into their line.
"Better" is subjective, so if the goal is the most accurate clone I guess it depends. If it's an accurate clone using newer ingredients it wouldn't matter. But you know how DIY is, if you swap out one flavoring for another you end up with a different juice. It can still taste amazing but it's not the same.
I've never had the juice, but I bet it's RF Strawberry Jam & Toast + CAP Super Sweet. Large scale budget juice companies aren't going to have a 12 ingredient juice.
If you're fishing for a Jam Monster clone, this isn't the place to do it.
The subject matter of the post doesn't appear to be geared towards cloning so much as it is toward the premium juice you're clearly fixated with. In fact, upon dissection, it looks as if you have 2 paragraphs about Jam Monster, 1 sentence about release dates and flavor elimination, and a question about how we clone juice.
If you wanted to open up discussion about what you've tried and what the results were, that would be much more acceptable, as many users have done in the past, and some of them even found their "secret ingredient" from someone else that was quietly working on it.
I'm really finding it hard to think you aren't disguising a clone request as some sort of discussion, conveniently about the "holy grail of ejuice" you're trying to clone.
I'm not fishing for a goddamn recipe, I'm asking people who have more experience than I do what to look for when trying to clone something other than doing a blind taste test and guesstimating. Read the fucking post FFS. You guys need to relax, this subreddit is like a fucking gulag.
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