I see people using concentrates at 3%, for instance in a review of TFA Champagne I saw. The vendor I've used suggests 'starting at 10-15% and adjusting to taste' for most concentrates I've seen, including TFA champagne. My experience so far (admittedly I have not been steeping properly much of the time) has been that their 10-15% suggestion gives a satisfactory flavour; I intend to test lower concentrations but I'm finding it hard to imagine 3% tasting like much.
Maybe my palette is just deadened for some reason, IDK. I just wanted to see what others think. Is my situation unusual? Have there ever been reports of diluted concentrates being sold? I noticed that both the TFA and FW concentrates I bought come in the same 10ml bottles with similar looking printed labels so the vendor must receive large containers and repackage themselves - is that the norm? Or does each company usually ship their concentrates in individual 10/30/XXml bottles, similar to premixed juices in stores?
Also on an unrelated note, do coils tend to last longer when you DIY? I've been using the same 0.5ohm coil in my subtank for over 2 months now and I go through 3-9ml juice a day. Back when I was a part time vaper using premixed juices I'd swap coils anywhere from 2-4 weeks each but this one seems to just keep going...
EDIT: Thanks for all the replies - this is a very helpful sub! I must apologise to the isolated individual who felt the title was misleading, though. Perhaps next time I post a question I will use two question marks.
Why is this post flaired with 'misleading title'? The title is a question, it's not leading at all.
This sub is really hostile.
No. It's not leading, it is misleading tho. The question has nothing to do with some vendor selling diluted flavor concentrates, it's about the percentage of concentrate to use. Totally different issue. Most of us who looked at it first thought there was some sort of fuckery being implied.
Those percentages are from the ce4 cartomizer and "vape pen" days.
Yep. The older style hardware we used didn't provide nearly as much flavor or cloud. Hence using alot more flavoring and higher PG to carry the flavor better.
I find myself revising older recipes and subtracting 10-20% flavoring each time I mix them to find a new sweet spot.
Yes coils will last longer going DIY route if you don't use sweetener. 15% is really high. 3% might give a great flavor and adding more becomes counter productive and you taste it less. Always start low and then adjust to taste.
I wonder if this is because the senses get overloaded or if it's something else happening chemically. Flavor isn't additive and that's common knowledge in the DIY community but do we really know why?
I think that recommendation is for use as a single flavor, when you're seeing the concentrate used at 3% I assume that is in a recipe? Test it out, make a few small batches, like 5mls, at different % of that single flavor. A lot of recipes range from 5-15% concentrate total.
Everywhere I've ordered from gets their liquid in bulk and rebottles it to smaller sizes with their own label.
Generally DIY juice uses far less sweetener, so your cotton doesn't get as dirty as quick. Sometimes if I'm feeling lazy I grab a commercial juice and can't even make it through 60mls without changing my cotton because it's black and burnt. I can go through 150 Mls of DIY juice before the cool itself gets gunked up and the cotton isn't even that bad.
TFA White Chocolate is one of the weaker flavor concentrates. It needs to be around ten percent. (With modern gear.)
Older gear (think Ego pens) didn't produce much in the way of vapor or flavor, so needed more concentrated juice. Manufacturer recommended levels mostly date back to then, for the longer established.
And, as has been mentioned, too much flavoring tends to mute itself. Partially because a number of flavors contain EM, which mutes flavors in high enough concentration, partially due to olafactory fatigue. So it's possible to get the exact same flavor from two different concentration levels. And if that's the case, manufacturers would prefer you use the higher level, so they can sell more.
Commercial juice contains high amounts of succralose, that is why it gunks uo coils so fast.
So yes, DIY juice is much better, as long as you don't add succralose :)
10-15% sound crazy to me. But then...everywhere I look, shop reviews, forums, people use crazy high flavor percentages for unknown reasons. I usually use less than half of what the average says and often enough that's still too much.
Here's a question: in your opinion, which sweetener gunks less, sucralose or stevia?
I'm currently using FLV Sweetness and seems to be working better than the TFA Sweetener, gunk-wise.
Recommended %'s are just that - a recommendation. It's not a case of diluted concentrates, it's a matter of everyone's pallet being different, and that there is no 'golden rule of thumb'. It all depends on the recipe, the user, and the concentrate. It's about what works for you. That being said, you'll be hard pressed to find anyone that would think 15% TPA champagne is a good idea.