Not gonna bury the lead, here’s a gallery with 50+ mixing setups for inspiration##
Workflow
The two most logical methods of organization are alphabetical and by profile/category. As far as the methods of storage, some people like queuetue and coop34 like to keep their flavors sealed away in bins and out of sight while others like myself and most of the mixing setups you’ll see in the gallery, like to have everything on display and easily accessible. It all depends on whether you have a dedicated space to mix or you’re stuck using whatever flat surface is available for a temporary laboratory.
Acrylic nail polish racks are one of the most common recommendations for those who have the space but if you don’t then this nail polish Carrying Case will keep your flavors visible and can still be stored away when not in use. Or if you have the skills you can DIY your own storage like that guy or this guy. Personally I’m too lazy for all that and would rather just buy solutions to my problems…
Keeping base flavors separate and easily accessible
If you’re like me you’ll find yourself reaching for some of the same flavors time and time again in order to build the foundation of a recipe, or when testing new flavors you might have a go to flavor pairing e.g. a new fruit to add to VBIC or FLV Cream
Some flavors just lend themselves to more use. Those flavors I buy in larger bottles and rebottle into smaller ones so that I can keep them within reach for quickly mixing up a new idea.
Digital Organization
All The Flavors and Hotrod’s JuiceCalculator both have the ability to track inventory and will reduce the amount you have on hand with each batch that you make. It does require some setup and is a lot easier to manage if you start using the feature before your collection has grown into something ridiculous and worthy of being featured on the show Hoarders.
All The Flavors also allows you to add flavors to your stash by forwarding your order emails from several of the popular vendors and automagically fills out the price and quantity for you.
Shelf life
This really only becomes a concern if you buy in quantities that exceed practical use. i.e. don’t buy 4oz of a flavor you’ve never tried. Also don’t buy more than you can try before the next time you buy.
Taking notes is important in general but especially practical when it comes to understanding the lifespan of your flavors. If a concentrate expires or sits around unused long enough to ‘go off’ it probably wasn’t something you needed anyway and if you took notes on day one, then you’ll be able to note the change on day 100. Without notes you might end up using an old concentrate in a recipe and fail to understand why it’s not turning out how the creator described it and/or how other people reviewed it.
If a flavor is really good but really concentrated and you see yourself using it a lot but not enough to consume the entire bottle within 6-12 months, consider rebottling it in glass (and even rebottling as a dilution) in order to extend its shelf life.
Some flavors degrade and others degrade with style. Bavarian Cream, in my experience, gets darker and richer, fuller tasting and almost more potent. That, however, is not the case for the vast majority of flavors. In my experience, most of them just lose potency over time and even that takes longer than a 10ml will typically last.
^Advice ^from ^TFA ^on ^Storage/Shelf ^Life
Hopefully this gives you some ideas for your own setup. Mine is always evolving based on the ideas I see other people come up with and whatever random method seems brilliant this week. Ultimately, for me at least, it’s just another fun aspect of this hobby. Feel free to share you setup and any novel ideas/techniques you’ve come up with for organizing your flavors and mixing space.
Previous FAQ Friday topics that may be of interest
Next week /u/ConcreteRiver will be taking over FAQ Friday to enlighten us on his methods of Single Flavor Testing.
This is what happens when you have no impulse control and live down the street from a DIY vendor. But wait, there's more... That used to have books on it but who has time to read when there are so many new flavors to try.
Nice looking setup. Is that actually a closet where the doors close and you never even know it's there? If so it's even slicker than when it seems at first glance.
It is although the doors are rarely ever closed.
Good lord! Tell me that’s your setup. I’m guessing you’re in apex then? I’m down in that area a few times a year. My bro is in apex too.
I'm always in awe of your setup. Mine's, uh.... much less organized. although i can usually find what i need it's always an absolute mess.
Also it's bury the lede.
Holy shit. That image gallery, and your setup....uh, wow, only in my dreams. I have very limited space so I keep 10ml flavors in 10ga/12ga shotgun shell ammo boxes. I separate into a few categories and within the category it's all alphabetical. I label the bottoms so they're easy to find.
I like having a wide variety of juice and rarely mix a large (over 120ml) of any recipe so I only have a few flavors in 30ml bottles. Here are a few photos. I've got a couple more boxes now but it's not hard to expand or rearrange.
https://m.imgur.com/a/PR6OR
The shotshell boxes are available on Amazon or can be ordered online from Walmart.
My mixing station is the top of a dresser in a room that serves several purposes. All other vaping equipment or supplies are in a tackle box on top of the dresser or in the top two drawers, fighting for space with a stock of household batteries and misc office supplies. Nic stays in the freezer except the 50ml "in-use" squeeze bottle in the dresser. PG & VG are in the linen closet.
I would have never thought to use those but that is a great idea and they seem to fit perfectly. I just ordered a couple, I think they’ll be really useful for storing my 10ml single flavor testers. Right now those just end up spread around my desk. Thanks for the tip!
Wanted to drop back in to thank you for this tip.
I too am short of space, and also have a cat so the firmly sealed shotgun shell tubs looked ideal.
I bought a tub, and the fit is absolutely spot on. I can turn it upside down and no bottles move. Its easy to access when needed, and secure when not. Bang on, good show, thanks again!
First nail polish rack I got was just for tobaccos. Then the tobaccos filled it. So I got another, and then I could fit everything, so I went by company and alphabetical. Then I got more flavors, so I put a shelf above my desk. My NETs took over that shelf, but the buying never stopped. So now I’m the proud owner of 2 full nail polish racks, a shelf, and a desk filled with random flavors. I’d reorganize, but then I’ll just get more flavors and end up with the desk filled up again. I don’t think storing them in boxes will work for me because sometimes when I’m working on a recipe I scan all the flavors waiting for one to speak to me. If they were all put away I’d probably just end up mixing Black for Pipe all the time.
These faq Fridays are fuckin awesome! Really appreciate these well written chunks of useful info. Really informative for beginners and advanced mixers alike. Much appreciated
Thanks, man. I’m trying to walk the line between it being useful for beginners and still interesting to people with more experience. It’s a unique task and I’m no pro but it’s feedback like this that makes me want to keep trying :)
Here's what I currently have going. Made the shelf myself. Not to shabby for a new mixer. https://imgur.com/a/TGDNJ
Just wanted to share my setup here :)
That’s awesome! I’ve thought about making something like that too. Was it a lot of work?
/u/EdibleMalfunction I wanna see that mixing cart. Show me!
Ah shit son! I’ll take some pics tomorrow. Lots of family over now fawning over the tiny human.
Ah, she hath arrived. Congrats, my man!
I haven't seen my pix in quite a while, good memory.
I consider your setup to be the gold standard. Have you bought all the things yet? /s
Almost there, any day now... ;)
I have the same little printer. Was that you that printed out some pretty awesome labels from it? I remember someone showing some that I could hardly believe were printed on that Dymo. I haven't been able to do much beyond basic stuff.
You mean these? They're not the most durable or dynamic labels but I like them. You can fit a lot of legible text on them, too, if you're inclined to print the recipe on the bottle. I usually just add "line art" to whatever image I'm searching for to get something that will print well.
This is quite troublesome to me... it seems like it’s going to be very expensive to buy so many glass bottles and trying to find them small enough to store reasonably doesn’t seem likely but I haven’t looked yet I hope I’m wrong about the size but I doubt it’s going to be cheap uuugh ....
Probably not worth the effort for 90% of your concentrates. I had a vendor give me a 4oz bottle (free) that had a mfg date stamped on it from 2014 and I tested it side by side with a smaller bottle I had just bought (different vendor) and the only difference I could perceive was that the fresher of the two was slightly brighter and probably just a little more potent. In a mix it’s unlikely I would have even noticed a difference.
This is awesome stuff, thanks for doing what you do!
No problem, man. I was just about to tag you and ask if you're still using a shoebox ;)
I'm up to 3 shoe boxes! Well, a boot box, a flip flop box, and an empty 5 lb. box of bagged frozen pollock.
I was actually considering upgrading to just 2 boot boxes and ditching those smaller ones.
I figured you would have upgraded to something more like this by now
Sorry that I’m still Reddit challenged and I don’t know how to link or post pics but I want to share what I think is the best printer I’ve found and I’ve had the dymo and brother hand held which I liked ok until I found the ‘brother p-touch ‘.. it’s a wireless, it’s tiny and it has an app that ppl more talented than I am can create better things with but I like the fact it’s so space saving and wireless and uses the same printing cartridges the hand helds used and I loved that because I really liked that label tape... it’s another $40-50 if I remember correctly but being able to print from your computer/ iPad/ laptop makes it well worth it to me.....;))
I use a flat, fishing tackle box that fits 10 ml concentretes perfectly. It has 4 rows inside perfect for splitting up your concentretes by type (fruit, candy, tobacco, baked goods etc). The dividers also have notches in them to further add more dividing walls if you want. This is essential so that your bottles don't all fall down when you take one out. What I do next is place a small piece of tape on top of the bottle cap and write in tiny letters the type of flavor. When I want to mix, I just grab the tackle box off the shelf, open it up and can quickly see all the flavor names from the top, classified by type without having to search too long (alphabetical listing helps too). When I take a bottle out, everything else stays perfectly in place. For me, this system is ideal because it saves a lot of time. You have visibility where everything is, no need to search and replace your bottles. When you're done, everything goes out of sight.
I have been using a Rubbermaid double stack dual storage bin. Works awesome my flavors are all sealed inside fits up to 30ml bottles. And you can fit a good amount in each one.
Was scrolling through to see where to take my setup next and realized my setup was pic 25 of 52! Dilly, dilly! Some of those setups are MASSIVE. I wish I had an entire room to dedicate to mixing.
> 52!
52! = 8.06581751709439e+67
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