My First Order Project Update 1: How do I get a realistic/”BEST” single fruit flavor (Single Flavor Profile/SFP)?
When the latest Throwback Thursday: First Order Flavors was posted, I saw an opportunity to perhaps contribute to the forum by organizing information for new mixers to have a place to start if they wanted to buy concentrates just to meet specific profiles. I saw some interest in the comments of the usefulness of a more detailed/topic specific beginner’s guide to mixing. (I’m also compiling some TOP lists based on alltheflavors statistics separately.) I’d love to contribute in some small way to everything I’ve gained here so if this is something you’d like to see, I’m glad to take this on. It’s extremely important to note that flavor and taste is subjective, but I ask you: How do I get a realistic/”BEST” single fruit flavor (Single Flavor Profile/SFP)?
Intro:
As a new mixer, I made all the noob mistakes of buying random flavors and splashing them together, sometimes even liking the unreproducible results. For the most part, however, I was constantly asking why this apple flavor doesn’t taste like apple or this strawberry didn’t taste like strawberries. Even worse was when I started looking at highly rated recipes and realized I didn’t buy those flavors. The solution? Why, sub with my already insufficient stash of flavors of course! This resulted in my being less than happy yet again and I almost gave up.
I started with asking about fruits because they are generally SNV and I limited my search to a couple of hours of reading and googling time. I found stuff that isn’t too old and looked it over and found it lacking in variety. Maybe I suck at searching? (Also, I didn’t have the time to go through each FOTW but will eventually!) I thought I would post the topics in the form of questions (Teacher habit) I sort of had when I started. Here is (some of) what I found.
Single flavor profiles:
Blueberry FOTW LINK1 LINK2 LINK3:
|Vendor|Flavor|%| |:-|:-|:-| |TFA|Blueberry Extra|4%| |FW|Blueberry|3%| |FA|Bilberry|0.5%| |CAP|Italian Lemon Sicily|0.5%|
Coconut: V1 FOTW LINK 1:
|Vendor|Flavor|%| |:-|:-|:-| |FA|Coconut|2.5%| |TFA|Coconut Candy|0.75%ish| |TFA|Coconut (not extra!)|0.5%|
Coconut: V2 FOTW LINK 2:
|FLV|Sweet Coconut|1.75%| |:-|:-|:-| |FA|Coconut|0.75%|
Mango FOTW LINK1 LINK2:
|FLV|Mango|4%| |:-|:-|:-| |CAP|Sweet Mango|1%|
Peach FOTW LINK 1: V1
|FLV |Peach|2%| |:-|:-|:-| |FA|Apricot|2%| |INW|Peach|1%|
Peach FOTW LINK 2: V2
|JF|Honey Peach|2.5%| |:-|:-|:-| |INW|Peach |1%|
Pineapple FOTW LINK:
|INW |Pineapple|5%ish| |:-|:-|:-| |CAP |Golden Pineapple|1%ish| |TFA|Pineapple|0.75%ish|
Strawberry FOTW LINK:
|INW |Shisha Strawberry|3%| |:-|:-|:-| |FA|Red Touch (Strawberry)|2%| |JF|Sweet Strawberry|1%|
Please fill in the gaps on fruit flavors/links
Flavors: Kiwi FOTW LINK, apple FOTW LINK1 LINK2, raspberry FOTW LINK1 LINK2, watermelon FOTW LINK1 LINK2 LINK3, honeydew FOTW LINK1, cantaloupe FOTW LINK1…
Links:
a. https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/6xqm0p/single_flavor_profile_recipes/
b. https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/6gzlgy/whats_your_favourite_standalone_flavor/
c. https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/4ltzxb/flavor_of_the_week_candy/
d. https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/63ucy7/making_a_catalog_of_concentrate_starter_kits/
Current and totally temporary/changeable list of categories that I think would be useful for a new mixer looking to make something out of the gate:
First: Single Flavor Profiles – How do I get a realistic/"BEST" fruit flavor?
Next: How do I get a cream/custard/ice cream/milkshake/"BEST" flavor base?
Then: Tobaccos – How do I get a light/dark/ashy/menthol/dessert/cig/pipe/nutty/"BEST" flavor?
Then: Teas – How do I get a black/green/fruit/iced/"BEST" tea flavor?
Then: Donut – How do I get a frosted/glazed/powdered/jam filled/fried doughy/cinnamon/"BEST" donut flavor?
Then: Cereal – How do I get a berry/frosted/fruit loop/corn flake/"BEST" cereal flavor?
I’ll compile everything I find and resubmit to the mods/community.
Please comment with any constructive criticism, your saved reddit links, personal notes/experience, recipe links for examples of how combos/SFP are used, or just anything that could help a beginner know what to buy and how to link it in order to answer the question: How do I get a realistic/"BEST" single fruit flavor (Single Flavor Profile/SFP)?
Let the opinions fly!
edit 1: Added FOTW links to current list
Nice write up. I like this for a nice juicy apple.
Cap Double Apple 4%
Fa Fuji 1%
Fa Pear 1.5%
Having played around with apple I'm sure your mix is really nice. However I'm wondering why you didn't go with TPA Apple, it's got a really decent base to start from and cheaper as well. My personal preference is %5 TPA Apple, then 1% on Fuji (literally had the same notes), and I actually finish with .5% Kiwi for some bite. I do enjoy Cap Double Apple, but it just seems so much more expensive to me.
I'll try your combo and we can compare notes.
I've not tried Tpa apple , I bought CDA for a recipe and its my favorite apple I've tried.
This is a wonderful idea, a "simple" series of not-so-simple but completely interchangeable building blocks. I was just about to look into changing a few of my favorite strawberry + xyz recipes into other fruit + xyz recipes, so this is a perfect starting point, thank you.
I agree. In fact I'm going to work on the perfect mango, then mix it with his strawberry and see if I get an even better strawberry mango or if I just end up with chemical soup. Will post mango results here when I get it done.
Why not just trust the Lord of the ~~Flies~~Mangos, /u/ID10-T?
Like this?
Pear: 4% Molinberry Shape Up! Pear + 1.5% FA Pear + 0.5% TFA Pear
Prickly Pear: 2.5% CAP Sweet Guava, 2.25% FA Red Summer (Watermelon), 0.75% FA Pear
I just ordered some shape up because of how highly you rated it in one of the threads. Going to try subbing it in some of my pear juices and see how the public takes to it. Im pretty excited. Would you say 4% is roughly the sweet spot for it?
looks good! do you think it's necessary to add the user data to the post of the draft for the community review? I personally dont like long posts when Im reading but love them when they're archived.
Ok. For blueberry, you have the trinity. That's pretty much all that's needed. (INW Lemon Mix can sub for lemon Sicily, and buying it doesn't help anyone that shouldn't be helped. Fuck FANA.)
Surprised the coconut doesn't include any FLV....
Apple starts with FA Fuji. Then you need to go by variety to figure out what if anything to add. (Translation - 'best apple' will have "best realistic cooking apple/best realistic eating apple/best realistic juice apple/best realistic green apple/best candy apple/best candy green apple and pretty much most of those will be fa Fuji plus something.)
I would suggest having a nomination thread for each fruit flavor. Let people nominate specific concentrates (or blends of concentrates) for their categories. Then have polls held after, or just take the concentrates with the most nominations for each category. Of course, the problem is if one common flavor gets a lot of support, and there's a lesser known concentrate that is better...so a vote where voters have tried both might be useful.
Out of the loop here, what's the beef with FANA?
Threatening vendors with being blackballed if they buy flavors that FANA won't sell them from FA in Italy or the UK. Really shady behavior. And they threatened ATF to get a recipe taken down just because /u/ID10-T outed them in the description.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/8a18mo/fuck_you_shaun_casey/
The coconut V2 has flv sweet coconut. Do you have a recommendation for percentages with FLV coconut? FLV coconut is found in less than a third of the recipes that FLV sweet coconut is for some reason... not sure why but i'll look into when i get a chance. I can run a nomination thread if necessary but there's not more than one or two per fruit. Without the recipes/suggestions, it seems not really worth the effort to organize as there'd be nothing to vote on. Unless on second read you were saying to lead a vote on which concentrates are the "BEST" for each flavor like a "if you had to pick one_____?" thread? Is that what you meant? or just the more detailed version of each? Excuse my lack of understanding (and reluctance to make the project bigger than it is!)
The point was, maybe people have suggestions other than what you may have already. Obviously for blueberry they'd be mistaken heathens for realistic, but maybe for best candy version, or best juice version, or best jam version, or maybe best pie filling version.
Makes sense and sounds extremely useful. I can run some posts like that after I finish up the beginner’s list which is much more general and probably a broader stroke right now. I sort of wish there were more specific information on percentages and categories on FOTW which I don’t really see. General discussion and a few recipes which is all cool.
Nice post. I would suggest organizing the SFP better, because right now, it's kind of confusing. For example, is the FA BIlberry 0.5%, or the CAP Italian Lemon SIcily? Maybe put them in a table.
This is a great idea. I too went down a similar road with buying random flavors, then subbing and now finally getting it together and getting the tried & true combinations. With so many different variations on flavors (coconut, coconut milk, coconut candy, coconut extra, etc) it can be very confusing and easy to pick up a flavor that doesn't play nicely. It can definitely help newer (and old!) mixers to find some of these little hints as well, I would have never thought of adding lemon or bilberry to for a better blueberry until recently.
Saving this post and taking notes for later. Excited to see what more I can learn from these posts. Thank you!
I'm not knocking your peach, I'm sure it's fantastic. However I really like FA White Peach for fragrance, only a slight percentage as it gets overpowering quickly. I haven't tried FLV Peach, but will give it a shot.
These suggestions I found from searching. I’m going to look in the threads a little more closely. The idea is to compile suggested combinations based on user preferences. If you have some suggestions on your percents and combinations and I can add them with a description of the interpretation.
Anyone want to play around with Raspberry? I use TPA Raspberry Sweet, INW Raspberry WG, and FA Raspberry and they are all delicious but different. Which one would make the best base?
One more thought about the pineapple before I have to go to work. I haven't made your version, and I'm sure it's great. However I find that TPA Pineapple has a chemical taste to it, which is why you always see it at low percentages. TPA Dragonfruit is an almost pineapple, with not chemical taste. Just a thought.
i find most recipes are for dtl... i really wish people would post dtl or mtl. these recipes with 5% total flavour are not suited for mtl at all...
I was reading this today, maybe you'll find it useful? https://diyordievaping.com/2017/10/17/mixing-for-closed-system-devices/
i've read that. a great read. More and more people are switching back to mtl and recipes can be very different between the 2. I just find most recipes posted are for dtl so people who start mixing who vape mtl might get discouraged when recipes don't turn out very well.
Good point. I do both now almost 50/50 and have been mixing more and more for my mtl. It is different. I try not to bump up the percentages but I will keep the mixes maxed at 3 flavors. I’ll make sure if I’m still helping with this to add some discussion as to this topic specifically.