Days ago i couldnt understand how people mixed (for example) strawberry TFA at 6% and say that over 10% for most of flavors is an overkill, when i usually mix my strawberry and most of fruits at 14%.
I cant taste them decently after 24hours, this seems like a really short steeping time so these are my methods for mixing.
However, a few minutes ago i tried a liquid i mate 2 days ago, at 5% strawberry TFA and it seems to get better day after day, i know its onky 2 days since i made it but what if in a week it tastes even better that the 60ml i made at 14% TFA strawberry and ive been mixing wrong the whole time because of not being patient with steeping times thus underestimating the nature of the process?
If this is the case, whats the minimun and maximun amount of time to steep:
Fruits as a stand alone.
Creams, custards and tabaccos as a stand alone flavor.
And then simple recipe with fruits + some cream, like for example dragon blood (with dragonfruit 10% if i remember right, strawberry a 5%, bavarian cream 5% and vanilla swirl 3%)
Or steeping time for just a cantaloupe + bavarian cream + vanilla swirl recipe.
I hide them in my closet at room temperature, however i sometimes leave them out in the table where the light of the room hits them pretty directly plus some sun but this one is not really intense. Could these factors have an effect on the flavor after steeping?
Personally, I think steeping is underrated. I've made a few mixes by reputable people here and found that the steeping recommendation is not long enough at all, ok they might be vapable but no where near the prime.
That is true, but we know people are impatient and try to give the shortest time possible.
That's understandable. I wasn't knocking people for doing that but do you not think that, as a recipe creator, it could do you more harm than good? I mean if your recipe really comes in to its own after 3 weeks but you say 1 week is ok some people might not wait the 3 weeks and doubt your skill based on the 1 week flavour?
Honestly I think it's insane that Mustard Milk is supposed to be a shake and vape. Or at least that's what ATF says: 0 day steep. So, a shake and vape.
I don't know where people are getting these vanilla ice cream (and custard) flavors that are good in a shake and vape. I always need to steep them before they're worth vaping. I've always steeped it and I always find it much better. I'm letting some steep right now, actually.
Truth. At this point I'm doubling or adding a month to all my mixes. Even the shake and vapes.
I’m at the median of two weeks, a month is a bit too long imho - except for the tobaccos and hearty custards, those need close to a month at least. Never believed the SnV thing, anything that’s SnV for me tastes horrible when vaped immediately after mixing.
I thought a month is too long too, until I made an orange vanilla sherbet mix. After the suggested 3 week steep, it tasted great but was unbelievably harsh. I didn't finish the bottle and forgot about it till a month after, when I tried it again and it still tasted good but the harshness was gone for some reason.
My only real SnV is a basic fruit lemonade, and really only strawberry lemonade. I have a few others that I can SnV, but prefer to steep. Everything else is definitely better after steeping.
I actually like my strawberry lemonade juice less after it steeps. It's a real oddity, but also makes it super convenient if I need to throw together a bottle real quick.
fruits can be shake and vaped but get better with time. i'd say under a week depending on what fruits you're talking about. some have offnotes that need to steep out. They can also fade, though, so it's up to you to figure out the sweet spot for your mixes.
creams and custards generally need more than a week. Up to a month. I have a custard i've been deep-steeping for around half a year. I'd love to tell you how it tastes but, well, I'm not opening it for another 6.
I think part of your problem not being able to taste 14% after a day is that it's possible to blow out your receptors, desensitizing yourself to that flavor very very quickly. more is - in almost all cases - not better.
Steeping is not overrated. Everyone who says it is, or is trying to get you to try "speed steeping" is lying to you or just doesn't know the correct answer.
I can wait two weeks and I can wait one month but a year is quite a long time.
> when i usually mix my strawberry and most of fruits at 14%.
I just mentally vaped INW Malina at 14% and died inside.
I am a huge fan of a good steep. I used to be a warm bath kind of guy but really father time does it best.
I have had many concentrates that are borderline unvapable freshly mixed. I don't like waste so I have just put them away in my stash box at the back of the cupboard. a few months later and the colours and flavours have vastly changed. I discovered one of my all time favourite vapes by doing this. So yeah I think it works, but is more beneficial for certain flavours.
Especially works well for creamy flavours. Pineapple Ice cream in my case
Yeah I had some terrible juices inexplicably turn good (not great, just good) after a long long steep, like 3 months+
I think we're just getting lucky here TBH. Besides there is no way it'd be commercially viable to steep for so long so you know it'll never become a thing except among us DiY'ers
That's it no premade juices would be left to steep for months before they sell them. They should do though if that's when they are at their best, like wine and whisky. But it isn't going to happen for a juice there isn't the money in it.
Yeah so they add a ton of sweetener and probably heat it (behind the scenes of course) to make the ingredients more miscible before packaging and shipping out. The sweetener dulls out all the sharp notes you'd normally get from such a fresh juice. That's why most commercial juices taste nothing like the day they were bought within a week or at least a month.
As a general rule, the less of a flavor you have in your mix, the better it will steep.
I see, is it normal to one day taste decent, another taste bad and another taste good?
With a high percentage on a flavour like you are using, it give you ‘vapors tongue’ and kills the flavour, where you can barely even taste it. Try a lower percentage. And for steeping, most fruits are shake and vapes, but Cream/custards need atleast a week, and shine at a month
Ive hears so many things about fruits, some say its a shake and vape, other say shake and vape doesnt even exists and you should always steep at least fruits for 4 days. Who knows at this point i guess you just have to try for yourself and see
Nothing is truly shake and vape because it takes time for the flavors to fully mix with the VG and nic. When you vape something right after shaking it up there's a good chance you'll get a vape that is very different from the final vape because you'll get more or less what the final overall concentration is. It doesn't seem to matter how hard or thoroughly you shake either, shit just takes time.
That being said I can mix 5% cactus and 10% FA peach and a little EM and shake and vape it. It still gets better and more consistent with time though.
oh, and don't they shine! what I did was mixed a 60ml. after a week I vaped it for a day. I go thru maybe 10 ml on an average. then I won't vape it again until week two, then, three, and so on. wow, the wonders of time and steeping. what I do is make shake n vapes while I wait. works for me but it takes a little bit of motivation and heart, and a dedicated notepad you can scribble on. it's not that hard in the right mindset
Just chipping in my long-winded cents for posterity’s sake..
Steeping is completely and totally underrated. I do not understand how people fully enjoy or even develop recipes without proper steeps. In fact, many of the recipes I try that are made by other mixers do not tolerate time well at all. They start off strong and fall apart throughout a month. Plus, vaping a fresh mix comes off really forward and disjointed. Allowing the mix a significant amount of time to homogenize gives you an all around more satisfying end product. It’s smoother, more stable, and the flavor comes through with greater clarity.
There is a place for shake and vape stuff.. but I feel like they’re given 90% of the spotlight, and it fucking sucks. Everyone just mixes something, immediately tastes it, declares it delicious, and moves on. Then, you mix it, and after a month, when it should be optimal, it tastes like a muddy mess. A lot of folks claim they know where the flavors will be in a month because x amount of time invested in the hobby, but they honestly don’t really know. They have ideas, and those ideas are more often than not pretty far off base. I know mine tend to be. I’m not trying to hate on that style of mixing, I just think there should be more emphasis on long-term development of steeper keepers and less 7-minute abs.
There are so many variables that there's not a certain answer. My juices varies from 6-25% and steeping time from shake and vape to 8 weeks. Some of my DIY cereal flavours really start to shine only after 2 months on the other hand some fruity mixes start to loose their flavour after more than 1 week.
Ok i see, but fruits losing flavor after one week? And why is this
Maybe I overexaggerated a little bit but definitely after a couple of weeks it's downhill flavour wise. Probably it has something to do with fruit molecules breaking down faster or something.
One example of this is a recipe I found on ATF called Honey Pearry. Tasted great at first but I left about 30ml in the bottle for a month or two. When I came back to it there was hardly any flavor in it. Great recipe but it fades pretty hard after a couple weeks.
Citrus flavors.
Really light flavor volatiles, such as the ones common in citrus flavors, tend to be the first to escape a mix. Various mixing mistakes (like 'breathing' and/or attempted 'speed-steeping') will accelerate the loss of such volatiles.
i'm with r/kachzz on this one. I've never done a shake and vape which i didnt think was immediately awful but improved with some waiting time. Most of my juices are cream based and those are ok after 4 weeks but seem to hit peak after about 6 weeks to 2 months. After previous dissapointments, the few fruit based juices I do I dont even bother sampling them for at least 2 weeks.
One time I mixed up a fruit cake juice, early on in my mixing career. It almost made me throw up and it made my friend choke. I also added way too much nicotine. I cut it 60/40 with VG to bring the nic to 6%, tried it and still hated it so I put it in a cabinet and forgot about it. I found it the other day and it was actually really nice. Never making that mix again though, lol
My wine making guru (r.i.p.) told me that when it stops bubbling it's fair game, crack out the wine glasses and pass the corkscrew. With ejuice I'm the same. I know that my juices will get better if I steep for a few days but I'm impatient and in all honesty a nice recipe will still be nice as an SnV. I do steep but only for special occasions like Christmas.
One of the big advantages to DIY is that you can have absolute control over the steeping process. I absolutely love cap vanilla custard as a base, but it needs time to steep (ideally several weeks). So I mix up large quantities of that at 6%, leaving another 12% to be added in later. That means that later on I can add bakery flavours a week prior to consumption and fruit flavours even closer. It's something you can't get from store-bought juice; the absolute control over steeping times can really help you dial in your flavour. I honestly think this is bordering on excessive measuring of steep times, but it works well for me.
With a lot of fruits, there's an alcoholic note that disappears after a couple of days. Bakery stuff I generally like after a week or two, especially with anything involving cinamon (which seems to get stronger with time so you can dial it down). Creams it's 3 weeks plus to smooth out the edges completely, but it varies from cream to cream. Tobaccos just keep getting better until the nic goes bad.
My brou, appreciate your input But how do you know when the steeping process is done? Please dont say when the liquid taste good, cause by following the steeping principle, you can easily say that the more you steep the better the flavor will be (with most flavors of course), question is how much is too much steep? I have heard some bro science stuff like when the bubbles in the already mixed liquid completely disappear you can say the steeping has finally ended, but dont really trust this method.
I don't claim to know any of the science behind it. I just rely on trial and a bunch of error. I mix up 10 mls and taste at varying times then scale it up as appropriate. It definitely isn't a the more you step the better it tastes thing (outside of tobacco flavours, where they can keep improving for months). Fruit and candy flavours fall off if you're steeping them as long as a cream. A lot of bakery/pastry flavours reach their optimum the just kind of taste the same.
There's a lot to be said for the resources you have here though as guidelines. A good review of a flavour doesn't just include various percentages; it also includes steep times for those percentages to see how of flavours mellow or change.
No. Steeping is NOT overrated. But not everything needs to steep. Most fruits (without adding creams or custards) will be good just vaping after a thorough shake. If you find a fruit has a monster throat hit (e.g., you feel it's scraping the insides of your airways), it'll usually mellow down if you let it sit for a week. However, there a fruits that tend to fade over a long steep, like lemon flavors.
On the other hand, creams and custards do take a couple weeks, even longer than a month to fully develop. If you vape a creamy/custardy flavor before it has steeped thoroughly... how shall I put this... You see, it's like when you pour a drink on ice, drink most of it, then the ice melts, and you take a sip of that? It's just like that melted ice last sip of a drink. It has a hint of flavor, but it's mostly water. Let a creamy ejuice steep a couple weeks, and you'll get the full blast of a freshly poured drink. Don't and you'll get watered down drink. This requires experimenting. I've had good result with creams stepping 7-14 days, and custards (as main profile) for 14 days, and more. There is one custard recipe that became phenomenal after a month and a half.
Also, for most tobaccos, steeping helps the flavor develop and/or allows for chemical/perfumey notes to die off. I give those at least 21 days before tasting. Yes, I once mixed standalone INW Gold Ducat and tasted it right away, for the LOLs. There were no LOLs, that was straight perfume. Better give it 3-4 weeks and it's good.
Alrighty then bro, one question tho. My fruit mixes seem to be have no taste after shaking at 0hours, this is for example strawberry TFA @6% ans cantaloupe TFA @6%, however 4 days after and i can start to taste a bit of tasty flavor, ill just wait 3 days more so 1 week will have passed since i made my ejuice and test the flavor. I have a good feeling however how on earth do people say most fruits as a standalone or at least without creams can be a shake and vape?
Question related, if my flavor seems to be off @1week, how do i add more flavor in case i want to? I mean, lets say 60ml @10% = 54ml of vg/pg + 6ml of flavoring, once the week has passed by and i consider adding more flavoring, what should i do? Lets say feel like adding 10% more, should i just weight and drop 6ml more of flavoring? Or does the initial weight of the liquid has changed?
Hope i made myself some what of clear 😂.
For what it's worth I've had some luck with seed steeping where you put 1-2ml of already steeped juice in with the fresh batch. Tried it on one of my advs, a fruit mix, and within a day it had the deepest, most vibrant flavor I've ever gotten from this particular recipe. I've also gotten into the habit of pre-mixing concentrates for recipes I use often which seems to allow the concentrates to steep amongst themselves before adding them to the base.
Well how do you precisely steep the concentrates? I want to do this but i havent seen the info i need to risk my investment
I've done it with a number of recipes and so far I haven't found them to change flavor much over time. Could be the concentrates I'm using but in general there's still a steeping process after mixing them in with the base and nic. That seems to be where the real changes occur.
You could always start with enough to make 2 or 3 bottles, let it steep for however long, then mix a bottle a week to see if there is any noticeable difference between them. I've just never had the patience for it so if you experiment I'd love to hear your results!
I steep fruit flavours for 4-7 days and custards/creams/pastry for 7-10 days. I think steeping for more than 2 weeks is useless, but that is my opinion.
Have you ever used heavy tobaccos?
Not really, but I heard that tabacco needs long time to steep, my statement about the two weeks was meant for the flavour types I named.
Most custards I've made with CAP VC seem to be at their peak at 4-8 weeks of steeping. Those that went longer than 6 months developed an off taste, not really 'bad' but different from what I expected.
I mixed a custard using CAP VC as the main note and let it steep for 2 weeks. Cracked it open, smelled like egg nog. Tasted like straight oil, plastic, and egg nog mixed together, I was super disappointed. Tried it again at the 2 month mark and its like eating one of those vanilla cakes with the custard filling, no offensive egg/oil off notes, just amazing. I was convinced steeping did nothing much, but with custards it is much needed.