3mg, 3% pomegranate, 3% Dragon fruit, 91% vg. I haven't steeped it very long yet so shaking is the best I can say for flavour. Occasionally get the peppery hit but not often. Flavour is slightly lacking but it's there.
My question is what is sort of the recommended flavour %? I have a friend who says less is more, then I've read of people who use up to 20%.
I know it's probably more to personal taste but I'm just curious if there's a universal amount that some build to.
Edit 1: apologies for the duplicate post. I removed it.
Edit 2: took my juice into my local B & M since I was looking at a single coil rda anyway, they said the nic is definitely not 3mg, probably closer to 6mg. So it was probably me npt shaking bottles, my measurements were precise with syringes.
Edit 3: they said the flavour was incredible, just the nic needs to be adjusted.
I tried scrolling through comments to see if it was said already, I didn't see it in the first few, so I'll add in it just in case. If you're doing all VG for your base, then that's definitely going to mute the flavour of your mix quite a bit. I'd recommend getting some PG and doing a 70VG/30PG ratio.
To explain further, PG is the main carrier for flavour in a recipe. PG is also inherently a bit harsh on the throat, so going higher than 40% in a mix, IMO, isnt entirely recommended. Unless your vaping in a cigalike device, a 50/50 ratio will bring some harshness to your mix. Start off with 30% PG in your recipe, I can almost guarantee you'll notice a big bump in flavour output.
Also worth noting, if your mixing calculator doesn't account for it, your flavour concentrates are PG based, so the overall 30% PG is taking your flavour percentages into account as well. Hope this is a little helpful.
We really can't help unless you tell us exactly what flavor concentrate you used. Brand?
TFA and what do you mean the concentrate?
I'm going to assume that the Dragonfruit is TFA as well. TFA Pomegranate will be good up to around 5%. I'd use the Dragonfruit around 3-4%. You can go pretty high (5-10%) with TFA concentrates usually.
The pepper is coming from your nicotine most likely. It's oxidized. Proper storage in the freezer will solve that problem in the future.
If you want your shit to taste just like the vendor juices, then you're most likely going to have to load it up with loads of sludgy shitness.
There are certain flavorings that vendors love to use, that just gunks up coils and can be quite controversial regarding the safety involved with vaping. Doesn't stop like 90% of the market juices from containing it though.
These flavourings are known as things such as sucralose and much more (I have forgotten all of the names as I've been out of the DIY scene for quite a long time now).
Basically, prepare for disappointment unless you're okay with appreciating the minor flavour notes, or you're okay with loading up your juices with shit.
It reply depends on what the specific flavors are. I've got recipes that total less than 1% flavor that are just as strong as some recipes @20%.
Btw, I'm pretty sure neither flavor you used should taste of pepper, although it's possible... so more likely you got bad nic. Oxidized nic tastes peppery.
It's only very occasionally, and likely the nic hasn't mixed into the juice properly yet?
If you shook it well enough, the nic is mixed. Steeping doesn’t change that
You might be having the same issue i think i have... i use relatively high-mass coils that retain heat for a while, long enough to oxidize nicotine to the point where my first drag after half an hour or so is pretty peppery. I used to hate it, but now i actually enjoy it.
Hmm.. That really is a thing? I noticed the effect but never could pin down what caused it. I wonder if that could possibly taint the taste of juice in the squonk bottle? Like whatever in the coil/coil getting oxidized from the heat and then mixing and being pulled back down when you squonk.
Just an update, even though it's Sunday here I sent a message to the suppliers just explaining the situation. However a friend of mine who buys the same nic just said it happens if the nic hasn't fully mixed in with the other components.
Local juice maker once told me "if you want your shit to sell, you just need flavoring above 15%"
So then I gave him a recipe containing 9% flavouring, with more flavour than half of his main line.
Total % doesn't really matter. Some TFA/CAP flavourings need 7% to shine, most inawera are strong at 2% or less.
But then sometimes, you'll get the odd flavouring from a brand that is usually weak, but is insanely strong. Like TFA Taro, very strong at only 1.5%
So the company said the base taste of nicotine is peppery to start with
Updating everyone. Tl;dr at bottom The company sent me another bottle free of charge because specific complaint had never been had before. While I was waiting for it to arrive yesterday I made another 30ml up, but decided to try something different. Up until now all of my mixes have had dragonfruit in them. Now I love dragonfruit as a fruit. I made a 5% pomegranate, 3% blackcurrant, 2% papaya mix. All tfa, all properly labelled etc. The Dragon fruit never came with a label, just a handwritten sticker. Now I'm inclined to believe they ran out of stickers, but I put 0.9ml of the nicotine I've been complaining about and just let tge while thing sit for 5 hours till I finished work. It was in my cold car at night. I gave it a quick shake, juiced up the coils and braced myself for a peppery kick in the tonsils. Nothing, just a smooth, fruity pull and gentle fruity exhale paired with the cold night air and petrol fumes (I was at the petrol station). But no peppery flavour. Now thing about this that really confuses me is that when I made a nic less mix with the pomegranate and Dragon fruit there was no pepper either, barely any flavour at all. So I'm not entirely sure what's happened between then and now.
But I think for the time being I will leave the 2 hand written labelled flavours to one side and make up a few testers when I get home.
I'm not convinced that the flavours that had hand written labels were the problem but so far any juice with dragonfruit and juice with the juicy peach and nic have burnt like pepper. So far my only non Dragon fruit or juicy peach has been an amazing vape that I'm considering making again to see if it's not a fluke then making a 120ml. I will update again after my experiments and see if the old nic is in fact fine and it was the flavorings reacting weirdly, or maybe they weren't even the proper flavours. Which is possible.
Tl;Dr new mix of pomegranate, papaya and black currant with old nic is perfect and no pepper. Possible concentrate issue instead. Nic supplier sent me full 125ml 100mg for free.