I've been DIYing for almost a year or so now, and have no regrets, love doing it. All my flavors generally come out pretty well, I do a 70/30 vg/pg with different percentages of flavors I have tried in the past. But to the current issue, I have been dealing with this for about a month, where all my flavors do 1 to 2 things, either have no flavor, and/or kill coils. I have tried eliminating nicotine, same problem persists, tested flavor percentages same problem persists, and mixed up vg/pg percentages to as low as 50/50 problem still persists. Finally today I did a tongue test on one of my mixes (without nicotine) and realized it even tasted bad, which explains why it vaped bad. Then came what I believe is the issue, I tasted the PG alone and got a very chemical taste and bad taste in my mouth. Cracked open a second bottle of PG I haven't used yet and realized it tasted the same. (Both bottles were 500 ml, ordered from same vendor at same time). What is PG supposed to taste like? Has anyone ever received a bad batch of it?
EDIT: I think I figured it out guys, I always order from wizardlabs. I went to their website to double check my last order and realized they have two different PG types. I ordered PG 400 USP-NF. Instead of just ordering normal PG USP. Can someone confirm this is the issue I have been having, cause I'm pretty sure this is it.
Edit 2: Yup, this whole time I have been doing 70 VG/30 PEG lol, well I'm going to create a new order, and chuck all of my mixes into the sink. Thanks for the help yall!
One of the things that none of the responses so far touch on is that PEG-400 is particularly bad as a thinning agent from a formaldehyde standpoint. There's a chart (which, granted, is geared toward cannabis oils but the idea is still the same in that oil + heat = formaldehyde) that shows that VG and MCT produce a fraction of the formaldehyde of PEG-400 and that a single 4 second draw on PEG-400 produces almost as much formaldehyde as an entire cigarette. PG is also a better solution but the numbers on VG (and MCT) are really great by comparison. Here's the link for those that are interested.
Would have been PEG if it had a 400 after it, not PG. Two different things. PEG is polyethylene glycol (the 400 denotes molecular weight I think), PG is propylene glycol.
And problem solved, yeah it was PEG the whole time, lesson learned, double check your orders lol
I've never used peg 400, might want to look into ordering some
It's handy, but just as prone to picking up environmental contamination as PG. And way more expensive.
But I use it extensively, so I don't need to use painful amounts of PG in my tobacco mixes.
So what’s your secret? you just use it like half the PG you’d add or try to replace all of it?
I have some and am not going to be scared by some funky holistic stoner site into not caping it.
PEG400 is interesting and not entirely without purpose. It is known for tasting like plastic (the PE does stand for poly ethylene aka plastic) and not used much for the past decade but it can dissolve some interesting extracts if you want to experiment with adding them to your mixes.
I like to mess with it sometimes. It makes some flavors really pop hard. Raspberry for example. It tastes like raspberry wax. Idk. It’s weird.
OK, I see you have found the reason this "PG" tastes different, since it is not exactly PG. But, these are my findings about the matter :)
Well, I found that my local drugstore (we call those places "botica" in Spanish) which sells many chemicals and some other ingredients for pharmaceutical use, carries USP grade PG. It's way cheaper than whatever I find online so I gave it a try.
I took a whiff at the bottle, it has a faint chemical smell... just the same smell the store has. Of course, now I see PG absorbs odors. But that has not been a problem at all with my mixes. Maybe because I mix 70-30 VG-PG, and some of that 30% is flavoring anyway. And when I choose to use higher PG for the odd tobacco mix I want to try that way, the tobacco flavorings usually have a stronger flavor than the other things I vape, so it's not noticeable. I wouldn't call this cheaper PG a bad batch, and I would totally buy from this store again, since the chemical odor did not matter.
I did try to vape straight PG once. Just a few drops on my RDA. My goodness, that stuff is bitter! Won't do that ever again, I promise.