Good afternoon, everyone.
So, it's going to be a fairly short and sweet Modest Monday post this week. My brain (and hand, thanks 500 degree fryer oil!) are fried from the weekend of work, but I didn't want to give up on the posts one week in. Over the past few days, I've seen a few posts on the sub about newer mixers, and evidently even one that's been mixing for a year, having issues tasting their mixes. I know this may have been a previous Modest Monday post, or definitely something talked to in depth over various platforms, but I figured now is as good of a time as any to revisit the topic. I'm going to break this one down into a few different categories on things that may cause issues tasting your mixes. TL:DR at the bottom.
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"Olfactory Fatigue"
I have already done a rather extensive write-up on olfactory fatigue or "vapor's tongue" a few years ago as a previous MM post, so I'm just going to link it up here. Give it a skim if you feel like maybe your palate just needs a quick boost.
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The Over/Under
Sometimes, and we'll talk more about this in the next segment, your recipe simply has too little or too much flavor concentrate in it. This has also been talked about since the stone age of mixing, but more flavor concentrate does not equate to more flavor. Something that tastes faint at 2% isn't going to suddenly give your taste buds a Stone Cold Stunner at 10%. Do your tests, increase or decrease percentages slowly (between 0.5 - 1% for each new test), and find that sweet spot. Loads of concentrates have a nice range where it won't take too long to find a percentage that works best, but there are the exceptions. Some things, like HS French Vanilla Ice Cream or FLV Pink Guava, can fuck up an entire mix by being even 0.5% too high. Be mindful of your percentages, this is an area where I think new mixer's have the most trouble.
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Recipe Development
Alright, so I would wager that a good majority of the time, lack of flavor is probably coming from the recipe itself. This is especially problematic for new mixers, but I'm sure it also happens to seasoned vets, hell, I still have issues from time to time with the ol' too many concentrates in the mix. So let's go ahead and dive a little deeper into this topic, because there's a lot we can talk about.
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With DIY, there's a lot to take into account when making the next delicious mix, but sometimes patience is the hardest factor to work with. I do it all the time, release a recipe that's good enough to vape, but probably only at 50% it's potential. For me, that's just because I kinda don't care if every recipe I drop is a banger, if it's good enough to vape through a 30ml, it's good enough for me. Maybe I'll revisit, maybe I wont, but I know my concentrates enough to know my first attempt SHOULD be enjoyable enough. But maybe you don't already know your flavor profiles inside and out, and maybe you're lost in a sea of percentage suggestions. Whatever is plaguing your development, you need to start off with the basics, what profile are you actually going for?
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For this, let's just start off with a simple, super sweet strawberry/watermelon combination. Before we start messing around with accents or enhancers, we gotta get the base down. Maybe you tried this already, but it's lacking in the flavor department.
THE STRAWBERRY - Off the top of anyone's head, especially a newbie (and I use that term as lovingly as possible), you may just immediately go for that bottle of TPA Strawberry Ripe. Well hold up on that, because TPA StrawRipe will invariably mute your recipe as time goes on, and that is due to the concentrate being riddled with maltol. This is a type of sweetener that will obliterate your senses, as well as the delicate flavor molecules in the concentrate itself. On top of this, TPA StrawRipe really isn't even the best strawberry to use in general, considering a vast majority of mixers seem to have problems tasting strawberry to begin with. One of my favorites is FA Strawberry at 4%, but after that, INW Shisha Strawberry between 2 - 3% or CAP Sweet Strawberry between 4 - 6% are also great alternatives to TPA Strawberry Ripe. Starting there, we can get a solid strawberry base.
THE WATERMELON - this is significantly easier than the strawberry part, because watermelon is definitely an easier flavor to work with in the DIY space. Once again, I think FA Watermelon between 3 - 4% does the trick every time, but we can also play around with TPA Watermelon at 3.5%, PUR Watermelon between 2 - 3%, or FLV Watermelon between 1.5 - 3% to achieve a nice starting point for our melons. This just depends on if you want something candied or something a little more realistic. To me, FA's option is the best blend between a candy watermelon with hints of the real thing. PUR and TPA are definitely more on the Jolly Rancher side of things. Either way, mess around with those four suggestions and see what works for you.
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ACCENTS / ENHANCERS - Alright, so we have a bit of a base to start with, now let's think of ways we can accentuate these flavors into something next level. On it's own, just with two concentrates, I can almost guarantee you'll get more flavor out of the mix. But we can use other things to boost that flavor even higher. To accentuate the strawberry, THIS is where TPA Strawberry Ripe helps. Instead of boosting that bitch up to 8% to get flavor for one or two days, you want to use TPA Strawberry Ripe between 2 - 4% to help bring some sweetener to the party. However, if you want to get deeper with accents, I would actually recommend INW Dragonfruit at 1% instead of everyone's tried and true TPA Dragonfruit. There's something special about INW, it's more potent, a little "creamy," and pineapple-y. Using it low, you won't impart too much of that citrus or pineapple note, but the amount that does go in will bring a new level of tartness and depth to your strawberry. Now, to enhance our watermelon. I always grab my bottle of FLV Wild Melon at 1.5% for this, because we get subtle notes of cantaloupe, honeydew, and watermelon here, but at a low percentage, it again, just adds a new level of depth to the watermelon. Other things that can be used to enhance the watermelon, maybe try a touch of CAP Golden Pineapple at 0.75% to bring a touch of body and bright citrus, or maybe some FA Lemon Sicily between 0.5 - 1% to add some brightness and punch. Citrus helps a lot of things, both in mixing and in cooking, so play around with lemons, limes, or pineapple to brighten up melons in a mix.
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SWEETENER - This strawberry watermelon recipe begs for some sweetener, once we get the percentages down. OVERFLAVORING IS A THING, AND SWEETENER WILL NOT FIX THAT. If you're losing flavor potency in a mix, check your percentages. I hardly ever go over 10% overall flavor. I know, sometimes you need 8% of this and 5% of that, but in all honesty, for beginners, using concentrates that succeed well under 5% is going to help get you started. Anyway, this is easy, once you get a recipe that tastes good on it's own, add 0.25 - 0.75% CAP Super Sweet and watch as your recipe turns into something a little more interesting.
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Here's the end result, and it's something that I think a lot of mixers can enjoy.
- FA Strawberry at 4%
- FA Watermelon at 4%
- FLV Wild Melon at 1.5%
- INW Dragonfruit at 1%
- CAP Super Sweet at 0.5%
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Tech Issues
Sometimes, a big problem with lacking flavor is your hardware. Maybe you've been vaping on a tobacco, or a store-bought e-liquid. Either way, if you're having trouble tasting your new mixes, take a look under the hood. Are your coils caked in black? Does your cotton look like it's been dipped in coffee? This will assuredly cause problems with flavor output. But fortunately, it's a simple fix. Swap out the cotton, clean or rebuild your coils, and give it another go. Even if you weren't having too much trouble tasting your recipe, after a good cleaning, you're going to be tasting that recipe in a new light. And it will be amazing.
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Oh, and if you HAVE been vaping a tobacco for a while, be sure to give the whole tank or RDA a scrub down with warm soapy water (be sure to use unscented soap, and rinse the ever living fuck out of it), because that tobacco flavor CAN and WILL stick around even after a coil rebuild.
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TL:DR
Having problems tasting your recipes? Here's the rundown on things to check.
- Concentrates: be mindful of your numbers. Too much flavoring = no flavor.
- Development: find the base flavor that works for you, then add some things that can boost those flavors.
- Rebuild: clean the tank/RDA, build/clean the coils, add some fresh cotton. GG EZ.
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And that's that. Lacking flavor can be fixed by any combination or all of these three things. And if, after all of that, you STILL can't taste your recipe, then maybe it just sucks and needs to be brought back to the drawing board. Either way, hopefully this has been helpful. I said I wanted to make a quick and easy Modest Monday this week, but I still ended up spending an hour on it. Fuck me. Thank you for attending my TED Talk, see ya next week, you fuckin maniacs.
As always, keep fucking mixing, keep fucking up, and stay fucking evil.
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Other (outdated) Modest Monday posts
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I guess the weekly highlights will all start with your latest post from now on ;)
When you posted your questions thread and I didn't see highlights, I got scared. It was one of my favorite parts, because it helped me catch up on the sub quickly and easily. I love the change to an entirely separate post. You continue to be a god amongst men.
Fantastic post! I've seen a lot of complaints about this recently and I'm sure this writeup will help those folks out :-)
I would just like to add that subjectivity also plays a huge part. For example, I’ve been doing this a few moons or so, and I learned something new with your strawberry ripe anecdote, but it’s also my opinion that lemon Sicily at 1% will add way more than a “punch”, unless that punch is coming from Mike Tyson. I guess my point is, like everything else, taste buds differ, and your mileage may vary when playing around with how you think flavors “work with each other”
Good point! I guess I should add that either I've had weird bottles of FA Lemon Sicily over my entire mixing career, or its changed formulas, or I'm just a dumbass. Because I agree, sometimes 0.25% obliterates the mix with lemon, sometimes 1.5% doesnt seem like enough. Who knows. But it IS all subjective. Plain and simple, nothing anyone says can be more than guidance, everyone's still gotta do the work themselves to figure out what works for them. +1
Re: strawberry muting. Yeah. I hear a lot of good things on here about INW. Thanks for the added bump on them.
Honestly, I'm having the opposite issue with FA orange. That stuff needs to be measured in Scoville units if you don't swap atomizers. It's the hint of forever orange rind in there.
And please do not abuse sweetener or just avoid it entirely. Especially if you're providing your liquid to others as gifts or by selling - it's a vile, disgusting coil killer and incredibly annoying to deal with. If you need sweetener in your mix for it to taste good, you're not doing a good job.
Agreed. Like I've said a million times on the sub, sweetener ain't gonna save a recipe. But a good recipe can benefit from a touch of it. But I've seen motherfuckers use like, 1.5% CAP SS in a mix and it hurts my soul.
By FA Strawberry you mean the red touch one??
Yes
Great post! Thank you! What are your thoughts on using saline or apple cider vinegar to dilute the PG in the mix? I heard the either saline or APV will help people who are sensitive to PG.