New to vaping in general and eventually (once I learn enough) I am going to try making some juice. I've been poking around in the sidebar and watching lots of youtube videos and have a quick question. When I start I will prob get everything from nic river at first to keep it simple. What are the advantages/disadvantages between 100mg 50/50 nicotine base or 100mg 100vg base? I understand the calculators will figure the hard stuff out but I like to fully understand stuff like this before I dive in. Does it not make a difference in the end product at all and is it just a matter of cost and how much of a specific thing I think I might need? My thinking was that if I entered either of the two in a calculator the end result would be the same. For example if I used 100vg nicotine I might just need more pg total in the recipe compared to if I already started with a 50/50 nic base. Or will it affect the outcome?
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You don't want either, get 100pg. Reasoning being that nicotine will group together in the mix, so you need to shake it to get it even though the mix. It's a major pain with VG, I made that mistake on my first bottle and will never get it again. The only reason to get vg base would be if you had sensitivity/allergies to pg.
50/50 you will have no problems with hot spots
Good to know, I think I'll still stick with 100 pg. Though sometimes it'd be nice if it was a little thicker when pouring.
Awesome thanks! For some reason I thought I read the opposite somewhere. I thought most people used 100vg base.
Just a heads up. Depending on how much nicotine you put in your mixes and how strong the nic base you are buying is a 70/30 mix might not be viable with a 100pg nic base. Just make sure to put it through a vaping calculator before you buy. Telling you this because I've encountered this problem with 18 mg/ml nic base.
100 vg is harder to shake/mix thoroughly, but if you're going for minimum or no pg is the way to go. If you're not going for 0 pg a 50/50 base won't make much of a difference in the final product at lower nic levels, 3mg would be 3% base which would add 1.5% pg to the mix, 3% at 6mg, which would be significantly less than added by flavors in most instances.
Basically unless you're mixing high nic levels it won't add much to the final product or change your added pg requirement by much, and vg nic is really only necessary if you're aiming for 0 pg or the absolute minimum possible.
Edit: I personally use 100 pg nic because it's easier to mix well and dispense, but I also never mix anything below 20% pg
As far as strength I plan to make 15-20mg salts and slowly go down from there. I want to mess around with ratios between 50/50 and 70/30. So with that said would I be better off going with 100% PG nic base or 50/50 nic base? II know according to a calculator either will work so I guess I am trying to understand why one might be better over the other. Thanks!!
70vg would be pretty hard to hit at 20mg 100% pg base in some mixes, since the nic base would add about 20% pg itself you would only be able to add about 10% flavoring without going over 30% pg. for a 50/50 base you would be able to add 20% flavoring without going over 30% pg which is plenty of breathing room, don't think I've ever mixed anything over 20% flavoring but I'm sure there's some recipes with weaker flavors that might require that. Most of my stuff is in the 10-15% flavoring range.
yea and from what I am reading it looks like just about everyone says if you are making nic salts that you should up the flavor percentage of whatever recipe you are using. So maybe 50/50 base would be better?
Or wouldn't getting 100mg of 100% PG base solve the problem you mention above? Wouldn't I be using less of it then? (sorry if I am completely wrong)
Theory- 100MG nic in PG base is the most popular. So companies are probably moving it a lot faster. They get newer or cleaner nic more often (or make it). 50/50 is somewhere in the middle if not the least popular. So this stuff is sitting around longer.
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My first order was 50/50 in a sample size. It was bad, really bad. I cursed the company and went somewhere else. But this time I got it in PG. For someone who make 70/30 (3mg), 90% of the time, PG nic is all I will ever need or get.
Only use all-VG nic if you're going for max VG final mixes. It's much more of a pain to use.
Thanks! Most likely I am going to be making 15mg salts 50/50 and going down from there.
Like the other poster said it's main advantage is for going for Max vg juice, if that's not your goal whatever is fine. However just so you know the other posters complaining about hot spots aren't purchasing from the right place, I've bought 100% vg 100mg/ml from Carolina xtract and have never had a hot spot. They're nic stays even throughout and stays good for a long time
I think there's probably some truth to hot spots in some manner but I think the degree to which it is actually present in practice is exaggerated because of the echo chamber effect, people love to bring it up here. I shake mine once in awhile and nothing too crazy and nobody has questioned the strength of my juice once.
If you're careful with your nicotine, you could also try 250MG nic in a PG or 50:50 base. Even a full PG base at that concentration adds only 1.2% PG to 3mg juice, which is less than 50:50 100mg/ml will add. But of course you need to be even more careful with it at that concentration, I keep a capped 30ml of it handy and the rest in the freezer.
50/50 base is way easier to use. One, you can keep it in the fridge and have it flow well enough to mix with, and you can always just take a little PG out of your mix to make up for it.
Even doing a maxVG mix, at 100mg you're going to be high enough to vape more or less the same, but the ease of blending the juice makes the whole process much easier.
It honestly doesn't matter what you get but 50/50 is just more versatile. Ordering my salt nic in 100VG was a mistake for my nic salts because turning it into a 50/50 final product meant my max strength was 50mg and juul pods are 60mg so my salt juice always feels like it's a step below what I became used to. If your not mixing high nic ejuice it honestly doesn't matter what you use. I read VG is better for long term storage of salts in a freezer and I shouldn't have bought it on the basis of that alone.
The VG base may have hotspots. It really only ahould ever be used if you're making juice for a pod since if its nic salts you might have half your mix be nic base. A 50/50 base would be more useful for freebase nic, as 3% of your end mix (usually) would be nic base. Although really even then, PG based nic isn't gonna be too big a problem.
As far as strength I plan to make 15-20mg salts and slowly go down from there. I want to mess around with ratios between 50/50 and 70/30. So with that said would I be better off going with 100% PG nic base or 50/50 nic base? Thanks!!
With 100mg/ml base, you'll use at most 20% of your mix for your strongest desired concentration. Note that for making 70/30, this means that you can use at most 10% total flavor. There are numerous recipes that are quite good with less than 10% total flavor, but there are also a fair number that are in the 10-15% total flavor range, and you won't be able to make them in a 70/30 20mg/ml version unless you use the 50/50 nic base.