Hi, I've tried DIY with a single concentrate flavor in the past, and it was pretty underwhelming compared to good premium ejuice. Do you DIY out of budget restrictions, or is there a way to get really good flavors for ADV without spending too much money on flavors and what not?
well, the beauty of DIY is the vast options of flavors and recipes. For me, my mixes are better than most of the premium juices. it depends on what you are looking for in DIY. If you are looking for premium-like juice, U have to put Sweeteners.
Also, it will be better if you mention the single concentrated flavor you have tried, may be it's not that good, or you have misused it somehow, resulting in a bad experience.
Nice pal, can you explain a little more on that Sweeteners topic? Thanks from a very new DIY user!
shortly, because most if not all "premium/commercial" E-liquids use sweeteners, which people love, so this maybe the reason why he didn't enjoy DIY thing.
My DIY juices are better than store bought juices. You can control how much flavor, sweetness, sour, menthol etc. you want. For $15-20 you can get a variety of flavors that suit your taste palette. If you really want that store bought juice taste, I highly recommend Capella Super Sweet in your arsenal. Really adds that "complete" taste to your juice. I don't particularly like very sweet flavors, so I only add a small amount if any. Another additive to have in your kit would be TFA's Sour. A little bit goes a long way if you're into sour fruity flavors. This mixed with super sweet tends to give me that "candy" flavor most kids like now adays, but it isn't really for me. If you are into desserty creamy flavors, I suggest Vienna Cream as a must have flavor.
Just remember, giving your juices a few days to steep really brings that flavor out! Especially with Vienna Cream... you can hardly even taste it until a few days later after it steeped. I can't tell you how many bottles of juice ive made, tried, and threw in a drawer because it was bland or not even good tasting. Come back 3 days later and it tastes like an orgasm in my mouth.
If you get some EM, and add it to literally anything at about 3%, you'll notice the difference. It will smooth out your juice, and will help "blend" almost any two flavors you mix, even contrasting ones.
TFA smooth, erythritol, vanillin, sucralose... There are a bunch of "sweeteners" (additives would be a better term, but sweeteners is what everyone uses) that don't really have a flavor, but basically just enhance other flavors (like MSG for juice).
Heavy handed use of these enhancers will easily make any DIY efforts come out more like premium juice.
If you experiment a bit, you'll quickly find that these enhancers fuck your coils over pretty hard, and fiddling around with ratios and flavors to "zero in" on a solid mix that's enhancement free is well worth the time, and I think most mixers eventually wind up with that as a philosophy.
Nothing wrong with tossing koolada in everything to max out flavor (be ready to replace coils more often though), but I doubt many experienced mixers would ever actually tell you that :)
Premium juice doesn't exist. There's good ingredients, and there's bad ingredients. There are, however, premium recipes.
This is the highest rated recipe on alltheflavors.
That's a crazy recipe. I may try it without the koolada
It hits its peak like 2 or 3 days into steeping, after that it's kinda meh
I can DIY my own liquids at a cost of around $140 per year. Buying premium costs around $200 per month. (Both are me personally. It Will vary person to person) ...aside from that, NEVER listen to anyone who says test flavors at 10%. Stay in the 2%ish zone, You'll find less is better. Stick with TFA in 10ml bottles. They are inexpensive (around $1.75/bottle) flavors and taste good enough to decide whether you enjoy the tediousness of mixing your own. Patience is also a big deal.
I agree with most of this, except "stick with TFA". Yes, TFA is great. However there are TFA flavors which are no good to me, when other companies version is much much better. Same goes with every company. Don't just stick to one brand of flavors. Other brands make really good flavors as well. I would recommend Capella over many TFA flavors, vice versa.
I do it for budget reasons, but I also like a lot less flavor than most commercial juices. I was throwing so much away that it was costing a fortune!
The worst part of throwing away commercial juice is that it's just a dead end. Like, ok, I won't buy that again.
With DIY you can come here and ask for help with your mix. The failed experiments don't cost nearly as much, and they can be a step in the right direction.
I did it mostly because I was curious and also tired of spending 30 bucks on a bottle of juice that I usually just wound up tossing. Starting things up DIY was for me at least about a two hundred dollar investment, but in the long run is way, waaaaay cheaper and my juice is exponentially better. I'd suggest checking the best of year posts. Each year the community votes for the best juice and the mixers all describe the flavor components of each recipe. I just read through that until I found recipes that sounded tasty and when I finally mixed them I knew I could never buy commercial juice again
Although not true DIY juice, you might also be interested in "one shots", or "bottle shots". They're flavour concentrate that you just add PG, VG and nicotine to. Some premium manufacturers, such as Vampire Vape make their most popular flavours in concentrate form and while more expensive than true DIY, is still orders of magnitude cheaper than buying their regular bottled juice.
There is absolutely a start up cost, but if you find 2 or 3 recipes that are good and the kind of flavors you like, it's an investment worth making. I couldn't tell you what commercial juice costs, I'm gonna estimate $25-35 for a 60ml on average. I go through about 60ml/week myself, so that would be $100 on juice in a month, ymmv.
If you took that same $100 to make your own juice, you could absolutely be on your way to making a couple juices. If you need base, nic, and flavor, I would recommend nicotine River, as you can get everything in one stop.
You can make over 1 liter, for the same cost as 240 ml of pre made juice at $25/ 60ml.
As a first time order, I would get a liter of VG and 500ml of PG. That plus 150ml of nicotine (100mg/ml) comes to $24. Flavors depending on what recipes you find will probably be around $30-40. Let's call it $35.
Total so far: about $59. Ok, let's get a few bottles and at least one glass dropper for the nicotine concentrate. If you wanna use glass bottles, you can buy 30 ml bottles for 85 cents each (60ml for $1.10) or plastic 60 ml for 44 cents each. 10 bottles to get you started will be between $4.40 and $8.50. Maybe you wanna add a couple 8oz bottles for dispensing PG & VG. Total now is between $65-70.
Would you look at that, free domestic shipping over $50 on nic River. Nice. Still sitting at $65-70
You could get the ever popular lb 501 on Amazon for $25, but you could also get away with the acp-200 for $15. It will work for batches up to 120ml and is a good option if you're really crunching the budget.
So... TLDR: depending on what scale you get, the total cost to get started with everything you need to make OVER 1000 ML of juice, shipped to you for between $80-$95.
The best part, you can find some DAMN GOOD recipes that you might like even more than what you vape now. 10/10 would recommend diy
Google "three flavor recipes". I found three fruit flavors that I enjoy. Not exactly an ADV for me, but I like to have some sideline juices and rotate through them. Currently working on a "Honeypearry Clone" four flavor that New Amsterdam Vapes explained well in a YouTube video.
You can. As long as you’re willing to vape more or less the same thing all the time. Like you could get a lemonade base like la lemonade and just rotate through your fruits adding them for variety but it would be far better with a little lemon boost so here comes Fa lemon Sicily. And maybe some coolant today so yeah ws23 or polar blast. Or both. And so on and so on.
You could theoretically mix someone else’s mix like a recipe off atf and be happy vaping that for the rest of your life. It could happen. But you’d have to get all the flavors for it first AND know that you’d love it. Now I can tell if I’m going to like a recipe better than before because I know the flavors AND I’m starting to learn more about what I particularly enjoy.
Short answer: it’s hard to end up with few flavors and an amazing mix for a bunch of legitimate reasons
I recently got a premium juice, because I wanted a clone project, after one tank full its been sitting in a shelf while I vape the stuff I've made. They use so much sweetener its obnoxious. I know there are probably plenty that don't, but after messing around for a while I've found a few ADV's for me. Its really easy to come up with ADV's with a lemonade base + fruit + coolant. I came up with one recently that I've been going all week on. Your imagination and creativity can take you a long way on a cheap budget if you want it to.
I am interested in this lemonade base... if you don't mind sharing. I've got TONS of lemons and lemonades... They start are out super tasty, but fall flat before I can finish my mix. My last order I invested in 60ml glass, 1 reason being my tape water got so hot it melted my plastic while I was soaking them, and two.. anything more than 60ml for me, gives to long of a steep time and I am having an issue where no matter the fruit blend I make, it ends up tasting like amoxicillin there towards the end... maybe I am crazy.. Lol But still interested in the lemonade base recipe :)
My base is 4% LA Lemonade, 2% FLV Lemonade(this gives it the longevity), .75% FA Lemon Sicily. The FLV Lemonade actually takes a few days to give you that strong lemonade flavor so by the time the other 2 start to fade it kicks in and extends the lemonade base.
- Sign up for a ATF account.
- Use this link to find 3 ingredient recipes.
- Figure out which ones appeal to you most.
- Order the flavors needed to make them.
Note this requires that you actually like the look of a bunch of recipes. If you don't, find some mixer to ask what you should get, based on what your preferences and dislikes are.
9 times out of 10, "premium" juice is just DIY juice with a shit ton of sweetener in it. I can't even stand store-bought juices anymore; tastes like vaping straight sugar, and I have to re-wick every three days. I prefer my DIY juice to commercial juice all-hollow. You have to do your research and use a good recipe, but yes, it's more than possible.
I get compliments on my strawberry milkshake all the time, even have a couple coworkers vaping it exclusively. It is 7 flavors, but overall it is so cheap still. I might spend $60 a year max
Would you mind sharing the recipe? Thanks!
Is there a premium juice you like? Then Google [NAME OF JUICE] "clone" or "remix": someone may have already had a go at trying to figure it out and come up with a recipe. I have found two recipes for "OMC", a popular vanilla custard that I love, and Wayne from DIY or DIE shared a recipe for a similar juice. I'm close to perfecting this 6 flavor recipe. When I do I'll mix it by the gallon :)
Do you know if I can 'request' a clone that doesn't exist yet somewhere?
I’ve been mixing my own since September, I mostly follow other peoples recipes. I recently got some premium juice for the first time since I started mixing and I have to say, I prefer my DIY stuff more.
As far as buying too many flavors that depends on you. I spent about 50$ on bases that should last me a year or so. Then every month or I’ll spend 15$ or so on new flavors to see what else is out there. Right now I have about 8 different mixes I rotate through depending on my mood.
I loved smoking. 2 packs a day for 30 years. No coughs or trouble breathing. but it cost so much. so I started vaping. then the cost of juice went into orbit. it's almost as expensive as smoking was at this point. So I started making the juice. I just ordered 10 or so flavors. enough to last 6 months with me and my wife vaping. it cost 110 to get all the supplies Nic included. Me, I go for a modified Suicide Bunny Mothers Milk Clone almost exclusively. The wife likes variety so I get 15ml flavors for her and experiment but have a bulk fallback of cranberry pomegranate she enjoys. Cost of our vape juice is $4.25 a week.
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When I need to pop into the local vape store the workers always ask to taste my juice. It's head and shoulders above anything they have.
Honestly, just get the DIY kit from Nicotine River. Think of about 3 juices you'd really like to replicate and order the components of just those (they give you 15 slots for flavor so that should be more than enough). It costs 50 and comes with pretty much everything you could need. By the time you've perfected your 3 flavors, you can easily make your money back. It costs less than $1 to make 30 mLs. If we say average price of 30 mLs is $10 (it's $18 where I live), then by the time you've made 5 bottles, you've broken even. And you should have enough to make roughly 700 mLs if I remember correctly. So yeah, it is definitely worth it in my opinion. Especially after you figure out your recipes which is by far the hardest part.
This is horrible advice.
Not every flavor from every manufacturer tastes the same as all the other manufacturers. If you want a 'chocolate' flavor, there's a huge difference between FW Chocolate Mint and HS Australian Chocolate... or if you are crazy enough to buy cherry flavor, there's a world of difference between TFA Cherry Extract and LA Cherry.
It's reasonable to buy individual flavors with the intent to mix them in combinations that haven't been shared yet... but it is insane to buy random flavors based on the name. Always research individual flavors first.
I don't believe I said anything about random flavors based off of name alone, I suppose I could've made that more explicit though! So yes, when finding the components, do some spelunking on the internets and see if anybody has a posted a recipe for what you're making (or something similar). Like Juthinc is saying, if you're recipe hasn't been posted, do some research on individual flavors. You can find fairly detailed taste notes online. However, realize that everybody does taste a little differently so don't expect someone else's recipe to be PERFECT for you or that their taste notes will reflect exactly what you taste.
This is why I recommended the kit to you, if you're debating between the taste notes of two Cherry flavors, the 15 slots should allow you to get both of them and see which you prefer in your recipe. In theory, you could make way more than three recipes with that amount of slots. But having three recipes in mind leaves for alternatives. All in all, just don't expect everything to have that 'Premium' taste you are referring to on your first try. There will be some experimentation involved (please utilize the resources on the internet as much as possible though), and once you create a perfect recipe for YOU, it's a super gratifying experience!
Honestly, If I could start over. Say I like strawberry. I could order a few different manufacturers strawberry flavors, but if I got on nicotine river and ordered the other flavors that looked good to me, or if they were in a random recipe I found on ELR thats 4 years old, I might have made a mistake. Some times a concentrate isn't what it looks or has 30% corn syrup. Say I had a few different strawberry's and I read sidebar and flavor reviews(first order flavors), I would have strawberry and maybe Tfa vanilla swirl, tfa bavarian cream, cap custard, tfa dragonfruit, tfa vbic, la lemonade, fa lemon sicily, fa cream fresh, tfa marshmallow, cap double apple, etc. In my opinion thats how to get where you want to go with your experience.
I buy about 35$ of flavors every other week, and when I was buying juice i spent $35 every 3 days. Just find some good recipes on alltheflavors and buy those flavors at bullcityflavors.com. The best juices I have vaped were ones that I made, from either other peoples or my own recipes. Commercial juice WILL destroy your coils, so you might have to just use alot of sweetener to get the "premium" feel for a bit, or until your pallette adjusts. Hope this helps.
"Without buying too many flavors".........that is the rabbit hole. It is not only possible but probable to make premium DIY flavors but expect to do some trial and error. We are fortunate enough to be able to buy the flavors that go into "Premium Juices" what you do with that is all based on skill and hard work.
Everyone has a subjective taste pallet, what tastes good to some will be inferior to another. If you go into the DIY rabbit hole don't expect the "OMG" experience right off the bat but you can get there but it takes time.
I buy premium juices from time to time for inspiration but after being in DIY for more than 3 years I can't imagine giving DIY up. Out if the last 10 bottles of premium I have bought only about 2 have impressed me, that others were thrown out rather quickly.
DIY is the best thing I have ever gotten into but it is not cheap........but oh so worth it.