You will learn very quickly that the top rated recipes at ELR are overflavored and taste bad or incredibly average. Most of the ones with the most star ratings have been there for years. Vaping equipment has come a long ways in a very short time. Using a 2015 recipe in 2018-19 gear doesn't work well a lot of the time. You have to get to know your flavors. There will be a better chance for success when you actually know what you like. Over time you will know which flavors you like and which you don't. You can avoid bad recipes by looking at what's used and the percentages.

If you like the flavor palate of Strawnana Custard try this: http://e-liquid-recipes.com/recipe/49573/Bombies+%2527nana+cream

It's a really good shake and vape. I've had a bunch of people try it and it has had rave reviews.

If you want to put a spin on it I'd suggest splitting the strawberry content half way with TFA Strawberry and INR Strawberry Shisha.

If this doesn't taste good and you like dessert/fruity vapes the issue might be with your bases.

Don't use recipes you find on websites that sell liquid.

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And honestly I would start with single flavors and move your way up, so you at least have good usable product. Attempting recipes from the beginning always tends to net bad results. We've all been there and know just how horribly that can go in the beginning. There's a lot of flavors out there which are damn good as single flavors.

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Some of my favorites: FA Tutti Frutti, most flavors from Liquid Barn, Capellas Blueberry Cinnamon Crumble. If you want a Big Red flavor you can try Flavorwest Cinnamon Red Hot. A lot of Capellas flavors are good. Most things from TFA and FA tend to be what you would use in a recipe and aren't typically great by themselves, but can be used well in recipes.

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Also make sure you aren't mixing too high. I know years ago when I was studying how to mix people recommended *absurd* percentages. Don't go above about 10-15% total mix. Normally I would hover around 8% most of the time. It depends on your device.

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Mixing is very easy. The problem is the recipes that people start with. A lot of them are bad.

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Edit: Try starting with single flavors, then try adding a second flavor. Etc. Don't mess with things that are additions like "sour" additives, menthol etc until later on after you get the hang of it. Those should be the last thing you learn to use in mixes. Start with the easy to use stuff. For example try two simple flavors like a banana and a strawberry. Not that the two are amazing together, but something that kind of makes sense (two fruits). Then move on to other things.

Did you try the strawnanna custard on there? It's high rated. First page. I just mixed my first batch of juice this week and did that one. I dont even like strawberry vape stuff but that one was great right out of the mixer for me. Had a few people try it and they loved it too.

The way I got into it was I found a commercial e-liquid that I really enjoyed, then I found the highest rated clone recipe. You might do something similar.

Also, are you mixing by volume or by weight? You’ll likely have more reliable results if you mix by weight. The volume of the ingredients will be dependent upon temperature, and it’s hard to consistently drops of the same size.

I get my flavors from Bull City Flavors (TFA and LorAnn), PG and VG from Amazon, and nic from Carolina Xtract.

I mix in as large a batch as possible with my scale. This allows any slight mistakes in measurements to not have a huge impact on the final project. Overshooting 0.1 or 0.2 grams of any ingredient will have much less impact on a 720 mL batch than it will on a 60 mL batch.

Keep at it man... there’s a ton of money to save in mixing your own juice. The commercial juice I like costs ~$25/60 mL bottle where I live. I can mix the clone recipe for ~$1.50/60 mL bottle. It’s worth the time investment to figure it out.

Edit: My daily vape I mentioned above is the exact recipe that /u/TheUsualSuspect suggests, except modified for 720 mL at 2.6 mg/mL. Drawing down the nic over time so we don’t have to vape for the rest of our lives (the wife vapes it too). It’s fantastic.

I can definitely relate to this. My first mix experience was about 3 years ago now, but essentially I carefully researched my list of flavour concentrates etc and made a heap of highly rated recipes as soon as it all arrived. Then I didn't like very many of the juices.

It was pretty frustrating initially because I'd discovered that I'm sensitive to pg and so was stuck mixing my own to be able to tolerate vaping but I didn't know what I liked as a newbie and I hadn't even been able to try a decent range of commercial juices yet to get a comparison

I ended up simplifying what I was making in the beginning, sticking with a few single flavours and simple recipes to get a few vapable juices and working on it from there. Eventually I became experienced enough to make my own recipes and discover other juice that I liked without the pressure of "needing juice now"

This sub has many single flavour recommendations and 1-2-3 (3 ingredients) recipes that you can search. Single flavours can be great, and realistically you only need to find a few you like enough to get you going while you make further discoveries about what you like and build your concentrate collection

The main things I learnt quickly were that a lot of good juice tastes bad if not steeped (and pretty much everything you read about speeding this up is essentially bs - just wait) and that the popularity of a recipe is still opinion and I guess I have weird tastes because I still don't like a lot of popular stuff. Also that making your own recipe can take a lot of patience and doesn't necessarily work how you think it should for a given flavour combo

If you haven't read it anywhere then a heads up that you then you can ruin a great recipe by not shaking the concentrate first, and if you buy flavour concentrates form a seller that decants flavours into smaller bottles then it's possible to get one that wasn't shaken before being put into the smaller bottles and the flavour is ruined and you wonder what's wrong.

Looking back I'd argue that it was totally worth the commitment and patience in the beginning. I now feel like I have everything I want. I also really like that I have total control over the exact ingredients I'm vaping. Hang in there friend, it just takes a while, like most other things that are worth doing

Aside from the awesome replies already here, I've made the majority of top 40 recipes on elr and ate and found that one in five were great. The others were either okay or bleh. I chalk this up to vastly different tastes.

Dont give up, but keep to the simpler ones to start and check this subreddit for the best flavours.

One thing that I feel helped me when I started was shaking my flavorings and and nic before I start mixing. I wasn’t doing this at first and everything was a little harsh / muted. Shaking first deff helped.

• Different flavor vendors can have very different takes on the same flavor. If a recipe calls for a certain brand, say, cap (capella), then use that brand or the recipe won't come out right

• Commercial juices use tons of sweetener. I personally don't like it, but if you're accustomed to that, you may want to add lots of sweetener, or give yourself time to adjust to unsweetened juice

• Put your finished juice in a hot water bath in the sink for 20 minutes, then shake the shit out of them, before you vape. My friend uses a sawzall lol, he straps the bottles to it and gives it 20 seconds or so. I just do it by hand.

• Some recipes need to steep for a few days or even weeks to taste their best. Some change drastically with steeping.

Yea man I have mixed So many of the top rated juices from ELR and i hate about 98% of them. Also I dont underatand how so many awful recipes are rated so high.

One of my fav simple recipes is strawberry ice cream. So many ways to make this. Try....

Sweet strawberry CAP 4% Strawberry TPA 3% Vanilla bean ice cream TPA 4% Bavarian Cream TPA 1% Sweet Cream TPA 1%

This is simple and delicious Especially if you add 1% sweetener Good shake n vape. Great after a week.

You've got all the ingredients.Hope this helps.

I feel your pain. I've been mixing for 3 years and i'm still awful at it. Very rarely do i mix something that i cant stop vaping. I've learned for me, i cant go above 4% in any flavoring. I've bought every single type of flavor and through a long rigorous mixing lesson, I learned i only really like about 5 or 6 flavors.

Its hard for us to recommend anything to you for the reason i just mentioned. You mightve liked some company's vape with banana in it but if you add banana to any of your mixes its awful. Thats how it is for me. My absolute favorite vape is ADK's Cascade. I tried adding that banana cream flavoring to about 20 mixes and it always sucks. I've vaped a couple good yogurt vapes but i learned i dont like yogurt because even when i add it at .5% i still taste it and it gives me a headache. So i suggest just making small batches of around 3 flavors and max out each flavoring at 2%-3%. That way its not too potent and you can start realizing what you like about it and if you could go a little more flavoring a little less.