So I’ve been vaping for about a year and a half now. I’ve been increasingly interested in mixing my own juice recently. However, I have a question. I couldn’t really find an answer through searching. My question is, does diy juice taste like “premium” juice you could find at a vape store? For some reason I have the idea that it’s not as strong or tasty as juice I would find at the store. I don’t know why, because I’m sure the makers of the juice I buy use the same concentrates as you guys. Any insight ? Sorry for the dumb question. Thanks in advance.
DIY juice tastes just the same as "Premium" juice if you add 5% Cap Super Sweet. But if you want to actually taste the flavors, you shouldn't do that.
^ this.
Although 4% CAP SS is more standard in 'premium' juices.
Seriously, tho... other than the insane sweetness issue, I'd say I have a handful of recipes better than any commercial juice I ever tried. The thing is, in DIY you can tailor a juice to your own preferences. Very few commercial juices that fit my tastes exist, and the ones that do that I've tried... weren't great. Oddly, the best juice I ever bought at a B&M was a mojito flavor that I wasn't really overly impressed by when I first tried it, but by the time I'd refilled a few tanks I liked it. Now, I'm pretty sure I could make a better mojito than that, probably even on a first version of a mix. Just by picking flavors I like more.
Thanks for the reply!
definitely a good comment above you. just my two cents - YOUR DIY tastes better than premium juice. However, someone elses DIY might not taste nearly as good because their taste pallette is different. You definitely are going to go through some trial and error. But the best part is, you can design the flavors with just the right amount of sweetness or sour, along with the right amount of lemon to strawberry ratio. Also need to take into consideration the way flavors change over time. A flavor may taste bland when you first make it, but give it 3 days and i promise you it'll taste much different and more complete.
TL;DR: You can make premium-tasting juice with the proper DIY flavorings easily. And you can tweak them to your liking.
So I have a bottle of cap super sweet that I got to improve some flavors I used to have. I don't mix my own stuff I buy one shot concentrates (premixed Flavors)
I never liked cap. It doesn't seem to really improve the sweetness for me and I once got it on my hands and kicked it off (it was like one drop) and if I remember correctly I couldn't taste anything other than what tastes like those fake sugar coffee sweeteners for hours lol
It's all up to you. I find most of my mixes are more pleasant and don't fatigue my palate like "premium" juice does.
Generally premium juice is laden with sweeteners which crush the actual flavor down considerably, but leaves you with the rudiments of the profile and a heap of sugar.
It tastes even better, you can make it to your own taste. I used to be hooked on Elements strawberry whip until i started mixing my own version. I tried that premium juice again and thought it was more sweetener than actual flavour. I wont be buying that again.
Clearly the sweet is an issue. And the upside of diy is customizing but there is a bit of a learning curve. Luckily there’s tons of folks in the growing community that’ll help you to get started. The transition can be tough if you’re going from hella commercial to diy. But 1. the price can’t be beat. Nothing sucks more than buying a hyped juice to hate it. 2. Mixing whatever you feel like at that moment is really really stupid fun.
If you want to start easy. Buy a couple of one shot concentrates. They are premixed flavors so all you need to do is add base and nicotine which is a lot easier and less experimenting than mixing your own stuff
It's cheaper than buying premium jucie but more expensive than mixing our own flavor.
But it saves you from endless experimenting and buying a 100flavors to try and mix etc. Also less time consuming
Do you follow Wayne at DIY or DIE? I've learned a lot from him. If you try to compare a three flavor recipe to some commercial juices, you may be disappointed. Commercial juice is formulated by people who have a lot more experience at this. The profiles they create are complex: look at some of the clone recipes online. It's not all Super Sweet but there are nuances in flavors I never knew about until someone like Wayne explained it.
If you want some basic advice, let me tell you what I did and I’ve been rather successful. I started making recipes off e-liquid-recipes. In general after a year of a high reject rate of bad flavors I agree disgusted with diy. I then switched to all the flavors and my success ratio increased tenfold. I’ve been mixing for about 2 1/2 years now and I’ve made over 300 unique recipes. A lot of the focus for some people is to create their own recipes. Rather than go through this frustration as a new mixer, I decided to try a different tack: simply trying existing and semi accepted recipes.
When I try new flavors, I mix them and let them steep for at least two weeks. I have found often that flavor start out very good but by the end of the bottle the flavor is MEH. So my testing results are basically a compilation of recipes that taste good from the start and last all the way to the end of the bottle. It’s a pretty short list of about 30 to 40 recipes. Keep in mind that everyone’s tastes are different and that’s the hard part in the DIY community.
I will say this that being DIY also gives me control of two fundamental things: the quality of ingredients, and the ratio of flavor to filler i.e. VG/PG. early on I stopped using sweeteners as many people on the sub have stated primarily because they gunk up heating coils. I also experimented early on and settled on an optimal ratio of 8020 VG/PG.
There is no question in my mind that the Juice I make this better than the store brands and at a fraction of the cost. My typical bottle cost including the bottle is between two and three dollars per 30 ml bottle.
I also switched to nic salts which greatly improves the smoothness of the hit.
Do you have to Persevere initially. There is a huge learning curve when it comes to using the equipment, mixing order, etc. in hindsight the biggest mistake I made was using the wrong flavor website. Had I gone to all the flavors on day one I would’ve had much better results. I also suggest you switch to an RDA. The flavor is better off then but more importantly it allows you to test flavors as you don’t have to refill the tank to just spot test something.
Here’s a couple of my favorite recipes I make over and over. I highly suggest when mixing you simply omit any sweetener ingredients. I don’t try to compensate for the lack of the flavor as they are so small in relation to the rest of the ingredients.
As with many people on Reddit, I could go into great length on many topics including the logistics of ordering supplies, equipment needed, how to mix, how to spot good sounding recipes, etc. for me part of the fun of the hobby loan was learning for myself. I have veered away from crafting my own flavors and have stuck to the cookbook approach. Now that I have a fair amount of basic understanding of how recipes are crafted I have been tinkering with flavors I felt were too strong or two week or had too much of any given flavor in them. But fundamentally I’m still just tweaking a cookbook recipe.
There's probably rare cases of premium juices using flavor concentrates that are not available to the public, but in my experience, DIY is potentially just as good. For me, most premium juices taste like crap or are waaaay too sweet. I definitely prefer my DIY juice. If you know what you want you can buy just the concentrates you need and then it's so much cheaper too.
Not a dumb question at all. The way I see it is, If you didn’t know how to cook and you thought the premiere hamburger was a McDonalds quarter pounder. Someone shows you how to cook you cook for a year then one day pick up a quarter pounder and realize it is garbage and taste like bitting in to a block of salt. Salt could be the equivalent of sweetener in mixing.
Actually some of the DIY recipes are far more superior in authenticity, quality and complexity than the premium juices.
Make sure to watch this video about the best DIY recipes in 2018 if you like Snickers, coke, or milk chocolate.
Trial and error might get you closer and closer. I ended up mixing my own when my BM shop discontinued my favourite juice at least 4 times. I'm the kind of person that just wants to walk in, buy 2 flavours in bulk, and go. I tried to duplicate my favourite lemonade for at least a year without success, but I really like the desert flavour I worked at duplicating. The latter is as good as anything I could buy, but I still haven't pulled off a fresh fruity mix I really like. A big problem is that in spite of trying at least 5 different sweeteners, I still haven't found one I love.
I really should hunt around for some good recipes and get back to experimenting with small batches until I find something I really like. The thing is, you have to carefully document your ratios as you experiment so you can replicate something you end up really liking. There are online calculators that save your ratios if you make an account. You also want to give it time to steep, so it's important to keep a record of which juice is which so you know what to replicate after tasting a bottle like 2 weeks later. So you need to be fairly organized, and I'm not that organized. I do ok, but other people make a god damn science of it, and probably produce some amazing juices.
Coming from a more casual mixer:
Personally, no. The juice simply doesn't taste as good for the work/up front cost required to mix. It may take you a lot of recipes to find one that you like more than your favorite 'premium' juice. All those trials cost cash in the form of buying/using a variety of flavors.
That said, if you're less picky, DIY juice is decent. It's like cooking, IMO. Are you willing to eat dinner if it comes out shitty? Or would you re-cook it? OR would you order out?
DIY juice is cheap enough that remaking juice isn't a HUGE deal, just a time sink, especially when paired with finding recipes, ordering flavors, etc.
I also find that my DIY juice is more harsh than a lot of premium juices. Not sure what that is about? Possibly my nicotine? Not 100% sure. I get it worse on some than others, but overall it's ALWAYS more harsh than 'premium' stuff.
Overall:
In my opinion 'premium' juice tastes better than DIY juice in general. That said, it's worth it if you're willing to put the little bit of effort in, and want to save a LOT of money.
Advice: If you get into mixing juice, get into measuring by weight. It's 100x easier than mixing by measurement, and makes the whole process way better. Also, look up some recipes that sound good to you, and buy ONLY those flavors you need. I made the mistake of buying a bunch of odd-ball flavors that I now never use.
You've been making to wrong recipes, or you got bad nic. Maybe both.
But I bave never had my juice come out harsher than some commercial juices I tried. And while a few of my mixes weren't outstanding, I tried numerous commercial juices that i liked even less. I say if you're picky, having control over what flavors go into a juice makes it more likely you'll like it... Because that commercial juice might put in flavors you don't like. When you mix, you at least know that you like the individual flavors going into your juice. (If you did a SFT. If you don't, you could end up mixing xing something with LA Watermelon and wonder why you hate the juice...)
I've been following some of the most recommended recipes on ATF (Grack Juice, God Milk, and a couple of POG remixes).
I'm using the NicRiv PurNic 100mg/mL. That was what was recommended to me a while back. Anything alternative you'd recommend?
Maybe the bottle I'm using is just super oxidized? Would that make it harsher? I've heard of Nic developing a different flavor (peppery) over time, but not that it gets more harsh.
If you get to the root of this, I'd appreciate it! I REALLY want to mix more, but it just feels so inferior right now due to that damned harshness.
I'm guessing you're from murica, so... for the best nic for your money, buy chemnovatic. For the best nic (but not great value) you can step up slightly in quality to Carolina... and yeah, oxidized nic can be harsh.
Try mixing a small batch of Grack with no nic, and see what it's like. Better yet, try mixing that small batch of GIGI
Honestly...my own DIY juice has made me mad picky buying it from vendors. The only flavor you will see me attempt to buy is tobacco, which I see why is hard to make without using artificial flavoring.
The key is choice of ingredients that match your palette. I prefer natural, so how I set out to make my own...I use natural food grade flavoring (downside is I have to use more which I'm fine with)...all VG...& for a sweetener, monk fruit extract. This simple mix with an all VG nicotine base has had it where some thought it was a vendor liquid & ask where did I get it
BTW...flavoring I get in bulk from Real Flavors, bulk VG from Bulk Apothecary (I make personal care products too), & nicotine salt & sweetener from Nude Nicotine.
Have fun experimenting!
FYI...I use a recipe calculator app, mix in a graduated cylinder & steep in a mini crockpot for a few days...I keep it simple.