For today’s Tutorial Tuesday post, I’m going to talk about a feature that many newcomers don’t know about, which I personally consider the most cost-effective way to build your library and ensure your purchases have the optimal cost-to-deliciousness ratio.
That approach is searching for recipes that you can make with the purchase of only a couple of additional flavors. The process differs a little bit between ELR and ATF, but in both cases it demonstrates the value you can get from the site by taking the time to properly inventory your purchases, which is also the first step to using the feature.
On ELR, you can log your flavors on https://e-liquid-recipes.com/stash using the Add flavor field and selecting it from the popup of options. Make sure you select not only the correct flavor, but the one with the most recipes associated with it, as sometimes there are duplicate flavor names. (This problem has gotten significantly less bad recently, though.)
On ATF, you’ll want to log your inventory by searching for your flavors on https://alltheflavors.com/flavors, and adding them by checking the box next to them.
Once you’ve got your whole inventory added, the fun can begin. On ELR, you can search using https://e-liquid-recipes.com/whatcanimake, then modify the search to include unpurchased flavors by clicking the popup menu next to Allow missing flavors. ELR allows you to search for recipes that use up to four additional ingredients.
On ATF, you can search using https://alltheflavors.com/recipes, then click the Filter popup and scroll down until you see the “What Can I Make” section, which includes the options “+1” and “+2”. Choose one of those, and click the magnifying glass to search again.
The number of recipes this can unlock for a beginning mixer is quite a powerful feeling; by choosing quality recipes, you can rest assured that any flavor you buy using the feature will see use in at least one recipe— no more complete “duds”. With my 300-ish flavors, I am able to mix 851 ATF recipes with no purchase necessary. With the purchase of up to 2 additional ingredients, I can make over 2500 recipes. This improvement is even more dramatic with a smaller stash, and on ELR (where the challenge is more finding the GOOD recipes in the list of many bad ones).
You can search atf recipes where you're short three or four (or six?) flavors too. It just requires a little manual modification in the address bar... (Try the "what can I make" search where missing two flavors. Go to your browser address bar, scan for "=2" and change the 2 to a different number. The address contains a information for a database query...
That's awesome! I'm familiar with the "substitute your own URL variable value" trick from other sites, but knowing it's not limiting the number because larger numbers take an unreasonably long time just makes me want those options in the GUI!
Wanted to mention another useful tool of elr: search by flavor stash
You just expand the search (button labeled Search By Flavor Stash is right under the main search or it is in your flavor stash) & can tick off flavors and see what recipes use them. I feel it's a very handy tool.
It allows me to pick say cap cereal 27. Get umpteen million recipes. Ok. Then I pick something like fa zeppola because a deep fried cereal would be good. Or so I think. Only see a few or no recipes using that combo.
Well. This tells me either it's a bad idea or nobody has thought of it before. Usually it's the former. Sometimes it helps you find inspiration. Can save a lot of headaches or enforce your inspiration on a recipe.
Also can further expand on the what can I make +1 thing by looking at that flavor, temp adding it to elr, then pick other combos you'd like to use it for or just see uses with it in general.
Thanks for the post /u/ben_gaming ! 😎💨💨
>On ELR, you can log your flavors on https://e-liquid-recipes.com/stash using the Add flavor field and selecting it from the popup of options. Make sure you select not only the correct flavor, but the one with the most recipes associated with it, as sometimes there are duplicate flavor names.
An easy albeit stupid remedy for this is to just add both duplicates to your stash if they have a close number of recipes using them. This ensures you capture all the recipes from the search that have the wrong/duplicate flavor listed in the recipe
Well there is an option to getting rid of duplicates too.
Whut?
Adding to what others have said.
On ELR if you click on a particular flavor, you can find out what flavors are most commonly used with it.
Also when you click on a Flavor, you can see notes other mixers have written about it's flavor profile as well as details like percentage preferences of use in recipes and as a stand alone flavor.
All of which can help mixers discover new flavors as well as help people make the transition from mixer to recipe creator.