I've never used sweetener in a juice before. I dont even eat sugar at all so any sugar is going to overpower my taste buds with testing, I'm sure.
I realize that I didn't give my juice enough time to steep (24 hrs, 4 hours water bath)...but I just want to ask someone experienced if they can tell by a recipe that the parameters look okay for flavor. I followed a recipe for a friend and I'm worried it may have been a bad recipe or my taste buds are too sensitive to the sugar for testing. The smell isnt too strong either.
120ml
CAP blueberry jam 8%.
FA fresh cream 1%.
CAP super sweet 1%
If it looks okay, I'll just let it steep for a week or 2 and not worry about it.
Dial back the jam. It's potent enough that 3% should shine through most things. Id also suggest pairing it with something else, personally I find it works very well with FW blueberry.
Also super sweet is best used around 0.25% as needed and in this case it is not needed. Blueberry jam is pretty heavy on sweetener
I missed the part about the water bath. #stop doing that!
There is no "quick" steep that works. You're putting in effort for at best no results, at worst you're causing your juice to lose flavor by converting a significant amount of your flavor volatiles to a gas.
I'll do some adjustments and try to salvage what I did
The recipe is a clone for vapergate smurf. I'm not sure if it's an exact clone or not. My friend wanted me to duplicate it
You may want to boost the Blueberry Jam (and bring it down lower) with other Blueberries. Or maybe choose a different blueberry combo altogether.
Leave out the SS unless you know a recipe would benefit from it. If you don't know how the mix is gonna test, you don't know how sweetener will change it.
And don't use a hot water bath. Shake it up, leave it be.
I never go over .5% supersweet in any recipe. 1% imo is like vaping straight sugar. From browsing ELR I think a lot of the published recipes look like hot garbage with ridiculous concentrations of sweeteners and flavorings. I imagine it's the same on the other sites. Pay attention to the dates. If it's from 2013 it was made for 2013 tech like clearomizers.
The approach with SS: Use none in the initial mix unless you have made this before (then still, maybe none). After a reasonable steep, if it needs some bling, try a .1% addition. It will probably be close to target at this point, but if not, let it sit and repeat the addition after a test tomorrow.
From my own testing, I found cap blueberry jam to be a very weak flavour. Try using another type of blueberry ie, FW blueberry.
I don't know exactly what flavors you are after but check out these other "Smurf" recipes on ELR. It may give you some ideas on how to improve the flavor. Most of them don't use just a single blueberry flavor.
https://e-liquid-recipes.com/list?q=Smurf&missing=0&recipesonly=0&adaptedfrom=&sort=score&direction=desc
1% SS, that's your prob. I like my sweeteners, and 1% is the highest limit I'll go on the rare occasion. SS is fucking strong.
And I dunno about CAP Blueberry Jam, but it might already have some sweetener in it as that jam flavoring might have something to make it more like a candy.
Try 0.25 to 0.5% CAP SS.
> Try 0.25 to 0.5% CAP SS.
Or none - it's best to start with none and then see if you want it sweeter.
Almost every flavor concentrate out there has at least SOME sweetness to it - people just can't tell because they're vaping so much and drinking/eating so much sugary stuff all day.
I realize your friend specifically asked for this recipe, but I agree with some of the other commenters that you should layer the blueberry and imo layer some cream also and just no Sweetner. After steep if it needs sweetened then add .25% and no more than .5%. Of course everything is subjective, and good luck.