Seen a few posts about bottles lately, but I'm wondering if reusing my bottles is what's ruined one of my juices. Essentially, I mixed up 100ml of a single flavour recipe, vaped it over a period of around 3 weeks. I then washed up the bottle with water only, allowed it to dry, refilled. After the second refill, I used the same bottle for a third time.
I'm certain that I mixed correctly - both having been mixing for years and also my job involves IV drug preparation in a hospital so I'm pretty down with not fucking up liquid recipes. I shook the flavour concentrate correctly, the flavouring itself and my base isn't old. My nic is fine in all other juices etc.
The last batch tastes different in a bad way and also certain nuances in the juice are missing. I'm basically wondering before I remix if anyone thinks that reusing the LDPE bottle is the issue, I'd guess it's about 3 months old overall.
Any input appreciated.
Unlikely. Maybe your concentrates are just getting old?
Wait... did you rinse the bottle using milli-q water? Or at least distilled water? Impurities in the water could've been left in the bottle, otherwise.
If I reuse a bottle, it's only for the same flavor, and then there's no need to rinse.
Syringes can get pretty nasty and more often than not going between bottles, even if you wipe, you slowly get a jungle juice mix of everything from dipping back and forth with a syringe or pipette. This is especially true if you return what you didn't use in the syringe back into the extract bottle. Always purge what you don't use if you must use a syringe, but just get a damn scale if u don't got one.
It's not hard to test your theory, just use a new bottle. Try a new bottle as if it's an experiment, make it a smaller batch if need be. This quite literally is the trial and error that is diy ejuice. in my experience if something is off then you messed something up in the mixing process. Don't mix with syringes either, mix by weight.
I work in a hospital - get free unlimited syringes. I never use them more than once, so it's not that. I do use scales for some recipes but this is a single flavour in 100ml so I just syringed it because simple.
I get what you mean about the tester. Just wanted opinions on this generally because I'd never had this problem before. But I've only recently started to make 100ml bottles
Exposure to heat is also probable. Heat treating works for creams only, fades fresh fruits but candied fruits can get away with it. Heat can play alot of nasty tricks and make one flavor further along than others. I personally don't believe in Steeping long term, if you agitate the ejuice multiple times a day it should be established in 4 or 5 days for even the most stubborn flavors. Obviously time won't save a bad recipe from itself either, steeping just gives depth IMO.
Consider
When you purchased the extract
How you stored the extracts
How you stored the ejuice
Switch to glass imho
Boston rounds, cobalt 2oz dropper bottles
Big batches in 13oz tinted liquor bottles etc
HDPE can be fine, but even it holds/leeches flavor like no tmrw!
Edit: my best recent purchases have been a few glass pipettes and a graduated beaker/cylinder set 10/25/50ml
You’re gonna need to wash it with more than water. It’s like doing dishes. Do you just run them under the tap?
This community never surprises me with its reluctance to upvote and enthusiasm to downvote uncontroversial suggestions. The above is correct. A simple rinse with water is scarcely as effective as water with a surfactant to release aromatic compounds from porous surfaces or those that some molecules have an affinity for, like plastic. So try a gentle amount of dish detergent and make sure you’ve removed it. Some old photo lab wisdom is that water soluble surfactants can be virtually eliminated by 10 fill & dumps even absent of agitation. So you should be able to safely remove dish soap from the bottles for reuse, and it DOES help liberate sticky molecules.
Also don’t use an abrasive sponge or anything like that unless you want to increase porosity and plastic degradation. Just use a cotton towel.