Because of the recent ban in WA, I'm resulting to DIY. Guess this is something I could have been doing for a while now, but these recent circumstances are making me.
I'm looking at flavor concentrates on nicotine river. I'm not sure what to go for, I like dessert flavors but I'm not confident on what to get since it seems like DIY is all about making these recipes with multiple flavors, however I may feel more comfortable just doing single shot at first. So if I used to get vanilla custard as a flavor at my local vape shop, if I order vanilla custard flavor concentrate from nicotine river will it taste similarly to the shops , or will it taste "incomplete" because maybe the shop had it as a multiple flavor recipe. Basically asking if flavors in concentrates online will mostly all work as one shots or if they're purely meant to be bases or hints.
I know I wrote a lot but didn't know how to articulate my question, thanks
Almost all commercial liquids will be a blend of multiple flavors.
There are certainly individual flavorings that taste good by themselves, but they will always taste better as part of a mix. I don't know of any flavorings that taste better alone.
The easiest way to start DIY, in my opinion, is to go to somewhere like alltheflavors or e-liquid-recipes, sort by rating, and find a few that sound tasty. Pick up the flavorings for them, and go from there. ELR even has a feature where if you list the flavorings you bought in your "stash", you can have the machine show you all the different recipes you can make, as well as which ones you're only missing 1 or 2 flavors for. It's a great way to show you where to go next.
Welcome to the world of DIY! There's a learning curve for sure, and it's a bit of up-front cost, but once you fall in to it, there's no going back! :-) Don't forget to pick yourself up some VG, PG, nicotine, and a decent scale (like the LB-501 - mixing by weight is monumentally easier, and more accurate).
I do know what you mean. The fact is, for most flavors they will taste incomplete if you just buy one and mix it. There are some excellent 2 or 3 ingredient recipes tho, it's not like you need a dozen which you'll some times see out there :)
BUT - there are flavorings called 'one shots'. They're kind of like a premixed flavorings so you just add that, your nic and vg/pg and you're off to the races.
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I notice that nicotine river carries the pazzo line. They are all one shots. Their 'joker' mix is a cannoli with a bit of cookie in it - which would likely be along the lines you might like as a dessert. I've tried it, it does taste like cannoli, but with a slight biscut flavor too. It's not bad at all, if you're into the desserts and bakeries. Mix it at 4.5 percent. It tastes a little weak lower than that - their recommendation of 2- 3 percent to start is too low. I vape their ace all the time - it's kind of a tropical fruit.
Now - if you want a decent custardy type then i'm sure we can find you a great 2 or 3 ingredient recipe that will be really good quality. Or perhaps you can find a one shot out there someone sells, i'm in canada so i don't know the suppliers down there as well. I have a nice creme brule that's only a couple of ingredients.
But if you're bound and determined to do a single - see if you can find a one shot that sounds good to you. You'll tend to get better results than just buying a single flavour and trying to make that work for the most part. So go that route or find yourself a nice 3 ingredient recipe that's easy to make, and we can help with that.
I'd be interested in your creme brule recipe.
Creme Brulee (YC) (INAWERA) at 5%
Bavarian Cream (TPA) 1%
Vanilla Custard (TPA) 1.5%
A friend who was trying to quit smoking really wanted a creme brulee and this is what i came up for him for his MTL device, but it works good in a tank too. I don't normally vape desserts, so i haven't polished this one as much as possible. I felt maybe the ratios could still be tweaked a little, I'm not even sure you need the bavarian cream, i was going to try a batch without it - but he loved it and a few other people i helped get off smoking also loved it. So - i figured why screw with what works and stopped tweaking the percents and the recipe:)
The creme brulee by itself has slightly too much 'burnt' taste to the 'brulee', and isn't custardy enough in my opinion. So the bavarian creme helps smooth out that burnt taste and the custard bumps up that custardy flavor we all love in a good creme brulee at the restaurant. Super simple, three ingredients, lots of flavor without being too strong. And like most three ingredient recipes, works in tanks or MTL's.
Read the sidebar. You will find a wealth of information to get you started inculding "My First Order" Flavors
Depends on the flavor you want. There wasn't such a thing as one shots when I started mixing a few years ago. I would think that might be a good idea to get just to get your feet wet. In my experience making a good vanilla custard takes many different flavors, sure you could just mix vanilla custard with some vg and nic but it's not going to give a good rounded flavor as it would if you throw in some creams and bakery flavors with it the custard make has like 9 different flavorings. My advice is to get a one shot that you're 75% sure you'll like and then get a few single flavors to play around with like if you enjoy fruits and bakery types. get things that you can mix with each other like strawberry banana cream and cookie or Graham cracker, all could be mixed together for a strawnanna cookie or you could do banana cream etc.
I appreciate everyone's responses to my question. Very helpful indeed. I'm just nervous about buying all these single flavors to create something, only to be disappointed by the result.
Look on AllTheFlavors.com and search for recipes you think you might like. Pick one or two, and then base your starting purchase of concentrates on that.
I'm pretty new, too. When I started, I was after one specific clone of a commercial Lucky Charms recipe (still chasing that, actually, but I'm getting closer), and my initial purchase of concentrates got me started with a small collection. I added a few that sounded interesting to me, like some fruits and cereals.
Rinse and repeat, and before long, you have a pretty wide selection of concentrates and you find yourself dreaming of how to combine them in new and interesting ways!
I just made six new juices this weekend, and a couple of them seem pretty good to me, even without giving them much of a chance to steep. I rely on my friends more often to tell me which ones they like, now... So I will be preparing several 10ml sample bottles for everyone to try.
Some are hits and some are misses, but over the past couple of months, I've started to build a list of recipes that I've either gotten online, or created myself, which SOMEONE (either me or friends and family) really likes.
The good thing is flavors are dirt cheap. Nic River has some great prices themselves if you're buying there already (and wanna save shipping $), and Bull City Flavors is even better (better selection and prices, and super fair shipping charges in case you decide to go there. You can buy like 10 different flavors in 10ml bottles and only pay about $5 to ship it all.
I was a bit daunted at first too and my first go I only bought 1 cheesecake flavoring with good reviews, then realized quickly after it was a mistake, it didn't taste the way I hoped. But soon as I got my next proper order of about 5 more flavors I chose after browsing the top rated recipes on Alltherecipes, I was hooked. Now I have stash of different flavors larger than I ever imagined, and I can make all kinds of things catered to my taste. And I'm broke lol, it barely hit my wallet it's so cheap. Just do some research regarding what nic blend and mg to get first, I made the mistake of getting a low mg nic mix aiming for 3mg juice, and wasn't able to achieve it so I had to reorder.
> buying all these single flavors to create something
I'll tell you right now, going that route will almost certainly lead to disappointment. It's hard to create something decent without knowing the ingredients, and knowing how to use the ingredients. I suggest finding a few recipes that people like (not from 2015) and get the exact flavors to make them. Older recipes usually have unnecessarily high flavor percentages. This will improve you're chances at having something decent to vape on while you get familiar with the flavors individually. Buying flavors at random isn't a good idea.
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You can always take a shortcut and buy one shots but you won't really learn too much.
Flavor concentrates are meant to be used in combinations. Commercial buyers of flavorings don't really (with the exception of bottomfeeders like VapeWild) want single flavors to use by themselves, they want to be able to combine things in ways that make it challenging for their competitors to replicate their recipe, since trade secret recipes are theor only protection. As to your specific preference, maybe if you can find recipes or oneshots that appeal to you you can keep your first order of flavors small ... But flavors are pretty cheap...
Hey everyone, all of these responses are very helpful. In regards to all this insight, I think I will buy one, one-shot concentrate, and 6 or 7 individual flavors to make 2-3 different custard recipes and go from trial and error. That way I can experiment with doing a couple recipes and have that one-shot as a safeguard incase I'm not fond of the recipe results.
Something I always recommend is to start with "Flavour Concentrates or Bottle Shots" these are flavourings pre-mixed that you just add VG/PG and Nicotine to. It's a great way to start and helps to get used to how to handle the percentage of ingredients to use and how to DIY before you move on to more individual and authentic DIY mixing. It's often looked down on by DIY snobs but people are strange creatures and not everyp6ne has a life 🤷♂️
Starting like this helped me to learn the basic mechanics of it (I'm dyslexic) and nowadays I'm mixing my own stuff with 5 of more flavourings very well. A few links to help you out:
ecigvape .com/e-liquid-combining-calculator
This is my favourite combining calculator and can help in accuracy on how much VG PG to add if your Sub Ohm vaping I would always recommend 3mg/ml nicotine you can always vape more often for more nicotine but starting at 6mg and finding it horrible can put you off completely obviously this is much higher for MTL vaping or pod systems etc.....
Also if you do want to start with true DIY recipes or when your ready to move on to them anything at:
alltheflavors .com/users/ID10-T
Is generally fantastic, guys my favourite mixer and I particularly love and older recipe of his called "Viserion".
Anyway hope this helps. 👍
A previous poster may have implied that commercial buyers/mixers only mix so they can have an original recipe that is hard to emulate. I doubt that's the main impetus--it has to do more with the interest, possibility and sometimes almost magical effects that can happen with multiple flavors.
Bull City Flavors has a bunch of community recipes on their site, many of which are really simple and geared for beginners, but also good. I agree with the person who said there's no reason to not vape a single flavor if you like it. But a lot of times a single concentrate isn't enough to keep my interest. Single flavors tend to (obviously, i guess) be a kinda "one-note". Still, when you're just getting into DIY, it helps to keep things simple. If I'm switching from cigarettes (which I've done twice now), I know I can't be having with all the complexity!
Your custard will be better if you buy CAP Vanilla Custard v1. Use it around 6%. Dare I say add 3 or 4% CAP French Vanilla to that and you are gonna be hitting on all cylinders baby. It will blow that TFA Vanilla Custard + Sweetener they're charging a buck a ml down the street outta the water. Facts. Welcome to diy my friend!
G’day mate, I’m from NSW and have been off the smokes for 7 months. I went straight into DIY after trying a few flavours from the shop. I like all the desserts myself and have accumulated over 130 flavours in that time. Most of these I have mixed solo and tried them just to get an idea of what other flavours they may go well with. My favourite solo dessert flavours are, CAP French vanilla FW Butterscotch ripple TFA Vanilla custard TFA Vanilla bean ice cream FLV Cinnamon crunch FA Custard premium INW Milk chocolate Also try TFA RY4 double
Try these for a start then maybe try some recipes later down the track. I finally mixed up Kings Custard and that’s definitely worth a try, you’ll just need a couple more flavours for that one.
Good luck 😊