Looking back it should be titled 'my new mixer thoughts and what this sub showed me works'. Not trying to take credit or state these are all my ideas but it is what I have found works thru using this sub plus some of my own thoughts.
I quit 20+ years of smoking January 2017 through vaping and haven't looked back. Started with the typical overpriced Smok setup but moved to rebuilding about 2 months into it. Since then I had been on the fence with diy but the current atmosphere gave me that nudge to start about a month ago. A lot of this is rehashed old knowledge to the vets here but as a new mixer I figured I would share what I have picked up so far and possibly (hopefully) help anyone else just starting/trying to start. Typing this on mobile so formatting may be shit and thoughts may be out of order.
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Find an interesting (and popular, as chances are its decent at the very least) recipe or 2 and buy flavors for those mixes. Add a couple random concentrates in your cart if you wish but do some research on their profiles (as well as safety), and how they will interact with your current flavors, before buying. Theres a reason certain flavors pop up all the time. They are tried and true and most likely the "best" or top versions of a flavor.
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Order small bottles of concentrates if you havent used them before, nothing more than 10 or 15 ml. Even if they are highly touted YOU may not enjoy the flavor notes and are now effectively stuck with 30ml of hot garbage. Concentrates stretch a ton so a little 10ml bottle used at 2-3% will last you awhile as long as your not making huge bottles (which you probably should not be before testing a recipe a few times).
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If you have time do single flavor tests to learn all the nuances of a concentrate. If not, read a bunch and see what the general consensus is for a percentage used as a top note, accent, ect. Theres a reason people will say stuff like "after x% this flavor gets weird".
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Dont go crazy ordering all your concentrates at once. In my short time in this I'm constantly finding new flavors mentioned that I want to try and I'll pick up a handful at a time with specific recipes and creations in mind. If I had blown say $150 on flavors in the first go I would be stuck, with no chance to try anything new or interesting. I break up my orders to get 10 or so flavors at a time as well as other supplies such as bottles and vg.
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After mixing a few tried and true recipes (to authors spec, no substitutions) dont be afraid to branch out. This may be because I enjoy cooking as well but after following recipes for my first 3 mixes I just kinda went for it. Granted my mixes arent fine tuned by any means and in some cases not working at all, to me the most enjoyable part is trying to create something. To this point, no need to go crazy with fractions of percentages of 12 flavors. Get the main idea together, mix it and tune from there.
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Referencing above point, mix 10 ml testers. If it doesn't work no big deal you're only out a bit. Nothing worse than thinking your recipe would work and being saddled with 50 ml of shit.
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Sweetener.... don't push it too far but dont feel bad about using it. 1% is really high to this community but coming from comercial juices it might be where you feel comfortable. Just dont splash it in, use it with a purpose and start low, you can always add more later on.
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In most cases, 1 flavor won't give you what you're lookin for. If you want a peach or what not accent using 1 concentrate would work but to showcase a flavor you probably need a few concentrates of a certain profile. Look up trinity mixes, fruits and cheesecakes specifically. These have been fine tuned and act as a sort of one shot to creating an excellent base for recipies. See what works, try it and tune to your taste. On the other hand, also look up 3-2-1 mixes, great way to play around with flavors without getting crazy complicated.
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Pre mix a nic base for your testers to use when you're creating your own recipies, its saves time and cuts out the monotony. I keep a 120 ml of 90vg 5mg/ml mix so I just splash it in when I'm ready. I aim for between 70-85vg and 3.5-4.5 mg/ml nic for my testers depending on what I want to do. If I find something I like I'll fine tune the vg/pg blend but for testers its good enough.
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Fuck syringes and get a scale. Seriously, in theory they're fine but in practice its a huge time sink. And messy. And wasted effort. So yeah save yourself the aggravation and get a scale. EDIT Ive seemed to hit a nerve with this. I still stand by my thoughts on scales but it seem opinions differ a bit. Scales, cylinders, syringes - do you, whatever works, works.
I'm sure theres a ton of stuff I left out but I got long winded here and need to be productive today so yeah. Feel free to add/critique as Im sure theres more to be said.
My homage to Mustard Milk
'Mustard Twist v1'
INW Shisha Strawberry 3%
TPA Strawberry 4%
TPA Vanilla Bean Ice Cream 6%
TPA Whipped Cream 2%
CAP Super Sweet 0.2%
SnV ready but better after 3-4 days
Sometimes the reason a flavor is used a lot is because of history. Early entrants to the market got used a lot. And lots of people bought them to make existing recipes. Even tho better flavors have come out since. For example... iNW Lemon Mix is twice as potent as FA Lemon Sicily and doesn't pull a vanishing act and otherwise is a perfect replacement... But people use FA because it came out first and made it into recipes before.
Great point I never really considered the role 'legacy' flavors played. The good thing is that with all the people here and other places online, when these 'replacement' or rivaling in quality concentrates hit we can compare the 2 and sub where necessary.
Yeah. I have (for example) FA Lemon Sicily. I even used it in some early recipes, before I found something better. Other people still use FW Cancer Cake, even tho JF makes a non-carcinogenic replacement. VT has a number of flavors better than some early-entrant versions. So does INW. Or GL. Or FE, or...
But plenty of people still use TFA, CAP and FW. Occasionally (TFA honeysuckle, CAP Sweet Tangerine, FW blueberry) they're really good flavors, but other times they're ok (TFA Champagne, CAP NYCC, FW Extreme Ice) but more usedul for their ubiquity than their quality.
You picked up a lot of info in just a month's time research. You're not going to have any problems mixing in the future. Good luck
TBH there was alot of lurking before I started mixing lol. Its just putting the knowledge to use at this point.
> there was alot of lurking before I started mixing
I think this is what separates great newbie mixers from... your average newbie mixer. there's a lot of really good information here and it takes a lot of reading before you'll have a basic enough understanding to start experimenting. I personally spent a month acting as an information sponge before i made my first order.
I hear you on the info sponge point as there is always something to learn and luckily diy has been around long enough that there is a wealth of information to draw on. To a fault I tend to go all in on whatever interest/hobby/ect I'm trying to learn about. Being a 'great' mixer is not my goal, my purpose in this is to be a good enough mixer to take my wife, myself and anyone else trying to stay off cigs through this upcoming prohibition.
I just started DIY about a month ago myself. I'm still searching for a recipe I like enough to make in a large batch. So far I've just been making 10ml testers. I've even experimented a little. Mustard's milk was my first DIY and turned out good, but I wanted to see if I could improve the strawberry part of it. Looks like I had pretty much the same idea as you. I used the TFA strawberry and inw shisha strawberry at close to the same percentages you did. I wondered how whipped cream would work in it. In also trying to perfect a cranberry ginger ale based off of 1 2 3 cranberry Sprite. My one disappointment was Leche de Coco. SVRF's Balanced is one of my favorite commercial juices and this recipe sounded like it would get me close. It smells amazing, but I get a weird flavor from it that I don't know how to describe, and very little of the coconut. It's steeped almost a week, I'll give it another go soon.
If there is one thing you learned about mixing that you are surprised with or had a different opinion on before you started what was it??
Its tough to choose one. As with many activities, once you start participating your preconceived notions change. The biggest one though? Before I started diy I lurked a ton and looked up a lot of recipes referenced here. To be honest I thought people were being, for lack of a better term, pretentious with their mixes. For example a mix would have 7% of a certain fruit but it would be broken down into 3 different concentrates at different percentages. I would think 'if you want 7% blueberry just use 7% (x company) blueberry why is it necessary to 3 different ones?' Now I see how the flavors play with each other and each bring a different characteristic. Kinda like when you cook and want a little pepper kick you wouldnt just dump "pepper" it would be black pepper, chilli powder and paprika combo for a richer mix.
About myself I learned I really like creamy and dessert juices. I primarily vaped fruit or candy type juices because the other stuff didnt do too much for me or was just too sweet after a bit. Now that I can fine tune creamyness and flavor in general I find myself making alot of milk/cream/cheesecake/custard (with fruit mainly) profiles.
>pretentious with their mixes
For me too. Why three blueberries? Well, because they say so. Then you figure out for example, it's for a better rounded blueberry that isn't candy like, but more authentic and includes the bitter skin.
As I was planning my second order of concentrates I think I was watching fresh03 and he was talking about using TPA blueberry extra and wild together even though they were weak flavors. He said something along the lines of mixing a higher percentage of extra vs wild for a candied flavor or raising the wild % up and dropping extra down a bit for more prevalent natural notes. Just kinda clicked at that point as why we intertwine different versions of the same flavor.
Before starting, probably the fact that all flavor houses can have varying potency for the same flavor. And not only the potency but also the overall flavor, like all the blueberries.. they all taste different. Before getting into it I just assumed they all tasted the same. No, this is far from true