Tldr: why do I hate all the major flavor / does flavor go bad / common coil to buy for flavor / "healthy" vaping?
Started vaping 5 years ago, got into DIY shortly after. Most of my flavorings have a 2017/18 date beat used by date. Initially thought mother's milk was awesome so bought lots of the stuff to clone it. Then switched to some 'cleaner' FA recipes and Hics mixes. Ffwd a couple years later, got lazy and started buying naked 100 and juuls and got really sick from the juuls (I have high BP and was burning through a juul in 8 hours or so). Went back into buying more naked 100 but I usually chain vape at 20w and my coils were dying / tasting burnt in a matter of days. Went back and made up some of my old FA recipes, but they just don't taste that great. Bought a bunch of RDAs and squonks and 18 of the baby beast coils Q something? Tfv8 but bigger huge coils online, and 6 different kinds of cotton and 100+ rda coils off Amazon. I somehow lost all my RDA stuff over the years.
So after all that, some questions: I felt nauseated with the mothers milk clones I made, and determined I must not like all of the most popular custards / creams from capella / vanilla swirl / etc but coming back to the community that seems to still be the most used flavorings? I can't remember all the DAA/DAPA stuff I read about years ago either.
I'm 45, smoked for 27 years, curious what it is that I don't like about these (is it the DAPA?), looking to vape as healthily as I can (have a small child as well) and also curious how "bad" old flavorings can go. One or two of my bottles had spilled / dried up and a couple were even green that I don't recall. I probably have about 300 bottles of flavoring and a few quarts of 100mg.
I'll probably spend the next week or so reading on this sub, trying to get the lay of the land, and then order $1-200 in flavorings. Any vendors known for the best price / best stock / etc?
For now I just made a RY4 TFA mixed with 3 FA vanillas and cut all my naked 100s in half with a 9mg base I mixed, and made 2 of my old recipes I don't really care for.
Are there other must know resources these days? I used to read a lot on VU, and had a flavor stash saved on ELR.
I'm also not very dexterous but would be interested in making some of the coils as the 96 pack only had a few of the .9 and the rest are .45 or lower and I don't think many of my mods go under .2. I don't really care about clouds, mainly flavor and chain vaping, so hoping the atomizers I got are good for that compared to my 2 smok tanks. Rebirth, gv loop, tengu this week, and last week ehpro lock, aspire quad flex packs. I like the idea of squonks vs dripping as I drive a lot. So curious what type of coil to buy to start up with that again. Got the aegis squonk kit yesterday and 3 garbage wotofo stentorian (one broke already from a small fall).
First, lets deal with the elephant in the room: vaping is not "healthy". If you are concerned about DAAP, you'd probably more scared of some of the more recent findings. Breathing clean air is healthy. Vaping is at least 95% safer than smoking. There is 700 times more diacetyl in a cigarette than what you will find in a vape and NO ONE has died from popcorn lung caused by smoking.
Second, if your flavors have a "best before" date no later than 2018 and some have dried up or turned green, I think it's time you dispose of them and get fresh stuff. I may get flamed for saying this (because stored properly they should last years) but they are aromas and will oxidize and evaporate over time.
I'm not going to suggest any recipes because flavor is subjective and I really don't know what you like. Are custards still popular? Hell, ya, and I enjoy my Capella Vanilla Custard version 1 based juice. The key is to search All the Flavors or E-liquid-recipes for something you like and start working on it.
That Geek Vape Aegis squonk should be good for you. The dual coil RDA's you picked out may not be that bad if you can find appropriate coils. You'll want to find a good balance between performance and battery life: I'd suggest aiming for a build ~0.4 ohms and run it about 40W. If you can't find good 0.8 ohm coils (Vandy Vape makes a nice 0.7 ohm coil), then maybe it's time to invest in a few tools and some wire and make your own. Check out Lightning Vapes: they have a chart on their website that gives you a nice wire/wraps grid with representative resistances.
Hardware has changed in the last few years, so it's probably time to develop some new recipes with some of the new flavors that are out there. There's lots of information out there and a lot of experience here you can call on.
Thanks for the reply! Sorry just was sitting bored in my car waiting for an hour so not super easy for me to compose a good post. If the custards were the diacetyl flavoring that capella had and FA didn't 4-5 years ago, it's not a primary concern as I'm sure some of the naked crap ice been vaping has it likely in it. Acetyl Pyrazine just reeked of Fritos to me so wasn't really giving up much there. I'm not a FA purist or anything just didn't seem to be able to stomach mother's milk after I'd quit smoking for 6 months and got into FA DIY. I have pitched whatever was green, but yeah my FA stuff seems fine.
I read the warning on the sidebar and most of the stuff I saw on there was TFA if I had any of it I it was in small glass vials and I don't get into those much vs my drip bottles.
Looking at ELR and ATV and searching by ratings most things on there are from 2015 or so that have any feedback, so I'll probably spend more time reading up on here the last year.
Looking at the must have first time flavor must have lists have changed a bit even over the past 3 years so there have been some changes.
I've got tools to make coils, just no actual wire. I guess the question there is maybe TC vs wattage, making your own coils and the materials used I assume wattage is a lot easier making your own? Common gauges? I got some coils yesterday that were flat too?
Yeah I realize my OP was a mess as I titled it, I spent 100s of hours learning all this shit 5 years ago but I've forgotten a lot and just wanting to get up to speed as quickly as I can!
Don't worry about your post as you reply to questions it's becomes clear. I can't seem to post a decent one myself where I clearly state my thoughts and feelings. Got a bottle of flavor that went bad in 2 weeks and was the only one out of 29. Must have been how the vendor stored it. Point is flavors can go bad fast or slow depending upon a lot of different things.
If you prefer basic round wire, go with 26 gauge Kanthal, 5.5 wraps @ 3mm. That should give you ~0.798 ohms (0.4 ohms in parallel). For a little better flavor, look at Wire Optim (Lightning Vapes) #96447: a 26 gauge Kanthal single core with a 36 gauge Kanthal wrap; 5.5 wraps @ 3 mm will give you ~0.74 ohms per coil.
I can understand how getting back into DIY can be a bit daunting, there was not nearly the choices there are now just a few years ago. I would say that if anything does not look right to you, or smells off, throw it out, especially if you are trying to do everything you can to make vaping as safe as possible. You might want to get a small fridge that you can store things in, I have one in my office and use it for my nicotine and other products I want to store in a cool place, but keep them on hand. I would be willing to help in any way I can, I think the post from Timinelmira was right on. I do DIY juice and am currently using the valaryin it is a fairly nice tank, however it does use quite a bit of juice. I buy most of my stuff at nicriver, they have always had good products and were able to handle a large order from me with little issue. There shipping can leave something to be desired but they will always do what they can to make it right. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help, I wish you the best of luck and hope you enjoy getting back into DIY. :)
I'm not scared of daap too much but I imagine copd is the smoking version of popcorn lung. I'm sure daap plays a decent role in why cigs kill. Though like I said I'm not too concerned but just bcuz we assume no one has been harmed from daap in cigs. It doesn't mean that's the truth.
TLDR Popcorn lung and copd are basically the same thing under a different name.
Sorry not trying to start a holy war my first day back, I guess what I should have figured out was why all the non-FA vanillas / custards or some made me sick to smell, and the difference in capella v1/2 etc.. (my FA stuff still stinks just not as strong if a reaction) and like I said AP smelled like Fritos to me so after reading they may be bad I most likely was like "no loss? Makes me gag anyway" and joined a side? I just was browsing recipes the past two days and saw all of these DAAP recipes and it made me wonder if I was being trolled or something :)
There's too much going on here. Slow down, read the FAQ post
I've read them all, and even left a tldr at the top. Your choice to read it all?
You never said what flavors you are using, you never said what recipes you are using. No one can tell you why you hate certain flavors. DAAP isn't really a concern, and you'll have to elaborate on the coil question.
Can I suggest .. maybe .. making a list of actual questions? - This is very hard to decipher. Not sure what you're actually asking.
Why do the custards / vanillas that seem to be in every recipe from 5 years ago make me nauseated? Any particular chemical scientific reasoning? Does flavoring go bad? The tldr pieces?
your tastes change incredibly as you vape, I started on fruit then only vaped custards and desserts for over a year. now all of a sudden i cant stand custard and back on fruit for over a year
everyone is different and custards do give me side effects and a cough and nausea so I NEVER inhale into the lungs, thats actually how i vape everything now kind of like how you would smoke a cigar, inhale/exhale slow and play with the vapor you mouth and tongue do a great job at absorbing nicotine but I had to up the nicotine to compensate BUT basically 0 side effects now
Most of questions can't be answered because it's way too subjective your going to have to experiment and maybe keep your flavorings in the fridge and they shouldn't go bad for a loooong time
Could have to do with the equipment you used to vaping with.
Older recipes, from what I gathered, were formulated with higher concentrations of sweetener because of that equipment.
I'm seeing the opposite watching diyordie videos as far as trends over the past 4 years. More DIY recipes had less sweeteners back then vs commercial juices, but now DIYers use a % of super sweet (or could just be Wayne?). I never added them myself, but all the stuff I made back then were pretty bland / clean, and I mentioned that I am cutting all my naked 100s in half to try to get away from it currently. I've just changed a lot the past two weeks moving from my smok tanks to squonks and RDAs and going back to DIY.
DAAP isn't really a issue, it was fake news when the great DAAP scare was perpetrated. Just like the "vape juice contains antifreeze" stories - yeah, after antifreeze replaced ethylene glycol to make pet-friendly versions containing PG, but those stories were never about truth so much as propaganda from the antivaping coalition of BigPharma and BigNonsmoking(aka the antismoker hate groups).
As to not liking custards... Many of them have bad flavors to them like vanilla or egg. And some have vomit flavoring(aka butyric acid) to replace the butter flavor normally provided by DAAP. So totally understandable tgat you'd find them hard to like. That's why I love VT Banana Custard - the creamy custard feel without the nasty custard tastes. As far as sweetener goes, it's all personal. Some use sweetener, some don't. I may add some once I think a recipe is as good as it's gonna get (adding it earlier in development will mask flaws but result in a lesser recipe than perfecting the recipe first and then adding some) but even then I don't use sucralose (personal choice, not even related to the inhaling chlorine gas issue)
For websites, Bullcityflavors is cool. Over 50$? its free shipping. Code reddit6 gets you like, 6% or 10% off and they came for me in about, 2-3 days. All came in dropper bottles too which is gonna make things easy =)
You mentioned spending the next week reading on this sub. Not trying to be a dick, just offering a tip for the future. Try doing that before you post a question. Alot of the things you are asking you will find the answers to.