Today I just received 1 gallon 100mg Nic in PG. I already have 1 liter broken down into 4oz amber glass boston rounds in my freezer, so it will be at least a year before I will need to break into the 1 gallon. It is packaged in a white HDPE jug. If I do not break the seal, would it be Ok to store the entire unopened jug in the freezer until I need to open it, or should I go ahead and open it and repack in glass now? My own thoughts are that the sealed jug would keep out oxygen and if I open it and repack it now I will be exposing to oxygen before it is necessary, but then on the other hand it's plastic, so maybe glass would be better. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I want my nic to be good for many years to come. I know there have been a lot of these posts lately about storage, but I have searched and can't seem to find an answer to my particular question. Thank you in advance!
Personally I'd break it down into glass bottles. You know oxygen won't penetrate them vs plastic and you can also test the quality of the nic. You don't want to wait a year just to realize they shipped you oxidized nic.
Thanks - I didn't even think of that - that would be terrible! I will get some more glass bottles and go ahead and break it down.
Yeah it really depends on the company. I buy Carolinaxtract and it's always crystal clear like water. They are the only company I trust to send fresh nic every time.
I buy from LNW. I have always been happy with them. But it would for sure be a good thing for me to test the quality of my nic now, so if there is a problem, I can address it with them. After a year, I would be SOL, and after spending this much money, that would truly be a tragedy!
I've had this same question and I've been waiting for somebody to ask,buying that many amber glass with proper caps gets spendy!
Because it's just for the pmtas and I want it to last a long time I haven't opened the plastic bottle in the bottom of the freezer. I'm currently trying to find the best way to break it down so I don't have to keep decanting it into smaller and smaller glass bottles. I haven't opened it but I "check" the jug every couple weeks, I'll hold it up to the light and I haven't noticed any discoloration. I got mine from LNW as well, I've never had any issues with oxidized nic in the past.
Apocalypse nic should be cared for as best you can, because the idea behind stockpiling in the first place is that you won’t have any do-overs for it in the future.
My workflow is this:
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Clean new bottles with vinegar, then rinse with distilled water. Let air dry for 24 hours.
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While waiting for bottles to dry, open new nic and make an unflavored test juice to make sure it’s fine. Color is not always a surefire way to determine quality. I’ve had really bad nic that was crystal clear.
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If nic is good, decant into 4oz amber glass bottles. I use a scale and aim for ~100ml per bottle to keep it simple to calculate what quantities I will have left in reserve as I use it up.
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I use argon to purge air from the bottles, using commercially available wine preserver. (Argon in an aerosol can). This is easier than it sounds, just a few seconds of light spraying into the bottle.
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Put the caps on. I only use polycone caps, anything else doesn’t seem to seal as well. You know you have them if there is a translucent plastic cone up in the bottle cap.
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Label bottles with vendor, strength, pg/vg content, volume, date of manufacture, and date decanted.
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Each bottle is bubble wrapped and placed into a plastic container. The container is such that if a bottle were to break, the nic could still be recovered in desperate circumstances. I also put a label on the outside of the container warning of nicotine danger and disposal instructions. If I die or something, eventually someone else will have to deal with it and it is environmentally dangerous to pour down the drain.
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Place in freezer and enjoy peace of mind. Chest freezer without de-icing is optimal because the temperature is held much more consistently than a regular kitchen freezer. Will still work though, and third best is refrigerator if freezer is not viable.
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Extra paranoid measure: split the stash between different locations. I’m lucky that I can store half at my house, and the other in my parents’ garage freezer. Tornados, floods, earthquake, fires etc. You never know.
Working bottles: I decant one of the 100mls into four 1oz (~30ml) bottles with 25ml of nic - which also stay in the freezer. I then put one in the fridge to use freely.
Important note: Always let a cold bottle come to room temperature before opening. There is risk of condensation forming on the inside of the bottle or even the surface of the cold nic itself, contaminating it with water and lowering its quality.
YMMV, some people get by fine with much less preparation - but I want to minimize the risks as much as reasonable.
Thanks for the tips! I think I may need one or two larger bottles because 100mls at at time I would have 300+ amber glass bottles 😅 I'll be saving this comment to refer back to when I get the glass bottles and polycone caps 🙏🙏
You have 30 liters?
For reference, I can fit 24 4oz (~100ml) bottles in a roughly shoebox-sized container. That’s 2.4 liters worth in a relatively small space.
I personally wouldn’t go bigger than 500ml glass bottles. Nic shrinks as it gets colder, creating a lower pressure inside the bottle.
I don’t have any hard data on this, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable subjecting larger bottles to that kind of stress for such long periods of time.
Sounds like a great plan! I have done similar for my liter of nic I have currently in my freezer. I will purchase the wine preserver for the gallon when I repack it, because it will be some time before I use it. I have my liter broken down into 4oz boston amber glass rounds with polycone caps. I sealed the caps with electrical tape as extra insurance. I labeled each with the date, strength, and manufacturer. Then I wrapped each bottle in bubble wrap, placed them in a heavy duty freezer bag and marked the bag with skull and crossbones, danger, poison, etc. I have them in my deep chest freezer that does not have self deicing. It is about -20°F in there last time I checked. I will do the same for the gallon, the only difference will be to add the wine preserver. Unfortunately, I don't have access to a freezer in another location, so you are lucky to have that option! It sounds like you thought of everything!
My recommendation is to go ahead and decant the gallon now. Yes it’s a pain, but you’ll have to do it at some point and you only have to do it once. The air exposure it gets during the decanting process is entirely negligible.
At the very least, open it and test it before it’s too late. You do not want to find out it’s unusable in a post PMTA world where you need it, but can’t replace it.
As another commenter pointed out, breaking the seal doesn’t matter much when it’s in plastic as plastic is already relatively porous as far as air is concerned.
At the end of the day, if you really want to keep it in plastic, it will probably be fine kept at -20F for at least a year. Of all the factors that degrade nic, temperature seems to have the most effect.
Either way though, I highly suggest you test it now while you can still do something about it if there’s a problem.
Does anyone have a recommendation on where to buy these bottles? My searching around has found a lot of places, but either I would need to buy more than I would ever need or spend more than I would want too to fill the minimum order amount.
I buy my bottles from Amazon. They sell them in cases of 12 and have multiple sizes of boston round amber glass bottles and other bottles as well. Their prices are pretty good, too. I think I paid around $15 for a case of 12 x 4oz bottles.