Week 77
Hello again to all DIY'ers.
Amidst the aftermath of the FDA's PMTA requirement for commercial vjuices, I believe our community is going to grow even more. It is truly regrettable that some long-standing vendors are no longer available. With all the commercials about helping small businesses, this requirement meant putting the squeeze on them instead. What can you do?
Well, the apparent answer for those reading this is that you can make your own.
Hence the importance of knowing what you're getting when you buy flavor concentrates. Since our ability to taste and how we can varies... it's still good to have people sharing their experiences/tests. An ideal starting point for every new DIY'er should be this Flavor Facts sheet on Google. It will provide links to various sources for information regarding the concentrates.
Or you can simply go through the Wiki AND/OR the vendor cross-reference for this thread. Below is an example of a person's comment on last week's thread regarding FLV Alpine Strawberry:
EXAMPLE (excerpt from /u/GatedGrain's (comment)
>I’m somewhat strawberry blind but can definitely taste this one. While this flavor isn’t super candied, the main strawberry note itself reminds me of the profile of those strawberry Push Pops from the 90’s.
​
The Flavor Facts sheet includes reference to Noted. It is a YouTube series which goes into detail about certain flavor profiles. If you want to look into this further, you can access the current playlist (reverse order) by clicking here.
Yes, this is a lot of information to digest all in all, yet it does try to provide access to anything you might want/need ON TOP OF the helpful links in the right margin (viewable through a regular web-browser). For instance, there is one for vjuice calculators and another which has some links for "Required Reading". With the 4-1-1, you are hopefully armed and ready to start mixing! Cheers!!
FYI this playlist actually has all the Noted episodes (Wayne's is missing 23) and this sheet has all the episodes, guests, FOTW's they're tied to & links to u/-DixxleRoo-'s extensive show notes that she posts here in the subreddit every week, as well as links to all the guests ELR/ATF profiles, and a list of upcoming shows/guests.
Quick edit: Oh and thanks to everyone's contributions in these weekly threads we're up to 1,566 notes on flavors from 53 brands.
ECigExpress Key Lime Pie One Shot 11.5%
A coworker approached me with a bottle of this a while ago and I mixed testers for both of us to try. I know they've rebranded to Flavor Jungle so am guessing the age of the bottle to be about a year or so if not older which may affect the taste of it. I'm not sure.
I steeped it for about a week and a half and tasted it again a few weeks after that. It was pretty tasty and well balanced. The zestiness of the lime went well with the Graham type crust and general creaminess of it. It remained very consistent over the 6 weeks or so if a bit on the weak side of things which could be because of the age of the bottle. Flavor Jungle does still offer a one shot of this but I've no idea if it's the same formulation.
SSA Mocca Coffee @2%
- SnV: tasty dark coffee, no burnt offnotes
- 3 days: a bit sweet, doesn’t taste as dark anymore, feels nice down the throat, no voluminous mouthfeel
- 4 days: still sweet, a bit watery coffee. Not amazing but also not bad.
- 2 weeks: didn’t change much, tasty coffee, light sweet, no voluminous mouthfeel. most of it‘s taste during inhalation. Good coffeebase, needs a little boost of vt arabica or wf brazilian
The way I'm reading this, you're suggesting you use it for SnV and vape it up quickly??
EDIT: Thank you for the notes from various times you'd tested it out.
No, I like it during the whole steeping process but I would always pair it with another coffee. Imo it gives those what they lack and the other way round. 2% SSA Mocca Coffee, 1% WF Brazilian and 0.25% VT Arabica is what I came up with and really enjoy.
TFA grape juice @ 8-12%
This flavor ranges from a generic Welch's type grape juice at the low end to a Bubblicious grape gum at the high end. It's tasty but weak across the board and benefits from TFA pear juicyiness as well as FA Fuji sweetness to add a sugary fruit note.
FLV Yam is a very odd one. Unique and interesting, but so far I've failed to find any useful combinations for it. Also it is extremely persistent in my RDA; even after rewicking, I can still taste it.
INW custard 4%
FLV marshmallow 1%
FLV yam 0.75%
FLV red/rich cinnamon 0.2%
I love the earthiness of that flavor. I'm sure I'll find a better flavor combination at some point but these are fantastic to me for now.
Is that 0.2% of each cinnamon, or is it either/or?
I like the earthiness too, but it won't seem to combine well with anything sweet for me.
My most promising experiment so far has been:
Ingredient|% :---|---: Cucumber (Flavorah)|0.50 Persimmon spice (Flavorah)|0.90 Yam (Flavorah)|1.00
Either/or. Personally I've only had the red cinnamon but imagine the rich would be more fitting. I'll have to get the cucumber and give that a whirl.
Edit, concerning the red cinnamon and my math from above, my usage rate of it is 3 literal drops of it per 60 ml of solution. It was just a hint too high at 2 drops per 30 ml. I've been meaning to make a 10:1 dilution of FLV red cinnamon for ease of use. The other percentages are spot on weight accurate.