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My Journey Into Diy Mixing
Posted by
Cyberpixie
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in
DIY MIXING
12 December 2011
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When I first started vaping I thought mixing your own juice was just a way to make it at least half as cheap as pre-mixeds. The thought of messing with syringes, pipettes and liquid nicotine made me nervous. Heck, even when I started vaping I was nervous at having so many bottles of pre-mixeds in the house and having to fill up cartomisers with the ‘very risky’ or so I thought, chance of getting drops of it on my skin or heaven forbid in my mouth.
Very quickly within a few weeks, I dispensed with the gloves while filling up my cartomisers at the low strength of approx 12mg. The most I’ve got on my hands since is a drop or two and only twice. A quick rinse off with water and no problems. The getting nicotine on myself played another factor in not being that willing to learn to drip, I don’t like mess and leaks when it comes to nicotine. Well, that and I seemed to kill atties if I so much as even looked at one! So mixing my own liquids seemed like something that was not for me.
However, move forward a few months and having tried close to 200 juices from around 12 UK vendors and several USA vendors and only having found at most 8 or so I would buy again and in reality 2 that I loved and vape regularly due to juices not tasting anywhere near as strong as I’d like nor even tasting like the name of the juice, I was starting to get fed up with the expense and the ever amounting bottles of juice cluttering up my by now fit to burst tackle box. Not to mention I found all PG was too harsh for me, too drying and a bit of VG around 30% was much better. And even that could differ from vendor to vendor, one vendor’s 30% VG was more drying and harsh than another’s. The mind boggles!
So now I’ve found some faves and happy to keep buying them, I also thought that the more simple flavours such as menthol or say an iced pear or iced peach (you get the idea!) I could make myself and save a bit more money in the process. Plus some simple mixes of 2 flavours that I couldn’t find anywhere else such as apricot & mango. So, with reading around a little on DIY I placed an order for some flavours, PG/VG and some 24mg nicotine (still nervous about handling high strengths!). Only smaller amounts to start with. They duly arrived and I started to mix. Without the nicotine to start with to get an idea of the % of flavouring. I measured out the PG and VG for 3mls of juice with a syringe then added the drops from the flavouring bottle. I ended up having to add 25-30% to even get a middle strength flavour and just couldn’t work out why. I warmed up the bottles under a tap as I’d read that can help speed up the stepping process, gave them a shake when I remembered over the course of the next 24hrs and put them to bed in a dark box.
This is when I realised I’d need to learn to drip. There’s no way I was wasting cartomisers trying out numerous experiments. After a day of adding too much until it leaked all down the ego battery and not realising when to top up before I got the lovely (not!) taste of burnt atty, I started to get the hang of it. I didn’t kill off the atty in the process for once either. Hooray!
After a few unsuccessful attempts at mixing and some helpful advice from Grizwalds the master mixer, I realised a week into mixing that measuring out the flavouring from dripping out the bottle and assuming 20 drops = 1ml and the rest with syringes was why my mixes tasted so weak. It was time to start over again…
1st proper attempt, this time using nicotine. All went well, or so I thought until afterwards when the bottle had been warmed, shaken, a quick drip and test (mmm, strong clove tobacco flavour!) and put away to steep for 24hrs into my dark, cool case. I then thought that after 24hrs after my other previous experiments that the flavour seemed to double in strength. Oh dear god, it’s going to be way too strong as it was already fairly strong. I looked over the calculator again I was using and something wasn’t quite right. It has boxes you can set for different drop sizes according to pipettes, dropper bottles, glass droppers etc. Although the calculator was set up right for the flavouring dropper bottle (30 drops to equal a ml from a syringe) the calculator somehow suggested 42 drops for the nicotine instead of what should have been 62 drops! I had dripped it out of the bottle as it was a 24mg unflavoured nicotine base. I would have done better to try and get my syringe needle into it instead. It was too big though and I had to try and find a smaller 18 gauge one that would just about fit in there with a little bit of effort. So the flavouring is going to be too much. I double checked on two other calculators and yes, it should have been 62 drops of nicotine for the 10mg I was aiming for (5ml overall juice amount). Oops!
24hrs later, after steeping, a taste test anyway just to check the flavour strength… and it was ok so then I could guess what the flavour % should have been had the nicotine amount been right! After that there was no stopping me. 12 different mixes later and out of those, 9 were good enough to vape. More experiments a week later were also a huge success and I quickly found I was actually good at this mixing lark even if I do say so myself! I seem to have an uncanny knack of just knowing what % of flavourings to put together if using 2 or more on the first try with most mixes. I then made a mint choc chip flavour and OMG, it is seriously yummy, so good in fact, it’s given my fave juice that I vape most of the time (from a vendor) a good run for its money! It’s one that has earned ‘tank status’. The juice has to be seriously good to make it into my lil mama or arry tank!
In the short time I’ve been mixing and having a lot of success (and fun!) with it I’ve come to realise something. Of all the pre-mixeds I’ve tried and I’ve tried a lot, that it seems to me at least, that a lot of vendors out there just really do not know how to make good tasting juice (apart from the master mixer, Grizwald! Thanks Griz for all your help in getting me started). It seems you just have to have the knack for it. I’m glad that I do. At least this way I can have yummy tasting juice just perfectly made to suit my taste and miles cheaper than pre-mixeds. My monthly spend of hand mixed juice and a box of cartos now comes to the grand total of just £10. It doesn’t take long to do and is not that difficult which I first thought it would be. I’ve even got over my fear of getting juice on my hands after dumping 3ml all over a hand when filling a tank and stupidly turning it upside down the wrong way while pushing a carto through, oops. No problems after simply washing it off. I’ve even bravely got some 36mg to DIY with now lol Although I like my nic in dropper bottles so I can stick a syringe into it, ok, ok, not completely over my nic fear yet lol
But I recommend you just dive in and have a go if you’re thinking of trying it!
My top tips so far for newbies to DIY.
Very quickly within a few weeks, I dispensed with the gloves while filling up my cartomisers at the low strength of approx 12mg. The most I’ve got on my hands since is a drop or two and only twice. A quick rinse off with water and no problems. The getting nicotine on myself played another factor in not being that willing to learn to drip, I don’t like mess and leaks when it comes to nicotine. Well, that and I seemed to kill atties if I so much as even looked at one! So mixing my own liquids seemed like something that was not for me.
However, move forward a few months and having tried close to 200 juices from around 12 UK vendors and several USA vendors and only having found at most 8 or so I would buy again and in reality 2 that I loved and vape regularly due to juices not tasting anywhere near as strong as I’d like nor even tasting like the name of the juice, I was starting to get fed up with the expense and the ever amounting bottles of juice cluttering up my by now fit to burst tackle box. Not to mention I found all PG was too harsh for me, too drying and a bit of VG around 30% was much better. And even that could differ from vendor to vendor, one vendor’s 30% VG was more drying and harsh than another’s. The mind boggles!
So now I’ve found some faves and happy to keep buying them, I also thought that the more simple flavours such as menthol or say an iced pear or iced peach (you get the idea!) I could make myself and save a bit more money in the process. Plus some simple mixes of 2 flavours that I couldn’t find anywhere else such as apricot & mango. So, with reading around a little on DIY I placed an order for some flavours, PG/VG and some 24mg nicotine (still nervous about handling high strengths!). Only smaller amounts to start with. They duly arrived and I started to mix. Without the nicotine to start with to get an idea of the % of flavouring. I measured out the PG and VG for 3mls of juice with a syringe then added the drops from the flavouring bottle. I ended up having to add 25-30% to even get a middle strength flavour and just couldn’t work out why. I warmed up the bottles under a tap as I’d read that can help speed up the stepping process, gave them a shake when I remembered over the course of the next 24hrs and put them to bed in a dark box.
This is when I realised I’d need to learn to drip. There’s no way I was wasting cartomisers trying out numerous experiments. After a day of adding too much until it leaked all down the ego battery and not realising when to top up before I got the lovely (not!) taste of burnt atty, I started to get the hang of it. I didn’t kill off the atty in the process for once either. Hooray!
After a few unsuccessful attempts at mixing and some helpful advice from Grizwalds the master mixer, I realised a week into mixing that measuring out the flavouring from dripping out the bottle and assuming 20 drops = 1ml and the rest with syringes was why my mixes tasted so weak. It was time to start over again…
1st proper attempt, this time using nicotine. All went well, or so I thought until afterwards when the bottle had been warmed, shaken, a quick drip and test (mmm, strong clove tobacco flavour!) and put away to steep for 24hrs into my dark, cool case. I then thought that after 24hrs after my other previous experiments that the flavour seemed to double in strength. Oh dear god, it’s going to be way too strong as it was already fairly strong. I looked over the calculator again I was using and something wasn’t quite right. It has boxes you can set for different drop sizes according to pipettes, dropper bottles, glass droppers etc. Although the calculator was set up right for the flavouring dropper bottle (30 drops to equal a ml from a syringe) the calculator somehow suggested 42 drops for the nicotine instead of what should have been 62 drops! I had dripped it out of the bottle as it was a 24mg unflavoured nicotine base. I would have done better to try and get my syringe needle into it instead. It was too big though and I had to try and find a smaller 18 gauge one that would just about fit in there with a little bit of effort. So the flavouring is going to be too much. I double checked on two other calculators and yes, it should have been 62 drops of nicotine for the 10mg I was aiming for (5ml overall juice amount). Oops!
24hrs later, after steeping, a taste test anyway just to check the flavour strength… and it was ok so then I could guess what the flavour % should have been had the nicotine amount been right! After that there was no stopping me. 12 different mixes later and out of those, 9 were good enough to vape. More experiments a week later were also a huge success and I quickly found I was actually good at this mixing lark even if I do say so myself! I seem to have an uncanny knack of just knowing what % of flavourings to put together if using 2 or more on the first try with most mixes. I then made a mint choc chip flavour and OMG, it is seriously yummy, so good in fact, it’s given my fave juice that I vape most of the time (from a vendor) a good run for its money! It’s one that has earned ‘tank status’. The juice has to be seriously good to make it into my lil mama or arry tank!
In the short time I’ve been mixing and having a lot of success (and fun!) with it I’ve come to realise something. Of all the pre-mixeds I’ve tried and I’ve tried a lot, that it seems to me at least, that a lot of vendors out there just really do not know how to make good tasting juice (apart from the master mixer, Grizwald! Thanks Griz for all your help in getting me started). It seems you just have to have the knack for it. I’m glad that I do. At least this way I can have yummy tasting juice just perfectly made to suit my taste and miles cheaper than pre-mixeds. My monthly spend of hand mixed juice and a box of cartos now comes to the grand total of just £10. It doesn’t take long to do and is not that difficult which I first thought it would be. I’ve even got over my fear of getting juice on my hands after dumping 3ml all over a hand when filling a tank and stupidly turning it upside down the wrong way while pushing a carto through, oops. No problems after simply washing it off. I’ve even bravely got some 36mg to DIY with now lol Although I like my nic in dropper bottles so I can stick a syringe into it, ok, ok, not completely over my nic fear yet lol
But I recommend you just dive in and have a go if you’re thinking of trying it!
My top tips so far for newbies to DIY.
- Read ALL of Grizwalds guides, at least twice!
- Have everything you need to hand including paper towels/tissues and preferably be close to a sink and running water as a safety precaution.
- Try and use all syringes for an accurate measure. Or all pipettes, or all drops from all the bottles etc.
- Double and triple check drops/percentages/ml’s etc on the calculator you are using and check with another one just to make sure when you first start. I use this one http://www.wabbittde...om/CookbookWeb/
- Don’t mix when you’re really tired, feeling ill or there’s a lot going on around you, you need to concentrate fully on what you’re doing.
- Warm the bottles of liquid you’ve just made under a hand hot running tap for a min, shake and put away for 24hrs to get a better idea of taste. Longer if it's tobacco.
- Have plenty of 5ml bottles and syringes. You’ll need more than you think. The markings wear off syringes pretty quick and you’ll be surprised how many experiments of different flavours you’ll try plus some flavours are hard to get out of the plastic.
- Rinse/wash all bottles beforehand.
- Buy 15ml and 20ml bottles for bigger mixes rather than 30ml or 50ml ones that way your fave juices will be fresher especially if you only vape 1-2ml a day. It’s easy and quick to make more.
- Have fun!
An easy way to stop the markings coming off your syringes is to put a strip of clear tape over the markings before you start using them.