Pre-Steeped Flavor Bases - Advice

[lazybotter]

Hi, Wondering if someone here can help me out here please?

I am planning on making some e-juices and understand the importance of steeping the liquids.
Now, I have an idea, that I am not sure will help speed up the steeping process?

Heres my thinking.. I use mostly FA concentrates..

If I dilute my FA concentrates with VG so they end up 50%PG/50%VG and leave them to steep, will this help speed up the process when using the concentrates?

So for example, my concentrates would become:

- 100ml FA Strawberry + 100ml VG Dilutant would become a 50%PG /50%VG mix (200ml volume)

So if my original FA Strawberry was used @ 2% I would just double that to 4% when making my batch.

Or would it be better to add 400ml VG Dilutant? So the base mix strength is 20%PG/80%VG if thats right

Then I would triple my percentages? Well, I tried to explain... let me know what you think.

Thanks!

 

[lazybotter]

Anyone? Thoughts?

 

[jwill]

Personally have never done this although certainly others have, may take them a minute to find your post and they will likely give you better advice on the matter. I like the waiting game personally, because it feels like Christmas when it gets right on its own.

There are no shortage of ways to expedite the process. If I were going to partially mix as you have described, I would do it in straight PG and let it sit there. Add VG and nicotine later plus the fresh flavors intended for the mix.

You may also consider some heat (very low doses). When I first started mixing, would use a laboratory hot plate to warm the VG slightly to make it thin out some so mixing in concentrates was easier which in turn made the mix sort of "power steep" if you will. I quit doing that after a while because there seems to be a half life by doing so. If for immediate consumption it is no issue and you can accomplish such a thing with items in your kitchen such as warm water and a bowl to hold your mixing container. Google double boiler and just ignore the boiling part.

With a little bit of planning you can keep a regular rotation that doesn't require power steeping and then you get all of the goodness of liquid gold.

Welcome to VU.

 

[Hillbilly Pig]

All FA and most concentrates, with some exceptions, are PG based, because PG carries flavor and moves more freely than VG. In many situations, PG sets up faster than VG, due to how much thinner it is, if your intention is to speed up the steep time, this way won't work. If you just want to make a base, so you can add to your unflavored batch, yeah it'll work, but again it will still need steep time, maybe more than if it was just added straight from the bottle. In general if you are making a flavor base, you will want to make it with PG, this does not automatically steep it, it will still need to steep when added to the mix. Oh, if you do make a base of whatever, you add the total percent you would normally use, like 2% FA raspberry and 4% TFA blueberry candy as base, you add 6% of that to your mix.

Now back on the faster steeping thing, many people use a heat source of some kind, though it will oxidize nic faster and can flat out change some flavors entirely, so if you do wanna use heat, I'd add nic afterwards. Hope this helped a little, welcome to VU

EDIT: auto correct, my oldest foe.

 

[lazybotter]

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions, much appreciated.

I don't really want to use heat, i have tried that in the past using an heated ultrasonic cleaner. The liquids seem to loose there flavour a lot faster.

My intension here is NOT to mix the flavours together to make a flavour base, but to dilute each individual flavour with VG creating a very strong single flavour base. I figured that the steeping process takes longest with VG as it is thicker, so if the concentrates are diluted with VG that would mix/steep better with the added final VG/PG as lets say 50% of the VG in the concentrate is already "pre-steeped" at the molecular level.

I thought that this approach would be faster with flavours like Custard that take like a month to steep.

As for the maths to get my required diluted percentage:

Lets say this is my original recipe (none diluted concentrates):

2% FA Raspberry
4% TFA Blueberry

If these concentrates have been diluted lets say:

80ml (VG Diluent) / 20ml (PG Flavour) = 20% Total Flavour Strength

So the original recipe percentages would change to:

Original Percentage / Total Flavour Strength * 100;

FA Raspberry = (2/20)*100 = 10%
TFA Blueberry = (4/20)*100 = 20%

Correct? As the flavours have been diluted by 80% at strength of 20%?

Hopefully that makes more sense

So, my questions are:

- Would a VG concentrate meld together/steep faster when adding more VG diluent to it? Or is it a waist of time?
- Are my workings correct?

Thanks again.

 

[jwill]

I am failing to see what you stand to gain here. Maybe Im dense or just set in my ways but I see no strategic advantage to doing this. In my mind this is just adding a step and something else to keep up with and label. If this is a timing issue you can shake, heat and watch paint dry and there are a lot of ways to shake, heat and wait.

In my mind I see spoilage of materials. What happens if you all of the sudden decide custard is not on the menu for a while because of other distractions and you have pre steeped 120ml of custard in VG?

 

[MyMagicMist]

- Would a VG concentrate meld together/steep faster when adding more VG diluent to it? Or is it a waist of time?

Adding more solvent, in this case VG, is not going to help you in further diluting or reducing steep time. Well it might dilute your flavors sure, but not in any manner you'll have control enough over to merit it being beneficial.

Maybe Im dense or just set in my ways but I see no strategic advantage to doing this. In my mind this is just adding a step and something else to keep up with and label. If this is a timing issue you can shake, heat and watch paint dry and there are a lot of ways to shake, heat and wait.
In my mind I see spoilage of materials. What happens if you all of the sudden decide custard is not on the menu for a while because of other distractions and you have pre steeped 120ml of custard in VG?

If not spoiling, a good bit of wasting and extra added in distraction overhead. "Hey, did I add x amount of VG to that batch or the other one? Huh, *Jeopardy musac* dunno ... erm, uh, okay well let me mix up 'nother batch ..."

That would lead me to a never ending hamster wheel that I do not need or desire. When in doubt? K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple Silly. For myself, real easy ... max VG unflavored base juice. I want some flavor? Well, I use 10 ml bottles in the Copppervape squonkers, 6 ml in the Pico Squeeze, just mix say 10% or so of one of those way smaller batches with whatever flavor/s I might pick, shake-n-vape. Usually a good thirty second shake steeps well enough to suit me.

And @lazybotter, I'm not trying to say my way is the way or even a way or that you need to do it my way. I'm just saying this what I find works for me. If you want to try it, great, if not that's great as well.

 

[SteveS45]

Infusing the different components in e-Liquid takes time so even when adding Nicotine to a finished e-Liquid time is required for it to blend. This is just my personal opinion from experience.

 

[bestkeptsecret]

Hi, Wondering if someone here can help me out here please?

I am planning on making some e-juices and understand the importance of steeping the liquids.
Now, I have an idea, that I am not sure will help speed up the steeping process?

Heres my thinking.. I use mostly FA concentrates..

If I dilute my FA concentrates with VG so they end up 50%PG/50%VG and leave them to steep, will this help speed up the process when using the concentrates?

So for example, my concentrates would become:

- 100ml FA Strawberry + 100ml VG Dilutant would become a 50%PG /50%VG mix (200ml volume)

So if my original FA Strawberry was used @ 2% I would just double that to 4% when making my batch.

Or would it be better to add 400ml VG Dilutant? So the base mix strength is 20%PG/80%VG if thats right

Then I would triple my percentages? Well, I tried to explain... let me know what you think.

Thanks!

They just won't really be concentrates anymore and you will give yourself a right old headache if you try to make more complex juices using them.