I've been DIY'ing for a few months now. I made flavors with and without nic thinking that my nic was bad. I just ordered most of the FA flavorings to work with HIC's recipes. Looked at the top recipes on other website. All the juice I've made is just okay. I can go to a vape shop and pick out any dessert flavor, and love it. I see the descriptions of recipes, I make it and they dont taste anything like the description. I've mixed max VG down to 70VG/30PG. I've tried a crock pot, ultrasonic cleaner, to just leaving it in the cabinet. What am I doing wrong ?
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Help needed, Flavor not even close to premium
- Thread starter Hamajang
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I think the first step is to identify flavors that we like alone. Then, it's easier to switch some ingredients in recipes, when we know a specific flavor is not for us. Testing flavors takes time (I mean years).
If you increase your PG at 40%, it should help to carry the flavor better. A small amount of cream or marshmallow in a mix is helpful to remove the harshness of some flavors (1-2%). I like to steep my juices naturally, from 2 days (ex: citrus) to 1 month (ex: tobacco).
Some Vape shops use diacetyl in their mixes. Too much. This the secret ingredient to make delicious juices, but this should be avoided (or used in small amount, assuming the risks for lungs). Maybe you already know that.
If you increase your PG at 40%, it should help to carry the flavor better. A small amount of cream or marshmallow in a mix is helpful to remove the harshness of some flavors (1-2%). I like to steep my juices naturally, from 2 days (ex: citrus) to 1 month (ex: tobacco).
Some Vape shops use diacetyl in their mixes. Too much. This the secret ingredient to make delicious juices, but this should be avoided (or used in small amount, assuming the risks for lungs). Maybe you already know that.
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What percentages are you using? I tried a few of HIC's recipes posted here. However, I had to slightly increase/decrease the percentages in certain recipes to my liking. You can't take any of the recipes for granted, due to personal preferences and the ability of tasting certain flavors. In addition, flavor also depends on what atomizer you're using.
I wonder if increasing the flavoring by a small percentage might help. If store bought/pre-made juices are working for you, maybe you just need a bit more flavoring. IMO, store bought stuff is highly over-flavored, but I didn't realize that until I started mixing my own. HIC recipes don't require much. When I first started mixing, I did add a little more. My taste buds were still recovering. Over time, I didn't have to increase the flavorings anymore, they started tasting perfect. I don't know how long you've been vaping, so maybe that could be it.
I love store bought juices. I believe I am looking for more sweetness and more flavorings. I am using drops (same bottle, same dropper) and syringes.
how much did you increase the flavors by? I can mae just about any HIC recipe, I am looking to get his strawberry malt to be sweeter and more flavorful.
how much did you increase the flavors by? I can mae just about any HIC recipe, I am looking to get his strawberry malt to be sweeter and more flavorful.
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I'm going to give you a slightly different route to take to boost the strawberry
TWO drops of FA Apricot, and ONE drop of Sucralose per 30ml.
Reduce the Sucralose to one drop per 60ml if too sweet.
TWO drops of FA Apricot, and ONE drop of Sucralose per 30ml.
Reduce the Sucralose to one drop per 60ml if too sweet.
I'm usually incrementing the percentage by 0.25-0.5%, and go from there.
When I'm experimenting/developing a "new" juice, I just mix small batches of 10ml in a 0.5 oz. bottle, which also leaves me enough volume, in order to add more flavors if needed. In addition, taking notes on the changes. Taking notes, is also a major part in improving your recipes.
It depends on the recipe. If I decide I want a bit more of the creamy, or the fruity, or the bakery, etc... I might just add 0.5% more of whatever flavor that is. That's a safe percentage, so as to not over-do.
What bottles are you using? Some made in china leave a chemical flavor. Where are you storing bottles keep them away from perfumes, aerosols ect. Just having perfumes on you hands when handling bottles will contaminate the whole bottle and make it taste terrible.
When mixing by drops, you also need to consider the tip size on your flavoring bottles. Rough estimate for needle tipped bottles is around 40-44 drops per ml and for regular sized tips, 30-34 drops per ml. On some ejuice calculators, the drops per ml is set by default to only 20 resulting in weak tasting juice so be sure to adjust accordingly.
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Have you ever considered mixing by weight? It helped me in becoming far more precise. I'd also have to agree with the above suggestion of using multiple flavoring companies. Not one company does all the flavors the best. Don't get discouraged, we've all been there. It could be as simple as you just being used to overflavored vendor juice. It takes a while for the ol' tastebuds to adjust. Just give it time and keep at it.
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Hey, fair enough. To each their own. I just find weight to be the most accurate, especially for small test batches. That, combined with all the help from the awesome people here is what really helped me pinpoint where my mixing was off. And to the OP, I think that you'll find after a while , those "premium" juices are just going to taste like over sweetened, over flavored stuff for the most part. Stick with it.
To each his own, no doubt about it. I use weight every single time. In fact, last night I was sitting in bed, had a little brain storm for something experimental - within minutes, I've got the percentages down, scale out, empty bottle filling with ingredients. I think it went from idea in my head to bottle of juice in my hands within 5, 6 minutes or so. Tops. I can't believe I didn't jump on mixing by weight from the beginning, I was all about volume-mixing for the longest time. Now, no more syringes, no more open glass jars of concentrated flavorings - just quick, easy, no mess mixing.
It's about the same "a-ha" that I had when I started rolling my cigarettes with a machine versus a little hand roller. Just so much easier all around.
Using my scale with each mix, has vastly improved the consistency of my mixing. In the past, some would be a little off.
Mixing samples demands my scales. A lot of my flavors are used at less than 1%.
And I still do volume. I try to insure I mix at least a half a liter of my ADV. Then maybe 120ml each of my other flavors.
This all over. I mix testers in 5 or 6ml bottles. Ever try to measure out .5% of Marshmallow or .3% of Condensed Milk into a syringe? Never again. Never, ever again.
I don't bother with a scale at those small volumes of liquid. I simply adjust the overall amount so that the lowest percentage of flavoring required equals one drop and I'm good. I keep a fair amount of base mixed up so all I have to do is add a few drops and I'm done. No muss no fuss. I do use the scale for mixing up my large bottle of base however but even that isn't much of pain to measure by volume at those levels.
I use both, drops and weight. But I only use drops when I'm adding a sweetener. Usually 1 drop per 30ml+.
Everything else gets scaled.
All my samples are 30ml at 0mg nic. I don't have the patience to do 5 or 10.
That's a good point P3, testing wtih zero nic, especially when mixing large samples like that. Why waste good nic when you're testing recipes that might not make the cut? VG and PG are cheap by comparision.
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I do very little testing now, so there's not a lot of waste on that end. Maybe 2-3 bottles over 2 months.
Where I do waste a lot, is in tweaking. If I tweak a recipe and it's better, and I can't adjust what I have already. I just dump what's left, or give it to someone.
My cost is about .65+\- per 30ml. If I could afford $5 a pack for cigarettes 3 times a day. Dumping $5 worth of juice a month is still cheaper than smoking.
I'm cheap. But I'm not so cheap that I'll vape a lesser juice to save a dollar.