Strange DIY Juice Issues... Help Me!

[msjs91011]

Okay, I've been messing with DIY for a few months now and I have had few successes and many failures. I'm here to ask advice from everyone on what you think is wrong, why its wrong, and/or what I should change. So, first thing's first.


The Problem

I'm getting horrible tastes from *only* some of the juices I make. I have not been able to attribute it to one flavor maker, or one group of flavors, or even one specific shipment of flavors. It is completely random. It only happens with certain flavors.

Here are some examples - I mix all at 3mg nic:
FW Blue Ice: Max VG, 15% flavor. Delicious after a shake, and continues to be delicious for weeks.
FW Extreme Ice: Max VG, 15% flavor. Batch 1 was great. Batch 2 gelled and crystallized, couldn't squeeze it out of bottle. The gel and crystallization melted upon putting the bottle in lukewarm water. However, the juice lost a significant amount of flavor.
FA Orange 1.5% / FA Peach 3% / FA Vienna Cream 3% / Koolada 1.5%: max VG, 9% total flavor. very 'hot' feeling deep down in chest, not very flavorful, but i can pick up just a little.
FA Lemon: max VG, 5%. Had a funky taste.
FA Cherry: max VG, 5%. had the same damn funky taste that lemon did.

Vaped Pure PG - no taste, some throat hit, zero cloud.
Vaped Pure VG - slightly sweet taste, slight throat hit, mega cloud.

I even went to Walmart and bought a bottle of VG, and mixed 90ml FW Blue Ice at 15% and it tastes exactly the same as the Heartland VG mix I made, so now I know my VG is not 'bad' either.

I made a bunch of other juices that all burnt my wife and I's throats, most of them were just single flavor juices by either FW or FA.

Base Supplies
All of my base supplies came from Heartland in February.
1L - 100mg/ml Nic, 50/50 blend.
1G - PG
1G - VG

The Gear
24ga, 2 strand twisted Kanthal.
Cotton Bacon.
2 Sigelei 150s.
2 Mutation x v3 clones
2 Dark Horses
Metal Cups for mixing
Plastic syringes for measuring flavors, nic and VG.

RDAs are built dual coil, wicked properly, and all at 60 watts.


So, what could possibly be wrong? HELP!!! (please )

 

[zaroba]

Is FW Extreme Ice a menthol based flavoring? Menthol is solid at room temp, melts at about 105F or can be dissolved in water, alcohol, or oil. I guess if the concentration was too high in the mixture and it cooled a bit, it's possible the menthol couldn't stay dissolved and crystallized. This is purely a guess though.

The FA Lemon. Is that Lemon Sicily?
Only reason I ask is because I am trying to make a lemon vape with that and even at 10% flavoring in plain VG, I barely taste anything.

 

[Smoky Blue]

fa lemon sicily and the cherry @ 5% ?? oh my.. cut that bit in half..
the fw flavorings too, look high..

as for vg.. well we all have our own opinions on that..

what are your ohms, when vaping said diy juice?

 

[Smoky Blue]

Is FW Extreme Ice a menthol based flavoring? Menthol is solid at room temp, melts at about 105F or can be dissolved in water, alcohol, or oil. I guess if the concentration was too high in the mixture and it cooled a bit, it's possible the menthol couldn't stay dissolved and crystallized. This is purely a guess though.

The FA Lemon. Is that Lemon Sicily?
Only reason I ask is because I am trying to make a lemon vape with that and even at 10% flavoring in plain VG, I barely taste anything.

when over mixing, the crystals cant really absorb but so much.. then they stay in a crystallized/gel form..

 

[msjs91011]

@Smoky Blue: I've made 2 batches of the FW Extreme Ice. The first one was great, the second one gelled and crystalized. I'm assuming you're familiar with the flavor itself, it comes in liquid form. This response is in no way condescending, i hope it dont sound that way!!! Unless FW over mixed the flavoring...

Please, express your opinion on VG. I recently learned there's synthetic and organic. Dont know the price difference or what's worth a crap and what's not. I also know the DIY community is partial to certain nic vendors for the same reason. But I'd like to hopefully tackle my problems alongside/before we discuss changing vendors at the moment please.

I've tried lower % of the FA flavors and its no different. The FW flavors... lol... my first batch of Blue Ice and Extreme Ice were at 18%, 70/30. My wife and I... love flavor! We did step it down this time (batch 2 and 3) though, as well as moved to max VG, because the Batch 1 Blue Ice got funky strong after a couple weeks of sitting. Currently our Batch 3 Blue Ice is our ADV, but my wife said it's bugging her throat when she vapes it. Now, keep in mind that even really weak flavored juices hurt her throat too, so I have a suspicion my nic (NICOTINE!!) is playing a role in that.

My 5 wrap, dual coil, 2 strand twisted kanthal builds out at around 0.26 to 0.29 every time largely depending on leg length. They fire evenly from center to edges and fire nearly the exact same way from each coil (meaning coil turning red).

@zaroba Yes! Lemon sicily! The juice smells lemon-y but has a funk taste exactly like the FA Cherry did. Which stumped me, two absolutely different flavors tasted the same!? No mistakes were made in the creation of those samples.

(Sorry edited a few times, I'm done now. My responses to the replies got goofed up)

 

[Smoky Blue]

have you tried with any other percentages, @msjs91011 ?? for flavoring.. like 8%10%12% etc

also, have you tried other builds? some flavors just do not like high ohms.. just a thought.
didn't take you wrong, i know you want to know what is happening.. but that is my thinking..
the flavoring is too high and so is your heat..

 

[AmandaD]

If the FA has a funky taste I would suggest you need to go low enough that you lose the funk! Don't be afraid to try them at 0.5% and see how they come out.

 

[Zanaspus]

If the FA has a funky taste I would suggest you need to go low enough that you lose the funk! Don't be afraid to try them at 0.5% and see how they come out.

This.

 

[Smoky Blue]

If the FA has a funky taste I would suggest you need to go low enough that you lose the funk! Don't be afraid to try them at 0.5% and see how they come out.

This.

and that is what I said.. *whistles..

 

[Zanaspus]

and that is what I said.. *whistles..

Indeed. Sometimes I take the path of least reading resistance, sorry.

 

[Smoky Blue]

lol.. is alright.. long as it might help out..
Off to bed i goooo!

 

[nightshard]

Both FA Lemon and Cherry should be used at lower concentrations and mixed with other flavors. Lemon with sweet flavors and cherry with chocolate, mint, tobacco, etc..


There are no stupid batteries, just stupid people.

 

[msjs91011]

Interesting. I will give the suggestion of going really low on flavor % to see if that fixes the issues. It'll be a few days though, I don't know when I will be home next. I drive a truck for a living.

 

[Zanaspus]

A bit of advice is in order. We are all trained to think that more is more. Thus, when people start mixing, they carry this thought over to DIY. But a strange thing happens on the way in this crazy hobby. It turns out that all concentrates have a magic percentage where flavor will be at a maximum. Go over that by a little, and you get nasty. Go over that by a lot and you get the desired flavor, but that flavor will never be as good or intense as that magic percentage. "Professional" juice manufacturers never seem to grasp this. They all tend to go way over as a compensation.

Why do concentrates act this way? I have no idea.

 

[msjs91011]

Yeah I am well aware of the "more is not always good" concept of creating juices but I guess there's quite a curve to get used to when you find that 10-15% is good from one brand but would melt your lungs with another brand. Interesting, but you also get what you pay for. Pay a little more for that 30ml concentrate and have it last 5x as long... o.0

 

[Pauly Walnuts]

I also learned the hard way with FA flavors. For those of us used to TFA, CAP, and FW, flavourart is hard to get used to.
A 10% total mix of FA flavorings will be horrible, with most FA flavors.
Ive found that with some FA flavors, the difference between 1drop and 2drops in 10ml, will make or break a recipe.

 

[nightshard]

You should check out the recommended percentage for each flavor used not only FA and start from there or lower since some flavors are super concentrated and in some even 1% is too much.


There are no stupid batteries, just stupid people.

 

[Dixie1954]

This may help you a bit --- https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AkX4_hQ6Fu8HdEwwR2dLRUJlVjlabEN1N --- click on the Brand name at the top. Also read some flavoring threads that only deal with 1 brand at a time. Tons of great info here and on other forums. I wish you luck

 

[msjs91011]

Funny thing... ive gotten many of my flavor % there :/ thank you

 

[zaroba]

This may help you a bit --- https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AkX4_hQ6Fu8HdEwwR2dLRUJlVjlabEN1N --- click on the Brand name at the top. Also read some flavoring threads that only deal with 1 brand at a time. Tons of great info here and on other forums. I wish you luck

Sorry, the file you have requested does not exist.

Make sure that you have the correct URL and that the owner of the file hasn't deleted it.

 

[Time]

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spr..._hQ6Fu8HdEwwR2dLRUJlVjlabEN1NG1ucktuUVE&gid=7

 

[zaroba]

holy crap, that is a beautiful spreadsheet

 

[Peter Shukin]

About half a year of mixing here. I find some flavors may be good at 10%, and some additions at .5%. It takes a lot of time and mixing to figure it out, I'm still learning. Make sure to use UPS grade 99.7% VG, and the best clinical or organic grade cotton you can get for your RBA. FA flavors usually keep to 2-3%, I'd use Baker if you want strong flavors, they tend to be better tasting. Always make sure to use safe, diacetyl, acetoin ect free flavors:
http://e-liquid-recipes.com/flavors/warnlist Some mixes will run hot at a particular wattage, so just turn down wattage. Same for resistance of coils, some mixes will not taste right at .2ohm, but be perfect at .5.

 

[Dixie1954]

Ok that was weird it usually copies into threads no problem - sorry Thank You Time for the fix