"Allow me to introduce myself, my name is...."

[Rukaguy]

It's hit and miss sometimes! Some good recipes on this forum. Also OneShot concs mitigate the concentrate mixing process. Keep ploughing on!

 

[Mr Numpty]

Ok so everything came and I had a little experiment (wasn't so good) haha.

The concentrates I have are:

• Vanilla Custard v1 (CAP)
• Spearmint (CAP)
• Sweet Mango (CAP)
• Peaches & Cream (CAP)
• Glazed Doughnut (CAP)
• Harvest Berry (CAP)
• Graham Cracker (CAP)
• Super Sweet (CAP)
• Cheesecake "Graham Crust" (FA)
• Bavarian Cream "DX" (FA)
• Dulce De Leche (FA)
• Ripe Strawberry (FA)

So its quite a mixed bunch... now not what I made yesterday - which didn't turn out very well.

Mix 01 - Vanilla Custard 10ml​

• 70/30 VG
• 3mg Nic
• 15% flavour

Haven't tried this one yet as I read that it should steep for at least 5-7 days.

Mix 02 - Sweet Mango & Ripe Strawberry 10ml​

• 70/30 VG
• 3mg Nic
• 8% Sweet Mango
• 12% Ripe Strawberry

This didn't taste nice at all... the mango is too strong and the nic is also quite stringent even though I've been vaping 3mg for the past 12-18 months now. Very odd.

But still it was a shit mix, so I had another go and also lowered the nic.

Mix 02 - Harvest Berry 10ml​

• 70/30 VG
• 2mg Nic
• 20% flavour

This stuff didn't taste that bad at all... it quite sweet and very fruity (almost perfume like) which I hope will go over time because it will begin to get sickly. The 2mg Nic is very nice and smooth BUT its not doing it for me as I'm constantly vaping this batch searching for a hit. Maybe need to up this to 3mg.

So thats what I've got up to so far.... I'm a little taken back by al of it now but will keep mixing and making notes.

If anyone has any tips or advice that would be great.

Thanks

This takes me back to my first forays into mixing. I must have read that 20% flavouring was some kind of standard, bought a tonne of Capella concentrates and proceeded to throw them together in a wide variety of 20% combinations. The results were universally unvapable and I couldn't work out why. It was most frustrating.
The lessons from there were slow-learned and expensive but I'll try to lay a few of them out in the hope it helps prevent you from falling into too many more of the holes that I did.

1. All concentrates from all manufacturers will work at different percentages as it relates to your own taste. Those percentages are often very much lower than you might expect. The only way to find out is to mix every new concentrate you receive in small test samples of, say 5% and work out which direction to go in from there.

2. Just because a combination of flavours sounds good in your head, doesn't mean it will translate to a good vape. When stabbing in the dark, it almost certainly won't. Even good combinations will require much adaptation of ratios to get anywhere near good. Steeping times can make this a very slow process.

3. It is less expensive to accept earlier rather than later that the wheel has already been invented. Researching highly rated recipes on ELR will see you make decent juice much sooner than arriving there on your own. This has the added benefit that you learn much quicker, what kind of percentages work in recipes, with which other flavours and in which ratios.

4. All manufacturers have good and awful concentrates. A dreadful mango from company A might be ruining a recipe that would have been nice with mango from company B. This is again partially solved by reading the recipe notes of some of the community's most well known mixers.

5. Enhancers can be necessary at times. At the very least you will need some Ethyl Maltol.

6. Trying to buy all the concentrates in existence and hoping you then have them available for nice recipes you come across is an exercise in futility. You'll end up never using half of them and will still ALWAYS be missing an ingredient from recipes you come across. Only buying concentrates specific to recipes you have researched is the way to save money here.

7. FA denotes Flavour Art, just so you know. TFA is used to denote The Flavour Apprentice, also known as TPA, The Perfumers Apprentice.

8. Take notes on every single thing you do. Mixed FA black cherry single mix at 3%? Write down every detail of how it tasted, preferably in the notes section of a mixing calculator that allows you to store your recipes.

9. When attempting to design your own recipes, stick to one and see it through. For instance, if you want a nice peach, mango and guava recipe, make a tester, take notes on how it tastes and make adjustments over however many revisions it takes to get to where you want to be rather than working on 10 recipes simultaneously.

10. Be prepared to make a lot of shit juice and stay resolute. Patience is key but it will start to fall into place once you gain an understanding of your concentrates and your percentage of successes will start to outnumber the disasters.

Just some things I wish I hadn't learned the hard way, hope it isn't too annoying to read. Best of luck.

 

[chubbaduckie]

Great advice there from @Mr Numpty stick to this and you wont go far wrong.
Eliquid recipes (ELR) is your friend, sign up and add your flavours to the my flavour stash in the top right menu bar, you can always check the median percentage for the concentrate your using on there too.
Like Mr Numpty said, check out all the top rated recipes there are a good few.
You can always adapt a recipe if you haven't got the concentrate they have used and work around it that way.
Watch DiYorDiE and Fresh03 on youtube these will help tons.
Good luck and welcome to the stressful world of DiY

 

[Messy Beatz]

@Mr Numpty thank you very much for taking the time to provide that information. That ELR website is golden, wish I knew about it before I purchased my concentrates. Looks like another order is in the pipeline now.

Also thank you @chubbaduckie for the recommendation on this 2 youtube channels.

successfully made my first good 10ml of juice (Strawberry Fog), using the ELR site you both mentioned.

 

[Messy Beatz]

It's hit and miss sometimes! Keep ploughing on!

I will be for sure... once I find a few I like I'll start to mix up big bottles. Ive been vaping for years (not had a ciggy for going 5yrs now) not sure why I didn't start this DiY mixing before.

 

[Rukaguy]

I will be for sure... once I find a few I like I'll start to mix up big bottles. Ive been vaping for years (not had a ciggy for going 5yrs now) not sure why I didn't start this DiY mixing before.

Agreed! I've been mixing for four years; still get the odd premium juice for variety but...

DIY is amazing - plus you have a pride over your own creation and better appreciation of the flavours that go into it. Also you can tweak away at things you like and don't like. 3.5 nicotine? No bother

Oh... it's also something like 2p a ml vs 55p a ml in some cases!

 

[timj]

Hello James. Welcome aboard!

 

[vapepanda]

I started mixing after a while too, definitely more rewarding in my opinion in the long run. Still, there are some damn' good shelf made juices around still. TPD annoys me though...I can't get over how hideous the new 10ml bottles look.

Also, hello - I'm new too.

 

[daz_app]

How do!

 

[Messy Beatz]

Thanks everyone.