Digital scale for mixing

[scrumpox]

i use these

2000g 0.1g Gram 2kg Digital Scale Electronic Weight Weighing LCD Backlight UK | eBay

arrived in a few days

Cool, not tempted to pay £70+ ... this looks pretty reasonable. So, experiences with it so far? Plusses and minuses?
Are syringes really made redundant?

 

[tinyredpostbox]

Cool, not tempted to pay £70+ ... this looks pretty reasonable. So, experiences with it so far? Plusses and minuses?
Are syringes really made redundant?

honestly the best thing I did for mixing.

I make batches of 100ml at a time and i can pour direct from the ingredient bottle into the storage bottle. if you have the recipe listed out by mass, it takes a few minutes to create each mix with absolute minimal cleanup. generally a wipe round the bottle necks with some kitchen towel is all that is needed!

i rarely require my syringes now unless im making little samples of around 10ml, but that's only because the neck of the bottles make it difficult to pour directly into them. i have a 50ml mixing cylinder i could use instead however, but pouring approx 3 ml of pg from a 1L bottle would be a little hit and miss!

the only negative I have is that the scales have a 30 second auto off timer (only if no change in weight is detected), so in between ingredients they might turn off, but once you're adding an ingredient the weight is changing and therefore they stay turned on. just make sure that you have enough of the ingredient to add. if you have to go hunting for a new bottle of something to top it off, you might find it has turned off and left you in limbo

 

[scrumpox]

honestly the best thing I did for mixing.

I make batches of 100ml at a time and i can pour direct from the ingredient bottle into the storage bottle. if you have the recipe listed out by mass, it takes a few minutes to create each mix with absolute minimal cleanup. generally a wipe round the bottle necks with some kitchen towel is all that is needed!

i rarely require my syringes now unless im making little samples of around 10ml, but that's only because the neck of the bottles make it difficult to pour directly into them. i have a 50ml mixing cylinder i could use instead however, but pouring approx 3 ml of pg from a 1L bottle would be a little hit and miss!

the only negative I have is that the scales have a 30 second auto off timer (only if no change in weight is detected), so in between ingredients they might turn off, but once you're adding an ingredient the weight is changing and therefore they stay turned on. just make sure that you have enough of the ingredient to add. if you have to go hunting for a new bottle of something to top it off, you might find it has turned off and left you in limbo

Thanks for that. I had imagined that I would still be taking the tops off bottles of concentrate and using syringes somehow, it would be too easy to tip too much in if pouring from a bottle. If I'm using syringes anyway, they might as well be measuring ... and I save no clean up time.
The off timer is a nuisance, though I do tend to have everything to hand before mixing up.

Apart from measuring the flavourings, I'm not too hung up on absolute accuracy ... I premix the PG/VG/nic base for example as that saves the most time in mixing sessions. We have electronic mixing scales in the kitchen, accurate enough for mixing up the base, though I've yet to try that.

Think I'll give that a whirl right now and see if this change to weight is going to work for me. Thanks again for the feedback.

 

[tinyredpostbox]

Thanks for that. I had imagined that I would still be taking the tops off bottles of concentrate and using syringes somehow, it would be too easy to tip too much in if pouring from a bottle. If I'm using syringes anyway, they might as well be measuring ... and I save no clean up time.
The off timer is a nuisance, though I do tend to have everything to hand before mixing up.

Apart from measuring the flavourings, I'm not too hung up on absolute accuracy ... I premix the PG/VG/nic base for example as that saves the most time in mixing sessions. We have electronic mixing scales in the kitchen, accurate enough for mixing up the base, though I've yet to try that.

Think I'll give that a whirl right now and see if this change to weight is going to work for me. Thanks again for the feedback.

no problem, the concentrates are the easiest part tbh as the dropper tops allow fine control for that 0.1g measurement, vg based stuff is easy from a big bottle as it is so viscous that you can fine control the flow by tilting. the pg being a lot thinner is the one that tends to run down the bottle neck a bit, so beware if you're using pg based nic.

just pouring from the bottles i am able to get great accuracy, concentrates are normally spot on, bases to within say 0.2g which is approx 0.2ml, so in a 100ml batch is negligible.

 

[scrumpox]

Just mixed up my base ... that was sooo much quicker! Avoiding the syringe with VG and nicotine concentrate is a godsend.

Still can't see this working for me on smaller quantities. Not being difficult, but adding say 8ml from a bottle through the dripper would take forever, much quicker to whip the drip top off and use a syringe. Or am I missing something, like a need to be super super accurate?

Am I right to think you'd want to use one method or the other (mls or gms) and not a combination?

I am happy with the accuracy from measuring by syringe, so my main interest in switching to weight would be to save time. I'm seeing some potential but I'm not sold yet.

 

[schlinky]

Just mixed up my base ... that was sooo much quicker! Avoiding the syringe with VG and nicotine concentrate is a godsend.

Still can't see this working for me on smaller quantities. Not being difficult, but adding say 8ml from a bottle through the dripper would take forever, much quicker to whip the drip top off and use a syringe. Or am I missing something, like a need to be super super accurate?

Am I right to think you'd want to use one method or the other (mls or gms) and not a combination?

I am happy with the accuracy from measuring by syringe, so my main interest in switching to weight would be to save time. I'm seeing some potential but I'm not sold yet.

Awesome aint it?

I've only done a couple of mixes by weight alone but it was pretty quick and easy.

PG and nic in a squishy dropper bottle and VG is a direct pour. For flavours you give em a good squeeze to get most of the way there, then drip drop your way to the last bit for accuracy.

It's definitely something I'll be using going forward.

The cutoff timer wasn't a massive issue for me as you should be pressing Tare between each ingredient anyway.

 

[scrumpox]

Oh, fuck it ... in for a penny ... in for a gram ... scales ordered.

 

[peps1]

Still can't see this working for me on smaller quantities. Not being difficult, but adding say 8ml from a bottle through the dripper would take forever, much quicker to whip the drip top off and use a syringe. Or am I missing something, like a need to be super super accurate?

Most of the flavours I use come with a drip tip that I could just squirt out 8ml in 2 squeezes.

For VG and PG I keep them in 1L condermnt bottles like these

Makes it supa quick to just squirt out direct from the bottle into the bottle.

Can make juice at the lest 5 times faster and my clean up total one disposable pipette I use for the nic.

 

[scrumpox]

Does the weight of concentrate vary much, is this a concern? I mean, concentrates vary in concentration, don't they? Most are in 100PG, but others are 50/50. Have you test weighed a selection of concentrates to confirm that they're all the same weight per ml?

Jeez, I can get anal on a Sunday morning ...

 

[tinyredpostbox]

Jeez, I can get anal on a Sunday morning ...

Does the weight of concentrate vary much, is this a concern? I mean, concentrates vary in concentration, don't they? Most are in 100PG, but others are 50/50. Have you test weighed a selection of concentrates to confirm that they're all the same weight per ml?

i generally just use the same weight per ml as pg for my pg concentrates. a lot of manufacturers do post data sheets for their concentrates so you can get the specific density for each concentrate. i did find a thread somewhere on the net where a guy had collated a huge list of concentrate densities. they didn't vary much though. ill see if i can find it