Getting into DIY.

[MarylinC37]

Trust me, even though you're just starting out you won't find mixing at all difficult. I only started about 4 or 5 years back. I had two ways that helped me in the beginning. First was work out what flavours were my absolute favourites and construct my own recipes from there or go to somewhere like https://e-liquid-recipes.com and find something I could use as a template.

Very often you find there might be lots of different versions of a particular flavour concentrate so when it comes to the main flavour I want I sometimes buy 3 or 4 small 10ml bottles of the most likely looking candidates and just do a simple spot finger test where I just taste a tiny drop of each and pick the nicest one.

You will find DIY mixing is always a constant process of tweaking and constantly trying to make little changes to keep improving your recipe.

I started out trying the 10ml testers but it didn't last long. It didn't take long to come up with something vapable enough so I moved onto to slightly bigger batches and just kept tweaking each new batch looking for my next little improvement. Obviously, you'll get through more juice if you vape DTL compared to MTL so you'll want to choose your batch sizes accordingly.

As for adding nicotine, you don't really need to bother for your little test batches. I just left the nic out as I was only interested in testing the flavour and with little testers it's no big loss to throw it away if you don't like it.

 

[Rickster]

A lot of you lot have been doing DIY for a long time and I don’t have the confidence like all of you to just slap everything together and call it a day lol. Since I’m using the “stronger than usual” nic out there instead of nic shots I figured a syringe with a blunt needle tip might be useful when mixing in smaller amounts for testing (10ml) before going on to mixing in bigger batches. It does scare me that if I mixed let’s say 60ml for my first attempt and it ends up tasting like dish soap that’s quite an error to make. I’m wanting to make as many chances as possible to get a recipe right without making large amounts of waste due to failed mixes in the process.

I am worried that next year there maybe a flavour ban/restriction so I’m hoping to bypass that flavour ban/restriction by making my own.

I find pipettes a lot easier, than fkin about with syringes for nic, they are cheap enough to just use n throw away

 

[Netvaper]

Use whatever you're comfy with @MetalVape90 such as syringes for 10ml, the main thing is to get the ratios of flavour(s), nicotine, PG and VG that you want. Below as an example is a 10ml mix, 50/50, 6mg, 10% flavour using the unmentionable nicotine. I imagine any flavour bans will also include concentrates.

 

[andipandi]

Since I’m using the “stronger than usual” nic

Decant it into a 30ml bottle, you have scales that weigh from 0.01gram, rather than 0.10g? It will be far more precise than a syringe, unless you have the really dirt cheap scales, which from my previous experience were el - crappo.

 

[ObiWanVaponi]

I decant my nic in a dripper bottle, so I just squirt it into the bottle I'm mixing into (on the scales) the same way I do with concentrates. I've got bottles with nozzles for PG and VG as well, that way there's zero washing up.

 

[zouzounaki]

A lot of you lot have been doing DIY for a long time and I don’t have the confidence like all of you to just slap everything together and call it a day lol. Since I’m using the “stronger than usual” nic out there instead of nic shots I figured a syringe with a blunt needle tip might be useful when mixing in smaller amounts for testing (10ml) before going on to mixing in bigger batches. It does scare me that if I mixed let’s say 60ml for my first attempt and it ends up tasting like dish soap that’s quite an error to make. I’m wanting to make as many chances as possible to get a recipe right without making large amounts of waste due to failed mixes in the process.

I am worried that next year there maybe a flavour ban/restriction so I’m hoping to bypass that flavour ban/restriction by making my own.

get pg nic and fill a 60ml eliquid bottle with it. use that to weigh the nic into your mixes, the last bit you can do in single drops, and then just keep it in the fridge.

actually i just mix up litre bottles of 12mg 50/50 base mix. i use concentrates that are very strong and don’t care about the ratio as long as it’s between 50:50 and 40:60. i also puff the base mix with no flavour quite a lot. so it works for me. also, once you’ve used the scales you suss out the drop size of the various concentrate bottles, after which you can just mix by drops.

 

[andywilliams1187]

A lot of you lot have been doing DIY for a long time and I don’t have the confidence like all of you to just slap everything together and call it a day lol. Since I’m using the “stronger than usual” nic out there instead of nic shots I figured a syringe with a blunt needle tip might be useful when mixing in smaller amounts for testing (10ml) before going on to mixing in bigger batches. It does scare me that if I mixed let’s say 60ml for my first attempt and it ends up tasting like dish soap that’s quite an error to make. I’m wanting to make as many chances as possible to get a recipe right without making large amounts of waste due to failed mixes in the process.

I am worried that next year there maybe a flavour ban/restriction so I’m hoping to bypass that flavour ban/restriction by making my own.

When I started out making my own (and I still do it now), I found it a lot easier to marke a pre-mix base (so I use 500ml vg, 350ml PG and 15 10ml nic shots which are 100% PG based to make a 1 litre 50/50 base mix at 3mg). Then for making tester bottles, you just need to figure out the strength of the concentrate (e.g. if the recommended is 10% and you are making 10ml, drop 1ml into a bottle, add in 9ml of the base).

The only issue I have with doing it this way is the 3mg nictotine is slightly off when making larger batches (e.g. 1 litre of my favourite concentrate) but I barley notice and it suits me.

I find having the base liquid pre-mixed a lot easier than messing around with small amounts of PG/VG etc.

 

[zouzounaki]

When I started out making my own (and I still do it now), I found it a lot easier to marke a pre-mix base (so I use 500ml vg, 350ml PG and 15 10ml nic shots which are 100% PG based to make a 1 litre 50/50 base mix at 3mg). Then for making tester bottles, you just need to figure out the strength of the concentrate (e.g. if the recommended is 10% and you are making 10ml, drop 1ml into a bottle, add in 9ml of the base).

The only issue I have with doing it this way is the 3mg nictotine is slightly off when making larger batches (e.g. 1 litre of my favourite concentrate) but I barley notice and it suits me.

I find having the base liquid pre-mixed a lot easier than messing around with small amounts of PG/VG etc.

i think it’s unlikely that the difference between 3mg and 2.7mg could be easily detected.

 

[30deadcats]

A lot of you lot have been doing DIY for a long time and I don’t have the confidence like all of you to just slap everything together and call it a day lol. Since I’m using the “stronger than usual” nic out there instead of nic shots I figured a syringe with a blunt needle tip might be useful when mixing in smaller amounts for testing (10ml) before going on to mixing in bigger batches. It does scare me that if I mixed let’s say 60ml for my first attempt and it ends up tasting like dish soap that’s quite an error to make. I’m wanting to make as many chances as possible to get a recipe right without making large amounts of waste due to failed mixes in the process.

I am worried that next year there maybe a flavour ban/restriction so I’m hoping to bypass that flavour ban/restriction by making my own.

When I make a mix that's rubbish I mix it with another rubbish mix. Sometimes 2 shit mixes make something vapeable. Nothing to lose coz they'd both have been thrown away anyway. You're only making juice for yourself and not a commercial enterprise so don't get too anal about measurements etc. just get the right amount of nic and leave the rest to serendipity.

 

[MetalVape90]

I can see how a small 20-30ml soft bottle with a needle tip can be used to decant a PG based nic into the mix, I suppose it’ll easier than a syringe for adding nic into a mix and would make cleaning afterwards easier too. Will have to get a permanent marker so I can label the different bottles.