n00b Can Do It Too! - A Beginners Guide From A Beginner

[DIM]

Hi, I've been vaping for 10 days and have just made my first juice, with great success. I'm making this thread to encourage others to have a go as it is a very easy, cheap and satisfying thing to do.


Backstory:

I smoked since I was a kid, which is nearly 30 years now, and was on about 10-15 unfiltered Golden Virginia rollies per day, plus the odd Cuban cigar. I wanted to start vaping because I'm a skinflint and my lungs were starting to feel not so great!

Read a lot about vaping and decided that if I got into it I would be making my own juice ASAP. I'm a DIY sort of person and making my own also satisfies my skinflint nature.

Got an eGo CE4 set-up on eBay for £7 plus a couple of extra CE4 clearomizers. I had pre-bought 10ml of Virginia, Sunset Virginia & Cuba Cigar liquids, in 24mg strength, from LT Ecigs, and steeped them for a couple of weeks.

As expected none of the liquids taste anything like a fag or tobacco! "Virginia" tastes like bubblegum, "Sunset Virginia" tastes like burnt sugar and "Cuba Cigar" tastes like I don't know what -- nothing like a Cuban cigar -- it's pretty sickly. They were also a lot harsher than what I thought vaping would be like.

However, I found "Sunset Virginia" to be pleasant enough that I have not felt the need to have a fag since -- which has surprised me as I love smoking and was not one of those people who really wanted to "quit"! I've now got 20 ounces of Golden Virginia to give away...

After a few days I was confident that I'd made a permanent switch to vaping so decided to order some DIY juice supplies. (I'm also upgrading my vaping hardware).


Ordering Supplies:

I ordered all my supplies from LT Ecigs because: they had provided a good service previously, their items seemed to be good quality and I haven't found prices as good anywhere else. All the flavours are one of the three Inawera brands: Inawera, Wera Garden & Tino D'Milano.

100ml Diamond Crystal 54mg PG nicotine base: £13.56
100ml VG (diluted with 15% water): £2.40
8 x 10ml Flavourings & additives: £1.38 - £2.16 each
Some syringes and needles: £0.12 - £0.36 each


Cost of DIY Liquid:

Not including syringes and containers this DIY juice is costing me 6-9p per 1ml depending on the amount of flavouring used and the strength of nicotine. I'm currently vaping 1ml (24mg) per day, so even with the cost of new clearomizer coils factored in I'm making a massive saving over the cost of traditional smoking.


First Recipe - 5ml of "Strawberry Ice-Cream" (24mg):

5% - Strawberry (Inawera) - 0.25ml (5 drops)
3% - Madagascar Vanilla (Wera Garden) - 0.15ml (3 drops)
1% - Ethyl Maltol (Inawera 10% solution) - 0.05ml (1 drop)
1% - Stevia (20% solution) - 0.05ml (1 drop)

PG Nicotine Base - 2.22ml
AG (VG with 15% water) - 2.28ml

I dropped the flavourings into a bottle and gave them a good shake. Added the PG nicotine base and gave a good shake for about a minute. Added the AG and gave another good minute of shake. Of course, I wanted to sample it straight away without waiting for standard steeping time... So, I put the bottle in a mug of hot water and over the course of half-an-hour gave it vigorous shakes totalling about 5 mins.

Loaded up a clearomizer and Bingo! It tasted exactly as I imagined: strawberry ice-cream -- very moreish and satisfying. It's an excellent brew as is, I expect that after a few more days steeping it will be superb. The vapour/throat-hit ratio is spot-on. It is many levels nicer than the three "tobacco" liquids I bought.

I couldn't find a mixing calculator that took into account the PG in the flavourings and the water in the VG so I made my own. So for geek purposes here is the exact make-up of this mix.

PG - 51.04%
VG - 38.72%
Water - 6.84%
Nicotine - 2.4%
Concentrates - 1%


Future:

I bought a pack of 25 vodka jelly shot plastic glasses with lids (30ml), for a couple of quid, as thrifty juice mix containers. I intend to fill most of these with test recipes, using the rest of the flavours, this weekend. I'll report back to this thread with the results. (I'm thinking the large surface area of these containers could even help steeping time?)


Conclusion:

Have a go at making your own juice, it's not very hard to do. You will save a lot of money and can tailor superior brews to your exact requirements, all whilst having fun and getting satisfaction in the process. FTMFW!

 

[Purplefowler]

Now that's what I call a great opening post! Welcome to the planet and very well done on your start into the wonderful world of vaping

 

[Merino-Teflon]

Hi, I've been vaping for 10 days and have just made my first juice, with great success. I'm making this thread to encourage others to have a go as it is a very easy, cheap and satisfying thing to do.


Backstory:

I smoked since I was a kid, which is nearly 30 years now, and was on about 10-15 unfiltered Golden Virginia rollies per day, plus the odd Cuban cigar. I wanted to start vaping because I'm a skinflint and my lungs were starting to feel not so great!

Read a lot about vaping and decided that if I got into it I would be making my own juice ASAP. I'm a DIY sort of person and making my own also satisfies my skinflint nature.

Got an eGo CE4 set-up on eBay for £7 plus a couple of extra CE4 clearomizers. I had pre-bought 10ml of Virginia, Sunset Virginia & Cuba Cigar liquids, in 24mg strength, from LT Ecigs, and steeped them for a couple of weeks.

As expected none of the liquids taste anything like a fag or tobacco! "Virginia" tastes like bubblegum, "Sunset Virginia" tastes like burnt sugar and "Cuba Cigar" tastes like I don't know what -- nothing like a Cuban cigar -- it's pretty sickly. They were also a lot harsher than what I thought vaping would be like.

However, I found "Sunset Virginia" to be pleasant enough that I have not felt the need to have a fag since -- which has surprised me as I love smoking and was not one of those people who really wanted to "quit"! I've now got 20 ounces of Golden Virginia to give away...

After a few days I was confident that I'd made a permanent switch to vaping so decided to order some DIY juice supplies. (I'm also upgrading my vaping hardware).


Ordering Supplies:

I ordered all my supplies from LT Ecigs because: they had provided a good service previously, their items seemed to be good quality and I haven't found prices as good anywhere else. All the flavours are one of the three Inawera brands: Inawera, Wera Garden & Tino D'Milano.

100ml Diamond Crystal 54mg PG nicotine base: £13.56
100ml VG (diluted with 15% water): £2.40
8 x 10ml Flavourings & additives: £1.38 - £2.16 each
Some syringes and needles: £0.12 - £0.36 each


Cost of DIY Liquid:

Not including syringes and containers this DIY juice is costing me 6-9p per 1ml depending on the amount of flavouring used and the strength of nicotine. I'm currently vaping 1ml (24mg) per day, so even with the cost of new clearomizer coils factored in I'm making a massive saving over the cost of traditional smoking.


First Recipe - 5ml of "Strawberry Ice-Cream" (24mg):

5% - Strawberry (Inawera) - 0.25ml (5 drops)
3% - Madagascar Vanilla (Wera Garden) - 0.15ml (3 drops)
1% - Ethyl Maltol (Inawera 10% solution) - 0.05ml (1 drop)
1% - Stevia (20% solution) - 0.05ml (1 drop)

PG Nicotine Base - 2.22ml
AG (VG with 15% water) - 2.28ml

I dropped the flavourings into a bottle and gave them a good shake. Added the PG nicotine base and gave a good shake for about a minute. Added the AG and gave another good minute of shake. Of course, I wanted to sample it straight away without waiting for standard steeping time... So, I put the bottle in a mug of hot water and over the course of half-an-hour gave it vigorous shakes totalling about 5 mins.

Loaded up a clearomizer and Bingo! It tasted exactly as I imagined: strawberry ice-cream -- very moreish and satisfying. It's an excellent brew as is, I expect that after a few more days steeping it will be superb. The vapour/throat-hit ratio is spot-on. It is many levels nicer than the three "tobacco" liquids I bought.

I couldn't find a mixing calculator that took into account the PG in the flavourings and the water in the VG so I made my own. So for geek purposes here is the exact make-up of this mix.

PG - 51.04%
VG - 38.72%
Water - 6.84%
Nicotine - 2.4%
Concentrates - 1%


Future:

I bought a pack of 25 vodka jelly shot plastic glasses with lids (30ml), for a couple of quid, as thrifty juice mix containers. I intend to fill most of these with test recipes, using the rest of the flavours, this weekend. I'll report back to this thread with the results. (I'm thinking the large surface area of these containers could even help steeping time?)


Conclusion:

Have a go at making your own juice, it's not very hard to do. You will save a lot of money and can tailor superior brews to your exact requirements, all whilst having fun and getting satisfaction in the process. FTMFW!

Inawera are some of the best flavours out there, in my opinion, so I reckon you are off to a great start. By the way Wera Gardens Bahraini Apply Gold, at a mix of 2.3%, try it!

 

[whit77]

Inawera are some of the best flavours out there, in my opinion, so I reckon you are off to a great start. By the way Wera Gardens Bahraini Apply Gold, at a mix of 2.3%, try it!

I'm also a fan of inawera's wera garden range a little go's a long way, I find most of them good at around 3% which is cheap and cheerful

 

[KulrMeStoopid]

Yay!! and welcome to the planet! what a great post! It just goes to show how easy it really can be. I think we tend to over complicate vaping just because we're human and we do that kind of thing, but this is brilliant.

Do you mind if I repost this on our blog?

 

[whit77]

Whoops welcome to potv I'll wake up eventually

 

[Roadhoguk]

welcome to the Planet .

 

[Gilliandrea]

to POTV, what a great start

 

[Steve-bigO]

Welcome to potv DIM, As a newbie myself and keen to DIY, this will help me no end, Thanks for a great post

Steve

 

[DIM]

Thanks for all the positive responses guys.

So, here's a little update for any other n00b, potential, DIYers.


Pre-made Juice:

Of the three pre-made juices I originally bought: I gave one away and have 3/4 of the other two left. I don't see myself really ever buying pre-made juices again.


Test Mixes:

After my original post I made up a dozen different mixes and didn't have a bad one amongst them! Ethyl Maltol has proved to be a key ingredient and I use it in every mix now, along with Stevia in most. The Inawera Strawberry has turned out to be a big winner along with a baccy blend I make using the Tino D'Milano Sunset Virginia and Flue Cured Tobacco. Inawera Mango is also very nice. I am, surprisingly, very satisfied with the concoctions I've come up with!


Future Mixes:

I've got some Wera Garden Absolute Virginia (made from real tobacco) and DNB flavours on order from LT Ecigs. I'll update if mixes using these turn out to be winners. The Wera Garden Madagascar Vanilla loses its initial vanilla flavour and takes on a creamy, sugary, kind of effect. So, a good Vanilla flavour is something that I'm going to be looking for; if anyone has a recommendation feel free to make it. I don't feel the need to search out anymore flavours but will probably keep picking up a few new ones, whenever I'm buying supplies, just for fun.


Nicotine Strength:

One major thing: the 24mg strength was giving me hardcore headaches so I dropped it down to 18mg but was still getting headaches. I dropped it down again to 12mg and the headaches went but I was "gasping" a bit for about a week; after which, 12mg satisfied me. So, a week later I dropped it down to 6mg and did not notice any "gasping" and my nicotine addiction is being fully satisfied. (I'm going to try out some 3mg and 1mg mixes for a laugh.) I'm vaping 1.5ml of juice per day.


Steeping:

Using the large surface area of the vodka jelly shot pots has proved to be a good way of doing little test mixes. The juices fully steep within 24hrs, using a syringe to mix it up and introduce lots of fine air bubbles. Which leads me to think that steeping has more to do with oxidation than anything else.


Hardware:

I designed and built my own variable power supply, and atomiser holder, for home use. It's based around the LM338 Linear Voltage Regulator; whilst this is inefficient from an electrical point of view it generates a very solid vape. I vape at between 8-11 watts, depending on juice, and have the proverbial "clouds of vapour" experience.

I bought Kanger Mini-Protank IIs and love them. I build my own coil assemblies: after lots of experimenting I have found that 3mm silica wick and 5 turns of 0.2mm Kanthal, with double twisted legs, is the magic spec. for me. This gives a 1.9 ohm coil which also works nice on my Ego battery which gives 3.65V under load.

An adjustable Ego type battery is the only thing I have on the shopping list at the moment.


Conclusion:

Two months later and this vaping lark has all gone exceedingly well. I'm completely satisfied in all regards. Making my own coils and juice I'm spending less than a quid a week - the skinflint in me is doing cartwheels. And my lungs feel about 50% bigger.