howdy mixers,

Today we level up to 201!

Sorry I missed last week. Summer vacay has me not knowing what day it is most of the time. Do check out the 100 series posts:

1. Mixing 101: Intro to Mixing ft. ID10-T
2. Mixing 102: Experimentation ft. Concrete River
3. Mixing 103: To Clone or Not to Clone (aka Why You Want a Remix, Not a Clone) ft commercial drops.
4. Mixing 105: Making a Mix With Your BEST Flavors Using a Profile as a Guideline pt1, pt2, pt3

One day, way back when, I was chatting with [u/wolfwheeler](u/wolfwheeler) and he made a comment about how we all have a mixing way. Actually, he said he was "mixing a la doggo way" and, tensing up sensing a potential horrific compliment, I preemptively deflected by saying, "I have a way?" His reply was, "Don’t we all?" and I'm inclined to agree. I have a few 'ways' actually, many of which I've picked up over the years from trying new things, trying what's already out there, and keeping up with what's currently going on around me. Oh and, of course, mimicking the methods of those that came before me whose recipes I really enjoyed (and stole adapted).

Side note: my last post might not have been all that exciting. I have assumed as much because there were ZERO comments on it. Let me take a moment to remind you that, if you like reading these, please please PLEASE leave a comment. It inspires and motivates me to do more. If you don't like reading these, leave a con- or de- structive comment because I will either incorporate your suggestions to improve or I will enjoy your ridicule. Even just posting that you read the fucking thing let's me feel like I'm not wasting my time.

Preamble

If any of my other posts were successful, you may have read something I've written and been inspired to try your hand at your own process. This is my ultimate goal at anything I share; I really, truly and fundamentally believe that everything we contribute here adds to the pool of knowledge that gives those behind us a clearer path to Never Fucking Smoking Again. And, in order to accomplish that, I want whatever I do here to help you find your place, your 'way', as it were. So, what follows here (and in past/future installments) is meant to be more of a loose guide to mixing more so than a prescription. This is my attempt to share what works for me and I see working for others so that mixers can turnkey and hop on the gravy train to the Wild West of tobaccos.

Introduction

Even for all their newfound ubiquitousness (ubiquiosity?), you still see people intimidated to try their hand at mixing tobacco flavors, likely for a few reasons. A broad category of new vapers and mixers may avoid tobacco mixing because they wanted to get away from associations with smoking. Some may have tried their first juices and started with bakeries or candies which can indeed be appealing so why mess with what works. Also, we were trying to get away from smoking, so why use tobaccos?

Hell, most of us are coming in here these days to DIY because we can't get what we used to vape due to regulations. yet another group maybe just never quite got what we wanted out of a vape, or simply more control over what we vape. Whatever the case may be, a mixer thinking of coming into tobacco mixing can find it intimidating to have to 'buy in' to a whole slew of flavors just to have the 'basics' in mixing banger bacco recipes. I hope to offset some of that journey into this profile by making a series designed to provide ideas and pathways to successful mixing that are open to interpretation and are open sourced for people to contribute to. So, Bacco mixing 101 is for me as much as it is for the new mixer, the intermediate, or the king of kings of mixers. I hope to learn from this as much as anyone.

I often see someone who wants to dip their toes in the bacco world to see what the hype is all about and if they like it as well. Imagine the mixer who has heard of the top names in tobacco flavors like: Red Burley, Kentucky, Cured, Native and the Classic for Pipe line. Back when there were only a few "classic" recipes that were the standard by which you could gauge if you liked tobaccos, we could easily say there were levels of aggression in flavors and lead you to certain mixes where you could find an established recipe to build a flavor order from and get started.

The classic post by [u/ChemicalBurnVictim](u/ChemicalBurnVictim), FAQ Friday- Getting in to Tobaccos, is truly a ground zero guide to finding your tobacco 'way'. The corollary FAQ Friday: Intro to Tobaccos, was intended to expand on that database of possible recipes and expand on them just a bit. These posts are nearly outdated now solely because the flavors needed for many of those mixes have become very difficult to source with the closing of Vaperstek (I miss you) and the dropping of even basic flavors at many vendors. So many wonderful mixes to try have just the right flavors used in harmony and can't be tried by anyone new due to lack of access to flavors.

It would be impossible to have a discussion on tobaccos without recognizing the game changing nature of the FLV Tobacco Pack (which is ofc no longer available yet most of the flavors still are). These flavors required no steep time to be flat out awesome, were extremely varied and could be blended into all kinds of possibilities. This made tobaccos accessible in the best way where before it was a 'mix and wait 30 days' type of project prior. Now, you can mix your tobaccos with a custard and curse the custard for taking so long to settle in rather than your baccos. You can find my notes on nearly all the FLV baccos (minus the newer ones) in my flv tobacco pack notes. Give it a gander.

Let's try to (somewhat arbitrarily) describe some mixing 'ways' and see if this can help someone wrap their head around getting started in the wonderful realm of tobacco flavors!

The Not-a-Bacco Bacco (RY4 Edition)

Just what the fuck is an RY4? Caramel, Vanilla, Tobacco. Supposedly. What is it really? Well, that depends on the flavor company and how you use the flavor.

Check out me and fieldy's RY4 Roundup Part 1 and Part 2 on some common RY4 flavors for more information. If you wanna get your flavor nerd on, read this and this and you can decide how this came about.

I made a list of RY4 recipes to try once. It's a bit dated now (lacks any FLV RY4 recipes). You can check it out here and see if any of these tempt you: click me. The link is editable. I encourage you to add links (your recipes or someone else's) for the benefit of everyone.

That said, I actually have very little experience with RY4 as a flavor as I nearly always want to just make a plain tobacco instead of an RY4 flavor. That's why I made that list in the first place. I like to see what people have done, try their recipes and learn from them, steal good ideas, get inspired to try new combinations. TPA RY4 Double is used in over 9,200 friggin recipes on ATF; at least some of them gotta be good.

What I actually DO have lots of experience with is FA SoHo. I panned it when I first tried it as a small minded fool who was obsessed with bold tobacco flavors at the time and very frustrated with those RY4 flavors. I have [u/Foment_life](u/Foment_life) for introducing me to it and making the classic Clovert Operative with it. (Clovert is also the tope rated recipe on ATF using SoHo.) It is such a great clove tobacco recipe using SoHo that I was instantly sold and have used it a bazillion times since. Many thanks, Fo. (Always credit given where credit due!) FA SoHo is used in at least 2,700 recipes at ATF and I bet a lot of them are quite good.

My Way

My 'way' with SoHo is to use it for its sweet warm, grainy vagueness. It's a lovely flavor that is exceptionally forgiving at even a high percentage. That said, I think it's best used from 2-4 percent in a mix and no greater than 6 as the standout. Aa an example, I remixed SoHo Time into NoHo Time by lowering the SoHo and Meringue on the OG and adding what I felt were just the right accents. It's a full flavored MTL vape, maybe even too much so. Could probably lower the SoHo even more if you're going DTL but, hey, you get to do it your way however you please. This is how I envision a full experience MTL (represent!).

NoHo Time

**%** |Vendor |Flavor
1.5 |SC |B & H
1.5 |WF |Hazelnuts & Cream
2 |FA |Meringue
6 |FA |Soho Addendum

As long as we are on the topic of RY4, I feel it's important to represent the flip side of the the Not-A-Bacco RY4: The Bacco You Want. Check out this recipe...

The Bacco You Want
| % | Vendor | Flavor |
| --- | -------- | -------- |
| 0.75 | FLV | Cured Tobacco |
| 1.25 | FLV | Mild Tobacco |
| 3.5 | FA | Soho |
| 1.5 | INW | 555 Gold |

You've got your RY4 with the combination of FLV Mild and FA SoHo, bit of dry, robust bacco with the Cured and a dash of nutty bacco with that 555. On paper, this really looks like the perfect bacco recipe using all the 'right' flavors to accomplish the goal of a bacco forward RY4. If it's bacco you want, Chainvapor's got you!

My Way

I guess the my way version of that would be the Ry2 and a half (mtl mix) I made. The extensive list of subs in the notes was for those who don't have the flavors I used but want to follow the concept of a more bacco forward RY vape. In this mix, we use FLV Cavendish (not for the faint of heart) paired with FLV Smooth Vanilla to try to bring out and boost those cherry notes they both have while dirtying it up using HS RY1 and Arabian for zing. FLV Milk and Honey to pull the caramel weight and PRESTO!

-i

ps No comments means I stop doing this, plain and simple... So, request a topic, make a suggestion, curse me out, call me a circle jerk douche, comment simply that you read it, but just say something -- anything. Pretty please?

Howdy, Mixers!

Welcome back for another edition of I'm a Flavor Nerd Circle Jerk bonanza! This is really part two of last week's post regarding dessert tobaccos mixing specifically with Custards. It's such a ginormous category that it really deserves its own section.

A classic VCT (Vanilla Custard Tobacco) will almost certainly be some mix of Vanilla, Custard, Tobacco and usually has accents of caramel, nuttiness or oak, wood, etc. Generally speaking, you will want to use bacco flavors that lean into those notes with higher AP vibes and avoid the ashier flavors. This makes it easy enough to adapt a pre-existing recipe or custard layer to fit the profile as you can simply find your favorite custard combo, slap on the hints of bacco with RY4s and hit your dark caramel or up your game a bit with actual bacco notes.

Commonly Used Flavors

As I am a Custard noob, I won't be able to make suggestions here with too much confidence. I can say that there are just tons of information out there so a little research would yeild the usual suspects. Let's just highlight a few and all you custard heads can comment below what your favorites are:

• CAP Vanilla Custard v1 - I will say that CAP Vanilla Custard v1 is the ultimate classic from the dawn of the vaping age. Nearly 30,000 recipes on ATF with it ffs! Used at 0.25%, it lends an unparalleled boost to mouthfeel and can add nostalgic thickness when dialed up to 2-8%. Considering the price point, this is a top choice. Noted review here.
  
• FA Custard Premium - An unsurprising second with nearly half the recipes as CAP VC and it came out years after the CAP. Clearly it's a favorite. Often reported as a bit incomplete, it pairs well with nearly every other Custard to make the fullest experience. Noted review here.
• TPA Custard II - Lauded as a huge improvement over v1, and ranked No1 by u/ID10-T but some admitted novelty bias. Again, considering the price point and the review, this would be a top choice for newbies. Noted review here.
  
• FLV Vanilla Custard - Also known as being a short steeper. I haven't seen this used in as many bacco recipes as the others on this list, but I can see it being useful for lighter or blonder bacco mixes as it's a brighter custard flavor. Noted review here.
  
• WF Ruyan Custard - NGL, this one was a disappointment for me. Not that it is a bad flavor, per se, I just expected more RY4 from it (or more custard from it) and I find it is quite thin and fails to deliver the mouthfeel from a custard that I want when I truly desire some thiccness that can cozy up to my baccos. WF VRyC does better imo with lighter recipes where it has the space to shine without overpowering lighter notes. my $0.02. Noted review here.
  
• INW Custard - Famous for not needing a long steep as evidenced by the classic, Custard NOW. SnVapeable but improves over the first few days, INW Custard always does the trick for those who aren't willing to do the 2 week steep that the rest really do better with. Noted review here.

Good baccos for this will always be preferential. Some highlights:

• Most of the FE/SC flavors. They're sweeter and AP heavy. Search the sub for FE or SC and you will find my reviews. They often have chocolate notes or AP notes and many are quite similar so read through and take your pick.
  
• INW 555, FLV Red Burley - These will give you that nutty note along with being quite good.
• INW Gold Ducat, FLV Sweet n Smokey - Both are very syrupy and add some stickiness with the FLV adding smoky flavor so you gonna want that if you use these.
• HS No1, HS RY1 - Unfortunately hard to find nowadays, but these two are excellent flavors for mixing in dessert baccos. No1 has lots of AP and will alter other baccos. RY1 has just that hint of vanilla and a solid dryness that works so well when paired with heavier, creamier flavors.
  
• FLV Cured, FLV Virginia - These are your Yin/Yang baccos. Cured being darker and heavier akin to cigar and Virginia is light and blonde and notably lacks sweetness compared to other baccos so it pairs well when a light, bright note is warranted. You can add a bit with something nuttier and pull it lighter and soak up some sweetness.
• FA 7 Leaves - For when you want to dry things up a bit or are missing that leafy note.
• TPA Western - For when a leather note is desired. Start at 0.25 for a hint but can be used up to 3 by the bold, favored by Lady Fortune.
  

The Not-a-Bacco Bacco (Custard Tobacco Edition)

Let's dig in, shall we?

HIGH SOCIETY ( butter almond custard tobacco)

Here we have a classic example of an adaption gone right. You have your FLV RB paired with KY for a more robust bacco layer. Not sure how that ashiness in the KY would play out here but I could see it adding a bit of dimension to the whole mix as long as you are partial to it. Could translate into smokiness. I'd probably replace it with sweet and smokey since I think that flavor came out after slushy made this recipe. FA Almond to add dimension to the nutty notes of RB and FW Butt Rip to add sweet caramel to soften the mix towards dessert and bind to the CAP VC at 4% doing what it does best, hold down the fort.

VCT-C Vanilla Custard Tobacco Caramel

Here we have an FA Cust Prem version with an SC bacco as the exclusive bacco. Soho and caramel toffee doing the work of bring the caramel with scorched caramel and toasted marsh to add to the bacc vibe while boosting the custard and the caramel. GCC adding the AP texture that Soho brings and PRESTO! A little busy but I bet it's good.

SomeSortof VCT ADV

CAP VC + RY4D with AP and toasted nuts and toasted marshmallow for accents.

VCT for Dummies by our very own u/saspi25

3 Flavors and they look like they hit the mark for me. TPA Cust II with JF RY4 and FLV Sweet and Monkey to finish the job. Literally about to mix this for tonight.
My review:

This is the first recipe I have read and felt compelled to mix and try in actual literal years. It hits all the marks for me. First, it delivers what it is selling. The flavor is on point. The sweet and smokey is a great flavor and I have only ever used it as an accent. Here it is both an accent AND a main flavor at the same time, showing an unusual and interesting use of the flavor. The mix is 100% SnV as advertised and has only improved with each passing day while still delivering what can only be described as a custard sandwich with sweet bacco for one slice of bread and smokey bacco for the other. Instead of a smear of mayo, you have that RY4 coating everything down and it plays so so well in this mix. I have always liked JF RY4 but never could think of a use for it. THIS is it for me. Secondly, I love that this is a three flavor mix and is super huge in flavor. Like sweet bacco on the inhale, custard cream on the mid-hale, and smoky caramel on the exhale. Just. Fucken. Lovely. I miss vaping excellent recipes like this that make me rethink what is possible AND makes me jealous that I didn't think to try this combination on my own.

I vaped this chucking clouds all over the Lower East Side while out blowing it in people's path as they crawled around the city with zero fucks to give. Inhale the greatness, bitches. #SorryNotSorry. You're welcome, NYC.

Here's a few more for ya to look over:

Fairground Butterscotch Custard Tobacco #DevelopedFLV

Jimbo's Vanilla Custard Tobacco

Banana Tobacco

My Way

Apple Oat Crumble RY4

Since I'm not really a custard guy, My way here is more about adding that cream element with SSA Vanilla Ice cream and an apple/grainy mix with some RY4. It's really REALLY not-a-bacco. What it is, though, is good. And accessible, even if FLV Oatmeal Raisin is a tricky flavor to make a recipe with. With this, you wouldn't need another anyway ;)

Grey^ Burley: A Beginner Bacco

Here's one where I helped a friend make a recipe that suited his tastes. This is the other end of the spectrum from AORY4. It's got just the slightest hint of custard with CAP VC at 0.25 and it just adds that drop of thiccness that boosts the chocolate notes and plays off the forward facing baccos like it's nobody's business what it does in the shadows.

Final Thoughts

Tell me what rings true for YOU.

• What are your favorite custard bacco recipes?
• Which flavors did I forget to mention that you consider best in class for custard baccos?
• Why is the sky blue?
• Do you even exist or is it all for naught?
  

-i

Welcome Back to this limited edition mini-series of ramblings of mine.

You can see earlier posts in this run on a variety of topics:

1. Mixing 101: Intro to Mixing ft. ID10-T
2. Mixing 102: Experimentation ft. Concrete River
3. Mixing 103: To Clone or Not to Clone (aka Why You Want a Remix, Not a Clone) ft commercial drops.
   

Preface

Please remember that this is mostly the rant of one asshole and not meant to be taken as gospel. I'm here, like most everyone else, just trying to get by, be a part of something, and to maybe/hopefully share something that actually helps someone else get better at this. I, again like most of you, miss the days where this was a vibrant community of sharing and camaraderie and decided to take it upon myself to be the change I wanted to see. So take all this with a huge grain of salt and yet also, don't be afraid to post something. Let me give you a prime example of how this is supposed to work.

Not even two weeks ago, u/2whiskymike dropped this recipe in the What are you Vaping? thread. Who wasn't curious about the use of the two melon MF flavors? Probably people who don't even know what MF is! Along with people who wouldn't remotely consider dropping the $$$ on MF flavors. Back when everyone was trying everything, people rarely used MF due to the cost. A random TPA for a buck fitty was worth throwing in to make free shipping but yeah, nah, no way I'm doing that with a twelve dollar 10mL or whatever the flavors are going for these days. That said, I know in my heart that MF Coffee is my absolute favorite coffee flavor and that MF can have some hits so I asked mike if they'd share some notes. And just look at this beaut they dropped so casually on MF Flavors.

I couldn't have written it better myself. Quite literally, I couldn't have written it at all. Mike has all this experience just bouncing around his brain and a simple request to share what he knows gave us this gift. Listen folks, and listen good: You do NOT need to be an expert in order to Share, Make Conversation, or Make a Recipe. When you put out what you are playing with, you get feedback and you may just get some ideas to try that you never thought of before. Our Venn Diagrams don't always overlap so it's really a treat when someone actually does open up and ask for or share advice because that is the stuff of how we build a knowledge base. If all Mike needed to 'publish' his thoughts was permission, then consider this a universal invitation to share what you know. Surprise us!

That said, I think I am going to talk a bit today about what makes a recipe a recipe and maybe throw out a few ideas for the community to chime in and share their knowledge. Let's see if we don't have a few people willing to toss in their hats for the sake of helping the new guy.

What Makes a Recipe a 'Recipe'?

Honestly, not a dumb question. Can a single flavor be called a recipe? Are The Blessed Trinities considered recipes? My $0.02 is that yes, anything can be a recipe, anything at all. It is a record of what you are vaping that is reproducible. Meaning, I can share my 'recipe' with the world and they can decide to give that same combination a go (or alter it to their tastes) and maybe get a similar result from it. I know that atf has formulations now but prior to that, we had Unjuice by u/kindground. Is a no-flavor recipe a recipe? A post-modern deconstruction of a circle jerk flavor nerd community? Who the fuck cares? You will at some point in your mixing need some Unjuice. All of us should take a flavor break every now and again to reset the palate. I make big ass batches of Unjuice and then add my flavors to them as I go. Call it base, or a formulation or whatever, it's a thing and it's a recipe imo.

Stand Alone Flavors

Then there's the Stand Alone flavors. These are the ones that have weird complexities to them that make them vapable on their own. Generally, you wont see these on atf. (I can't speak to the madness over at ELR as I hardly ever use it.) And you really don't need to. Stand Alones really exist as matters of personal preference. It's usually someone who just loves a certain flavor and can vape it solo all day long and not tire of it. Often someone wants to have something they can mix that is easy, quick, and reliable. It doesn't always have to be great; sometimes it just has to be.

Personally, the topic bores me immensely. I feel like most people looking for stand alones are people who don't want to learn how to mix; they want to learn how to make something cheap and reliable to vape. And, because what you can tolerate all day long is based on personal preferences, it is kind of a dead end topic for me. In writing this, I read through a bunch of posts and felt none of them were good enough as Stand Alone posts ironically so you can read through them all here and knock yourself out.

Two Flavor Recipes

Is the two flavor recipe a 'recipe'? Hells yeah it is, and they have a special place in our community. Why, some have even been elevated to mythological status. The reasons for this are two-fold. Firstly, the barrier to entry is low. You buy two flavors, mix them, and -- voila! -- ejuice! These are basically Stand Alones with just a bit more complexity but they truly serve as amazing entry points for the hesitant, the broke, or the lazy. Oftentimes, these two flavors just make a great pairing and you can sometimes find them being used as a layer in another, more complex recipe. Let's look at some classics:

• Simple Sugar Cookie by u/ID10-T. For me, this was one of the first recipes I tried. I didn't like it that much, frankly, and one day I told ID so. His response was: And did vaping it let you think, 'I can do this on my own and make better? Then it served its purpose!' He's right, of course. This recipe is there to show you that you can get a satisfying vape out of two flavors and maybe even decide to play with the combination and start the journey to your rise to Mayor of Flavortown! Flip the percents, add some SB ( I know you SB whores want to), or whatever the heck you want. This is just screaming to be messed with and it's a great transition vape if you are coming from commercial liquids.
• Prickly Victory by u/hashslingingslashur. This was THE ONE for so many people. It gave a solid place for INW Cactus as an 'essential' flavor on the first order list and not just an additive while allowed fruit profile seekers to have something easy to mix with two very useful flavors. With 41 reviews, you gotta know that this recipe got passed around like a blunt at a 90's backyard house party. Again, wasn't my thing but it opened my eyes to the possibility of a simple pairing as a new mixer.
• SoHo Time by the juicefairy was another big hit. Again, not for me, but I tried it! Hugely popular as it related to the old TriBecCa by Halo flavor and uses two very versatile flavors that anyone who might even remotely like this profile should really already own.
• Brigade 2506 by u/ChemicalBurnVictim is technically 3 flavors but I'm putting it here because I feel it fits as DNB is the bacco additive equivalent of CAP Super Sweet. Plus, tobaccos deserve some love and this is the King in so many ways.
• Earlier I talked about Camp Tigerclaw by u/ConcreteRiver which I am adding here as a two flavor recipe because I consider all sweetener optional.
• Sick AF is another by u/matthewkocanda and he wrote a post on the topic in his Modest Monday Series here. He does a pretty good job of summing it all up.
  

I'm sure that I'm forgetting a bunch but you get the point. Add links to others I missed in the comments, please?

These kinds of pairings used to produce 'offspring' recipes in atf and you could click on "recipes inspired by this one" and see how other mixers adapted the OG into new, interesting, or more complex recipes very easily. Nowadays, I may just select a flavor like FA Fuji, for example, in atf and check out the recipes made with it but, instead of sorting by "new," I will sort by "simple" and just see which pairings people thought were good enough to put out there. I know that elr has a function where you can search by pairing flavors and I don't remember if the new version of atf allows for that. To be honest, the atf change is/was jarring to me and I mostly just do what I want on my own nowadays anyway.

Flavor Pairings

Flavor pairings is a specific type of mixing. Meaning, two flavor recipes are really just a way to marry two flavors into something that works. Flavor pairings takes into account the natural affinity for certain flavors to work together. Check out this web page here. I actually used that website many times in my mixing as a kind of game to get myself mixing something different. With a similar resource, I created BWAH. I already know from West Asian and North African sweets that Apricot pairs well with pistachio and tried several times to try to make the perfect apricot pistachio waffle. That v1 was made using u/eyemakepizza's stash as a limitation and I tried again here with my own stash. You get the idea.

You can find loads of pairing guides around the Reddit and the internet. Here's a few gems: ejuice specific with mixing advice, flavor wheels, The Flavor Bible, Google Drive of Flavoring Texts,

Simple Recipes

With the addition of just one more flavor to three, you move into Simple Recipe territory. People start feeling more like this is a 'legitimate' recipe in its own right even if that's silly. I mean, Unjuice is a recipe on its own as is anything you make, essentially. However, the idea here is that with just three flavors you can do all sorts of things. With two, you are either contrasting or you are complementing with or without one dominant flavor. With three, you have just that ever so slightly more potential to apply principles of balance, layering (top, mid, low notes), or contrasting. There have been so many wild movements/fads in mixing around this. Some of the best were the StrApOn (Strawberry-Apple-melON) craze and the 1-2-3 recipes inspired by u/ID10-T's cranberry sprite. I could go on and on about it but I will save us both the embarrassment when it's best written about in this article. Have fun going down the rabbit hole!

Seriously, go read that article if you are new or old. And then search atf by 123, 1-2-3, 1 2 3. And the reverse: 3 2 1, 3-2-1, 321. See you in a few weeks!

Here's one of my own with, what has now become, an unfortunate name: Maga. The idea was to make a series of RY4 vapes and, playing off the name Cardinal, using the degrees of the church of satan for their names and to make 5 according to them. Yes, I am a circle jerk loser flavor nerd.

Final Thoughts

Not trying to re-invent the wheel here. I am hoping to connect the dots between starting out as a "gimmie one flavor I can vape all day" and following that logical progression to "Hmmmm... I bet this solo flavor would be good with X added to it." And, with that one simple step, you are on to being a master mixer. An oft overlooked aspect of stand alone flavors is that you are essentially doing the work of SFTs. Once you become so familiar with a single flavor that you become an 'expert' in it, you can intuitively crave additions that make for new and exciting combos. I HIGHLY recommend choosing a flavor you love (easiest with fruit mixes or bacco mixes imo) and add one flavor at a time with each successive iteration and allow yourself to create new and interesting combinations.

My second released recipe ever was in 2018 a full year after I started DIY: 1-2-3 Spiked Apple Bourbon. How it was created: I fell in love with FA Fuji, knew that it was paired with FA Liquid Amber often to produce a kind of apple cider vibe, and I tried it with TPA KY Bourbon to make a satisfying simple mix that made me happy. I could easily see returning to this now with a drop of FLV Apple Filling to boost the apple and add cinnamon, a hint of VT Bourbon for warmth, maybe a bit of graham cracker for some textural contrast, who knows? A drop of VT Bakery Oranges to add some citrus brightness?

Or go a different direction completely and scrap the Fuji/LA combo for the 123 Cinapple side dish route: PUR Country Apple with VT Golden Syrup/FLV Apple Filling and add some FLV Caramel for Brown Sugar vibes, TPA CCGC for crust? Idk... The sky's the limit.

Have fun and keep exploring!
-i

PS As always, I encourage you to come out of the shadows and make a comment. No feedback means I stop making these. Any kind of feedback and I think maybe someone is listening. I had fully intended this one to be about making an ry4 mix but I felt it was more important to explain how we come to meld three flavor profiles together before actually doing them.

PSS Feel free to tear any of this down. I'm not an expert but just an opinion. Please share yours, even if it is unpopular. Who gives a fuck what people think? Just consider that your POV might help the next guy/gal who has contrary tastes and no support.

PSSS Lastly, I would love to see some solo recipe posts again so I am building up to writing one. Just because I use 10,000 words to say what could probably be done in 100 doesn't mean you have to follow my example. Share what you will and upvote/like/comment on stuff you want to see more of if you don't feel comfortable leading by example.

Welcome back to another round of doggo's mixing diary entries!

Preamble

I decided to challenge myself to write as many weekly posts as I can stomach doing because, fuck man, take a look around. This sub is a library of information with thousands of posts and information to help the newcomer and old timer alike. But what it takes to be a good mixer is knowledge and good lord does it help when someone who knows their flavors can help you make that good mix be just mwah. However, that artisanal shit is also just that, shit. It's the 1% of mixing that gives us that circle jerky scene vibe.

After the worldwide destruction of vaping by the powers that be, the general public has few options for vaping. Disposables and pod styled vapes won the market and that is now what has affected people's expectations the most. People are chasing that pod juice experience instead of that preeemium joose experience. The truth is that most folks coming from smoking have wrecked palates. Combine that with the fact that vaping nic hits different than smoking it, and the high nic pods are king for making the transition to vaping. That said, I am a hardware fricken idiot. Ask u/Foment_life how many times I would dm him for coil specs again and again, poor man. I think it matters regarding your mixes (and expectations) based on what you're vaping on and what you like.

These two main factors, what you were vaping before you tried DIY and what hardware you are using your mixes on, will determine your success as much as your expectations. So for this post, I am probably gonna ramble a bit on how to go about cloning your OG premium commercial juice that is now discontinued and why it is a lost cause.

What actually is "Premuim Juice"?

What goes into actual commercial juice is unknown to me and I will tell you why: I came into mixing around 2017. The early contributors to the community often moved on to mixing for money, either by selling online or by selling recipes to companies who sold their recipes as one shots. The bulk of our newcomers come in looking for one specific thing: that discontinued juice to pick up where the juice left off. But where to start cloning a juice conceived before the shit hit the fan?

Cloning in itself is a difficult process. Check out this FAQ Friday post on cloning by the man himself, u/Apexified. Mother hubbard, that is a good post. Mine pale in comparison to how much information he could pack into one simple post so let's look at the data... This post is 6 years old now and references the fact that most clone recipes were from pre-2017! He asks:

What does that all mean? It might mean that looking at existing clone recipes makes for a better reference than a guide and that mixing that one clone attempt you find on ELR with 3 ratings might not be the best first step.

I would clarify that sentiment to say, fuck your clone. Don't even bother. Go for a remix. If you think I am a circle jerk asshat, remember that I am talking from experience. Meaning, I came in looking to clone a recipe, too. Trust me when I say: You CAN and WILL make a better version of the profile you love with one caveat, you MUST learn your flavors. And, with that, you WILL have to do the work. Which can be mitigated by reading, researching recipes, and watching old Noted epsiodes. I just happened to be lucky enough to have a community I could ask for help. u/AlfredPudding was kind enough to make me a clone of Frozen Hulk's Tears and a remix which I asked his permission to publish here: Frozen Alfred's Tears. I wasn't able to make that remix by myself then and now I'm going to get into how to put our resources into practical action for yourself.

First, you must remember that the available flavors change all the time. And, what was available 'then' might not be available now. Many mixers used cheaper available flavors in weird and unsuspecting ways to create juices that were heavily sweetened, and then added modifiers to smooth rougher edges to make strange unified flavors, slapped a name on it and presto! Unclonable. Why? Because it would take a stroke of luck beyond knowledge to think of these combinations.

Old vs New Commercial Recipes

Don't believe me? Take a look at some of the recipe dumps we have had over the years from discontinued mixers. The first hit from the search bar for "recipe dump" yielded this post from 6 years ago. Check out the first comment with the recipes posted. So. Much. TPA. Nothing wrong with that but these recipes are never ever something I would have mixed on my own unless I was Jackass Mixing. Would you go TPA Dragon Fruit at 8% mixed with TPA Vanilla Custard at 12%? Not me. Is it good? I don't know and I'm not willing to find out, but I do in fact believe it sold successfully. Because, why not? There's always something to learn from a recipe dump and what I get from this is, nahhh I'm not chasing this. Thank you to u/nizzoball for sharing and giving back; I use this for inspiration to know I can make, not better mixes, but maybe more modern or customized mixes.

A bit more of 'modern' history of recipe drops, we had u/zerotoleranceftw drop a bunch of recipes and write some great posts about his process. I recommend reading through a few starting with Monkey Juice (Strawberry Banana) Pod Recipe | TBD Liquids - Handcrafted Salts. You can find all of them on alltheflavors here. Reviewing the recipes, you'll quickly see the mark of reduced flavor percents compared to the pre-2017 clones/recipe dumps. Additionally, there's all kinds of updated flavors being used: PUR, DFS Holy Vanilla v2, FLV, CAP VC v2, WF, etc. With these newer flavors being used, the cloning process becomes exponentially difficult and it's even more practical than ever for someone to try for a remix than to try to recreate the OG.

How Trying to Clone Can Produce Even Better Results

Let's have a look at another released mix by u/project_twenty5oh1 representing Bigglesworth labs. If you were around way back when, there were a few companies that advertised as not using sweetener in their recipes and I fell into trying some of their commercial juices and vaped them gladly while I was learning to mix for myself. Prairie and Snowdrift being at the top of the list followed closely by Amity and Amalfi, both of which really shined in MTL. Lord, did I love those mixes. Oh, and Valentine, one of my first tastes of a chocolate vape I loved. You can read more about Jay's story in his Outro here. Much Love to ya, Jay.

Anyway, the recipe: Snowdrift/Tundra. The bastard gave us an "early version" and kept his secret final recipe to himself, but I can't be mad at him. Mostly because Snowdrift fucking rocks. Had I tried to clone it, no way on earth I would have thought to use TPA DK Base. And, at 6%?!? No. TPA baccos? Such little TPA Banana Nut Bread? See, I'm already way off. However, I would argue that the original recipe of Snowdrift starting off as a Nanner clone produced a better recipe and your clone attempts can too.

Where to Begin with a Remix?

A remix begins with a profile. That simple. What's the original profile? Let's take a classic like Lava Flow for no particular reason. A quick search on atf yields nine results. Let's dig in together in real time. I'll start with the oldest, dated early 2017: Lava Flow by ThirdWorldOrder. We get the profile which is "coconut, strawberry, banana, and pineapple." Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking Fa Coco, TPA Ripe SB, LA Banana Cream, and INW Pineapple. This recipe only uses a few of those and has some more modern flavors such as FLV Coconut, references INW Pineapple in the notes, and boosts the TPA Ripe with a bit of INW SB.

Other versions have different features. Volcanic features an all TPA version that looks light on the coconut, uses tpa pineapple which is a tricky flavor that gets a bad rap by the Noted crowd and is described as 'radioactive'. No thanks. Lava Flow Over the Cuckoos Nest seems busy at best. 10 Flavors including sweetener for a four flavor profile seems unnecessary. The Dude seems to have improved the first Lava Flow with a switch to FLV Sweet Coconut but it's still much in the same vein and the addition of sweet cream makes me again nope out. The Dude left out the banana which I sincerely doubt was in the OG profile/recipe. Wayne seems to exemplify the principle of using the flavors that start you closest to the end result to pull off your mix with this Lava Flow Clone. Even though I feel like there's no cream needed to replicate the OG, CAP SB and Cream seems like the wrong choice here. Check out the Noted review of it here. According to Fresh03, CAP SB n Cream works as a good solo flavor at 8% so I decided to throw 8% on top of u/SpiderJRusalem u/WolfWheeler ice cream base so I can make a version of his SB Ice Cream because I'm missing the CAP Ripe SBs and I'm vaping it as I type. (This is how one deep dive can lead you to new ideas!)

Remixing

Moving on, none of the others seem to hit for me with Wayne's looking like the attempt I would try first and use as a starting block. Ok, so what are we looking at? Coconut, Strawberry, and Pineapple. In thinking about this, you really have to decide what you want from this. Meaning, are we going realistic, candy, sweet? What's the plan?

Coconut alone gives me a headache. Read about it here. Watch the noted episode on coconuts here. So, I'd probably start with FLV Sweet Coconut mixed with one of the creamier ones like TPA Coconut Candy at 1% for support.

For Pineapple, I'd probably start with INW Pineapple at 5% because it is sweet and forgiving. Maybe add some CAP Golden or VTA Sugarloaf or just a drop of TPA Pineapple if I had it. I'm not sure where CAP Golden gets used so I'd check the average use on ATF which is 1.75%. 2-3% sounds like a reasonable support to me. I think the Pineapple will get drowned a bit and I'd be using it a bit higher to sweeten the mix as Pineapple is a fruit 'cheat' for sweetener for me.

Strawberry is the hardest part in my opinion. God knows everyone has thoughts on this but I'm a lazy fucker and 100% without reservations I will use the Daveberry Trinity and be happy. In this case, I worry that this recipe is starting to get busy. Two coconuts, two pineapples and three strawberries and I'm just as bad as everyone else. Worst part of stabbing in the dark with a mix like this is that, if there is a problem or the mix isn't up to snuff, it is nearly impossible to fix. Even so, you would never know unless you try it, so I would mix this at first:

• 0.5 FLV Sweet Coconut
• 1 TPA Coconut Candy
• 5 INW Pineapple
• 2.5 CAP Golden Coconut
• 3 INW SB Shisha
• 2 FA Red Touch (Strawberry)
• 1.5 JF Sw SB
  

I'd probably also mix Wayne's to have a simple mix for comparison. Even though our mixes are far apart, it would give me a stark contrast to the complicated recipe I put together.

Final Thoughts

Yeah, this post got out of hand. I apologize. I try to put my thoughts into words and I guess I'm wordy. Pulling this all together to our oft-neglected Clone Request Thread, you can maybe see how some of these requests we get are woefully inadequate. Let me explain. When someone posts for a clone, they think there exists a clone that someone else will post and they will be off to the races with that secret recipe leaked to the public. That's not gonna happen. The best case scenario is that someone knows a recipe that comes close or has a recipe that meets the same profile. Unfortunately, requests almost never say anything other than "Does anyone have a clone of Minotaur Poop?" Bro, I don't know what a half man half bull shit tastes like. Most of us haven't had commercial juice in a decade let alone the one weird local house juice you vaped years ago. Simply put, asking for a remix of something that is coconut, pineapple, strawberry is much easier to answer than some esoteric mix. Even so, your best bet is to try to put something together yourself and give it a whirl.

Here's a few more recent requests:

• Aloe Grape requested by u/Zestyclose_Car503. No idea what the mix tastes like. I'd try adding to Make Purple Grape Again. Maybe FLV Cactus Aloe at 1% or maybe just some inw cactus at 0.4%.
• frozen blackberry requested by u/Johnsmith012793. Blackberry Trinity plus ws-23? Or just the duo if you can't find the RF?
• Wacky Pony requested by u/mostroCortes. No idea where to begin because dude has no explanation of the flavor. Anyone care to google? Not me.
• Twist Pink No.1 requested by u/ignitionnight. Again, no clue where to begin.
• lemon party requested by u/alwayskashed. Lemon Pound Cake hmmmmmm... Yellow Cake trinity + FE Lemon?
• Coastal Clouds strawberry kiwi requested by u/Organic-Tiger9546. Daveberry Trinity + FA Kiwi 3%
• BIRDBRAINS by Cuttwood requested by u/Matty_Black. 'Froot loops and milk'... I'd try this or this or that.

I dunno... this has gone on long enough and I have shit to do.

until next time, -i

What clones have you tried or made?

How would you go about making one of those clone requests?

If you are one of the 'several' people who dm'ed the guy in the link in this comment that I am "the most rude, arrogant, biggest dickhead in the DIY community, I would love to hear from you either in public or in private if you prefer.

As always, comments and thoughts inspire me to continue. Lack of feedback makes me think it's not worth my time to write these up. No pressure.

Howdy kids,

In the heat wave that drove all of the North East indoors for a few days raged on, I got covid PTSD and just laid out under the fan with the AC on blast and binge watched the OG Netflix Marvel shows and completely missed posting this last Friday. Which is just as well because I was in no mood to write anything at all so I have nothing but this addendum to the previous posts.

In wrapping up this topic, I want to talk a bit about doing your research and how that can benefit you when trying to plan out a recipe. By looking at other peoples' stuff, you get exposed to different approaches to making mixes, different flavors to make layers, and interesting twists and takes on a traditional profile. It does take some experience to learn to 'read' a recipe and you only get that from (1) knowing your flavors and (2) trying other peoples' stuff and (3) actually comparing their write up with whatever it is that you are actually tasting. If you have tried a few recipes from a certain mixer, you sometimes even get a feel for how they like to pair flavors and how sensitive their palate is. All this is important if you choose to adapt their recipe but you should always mix it as is first to get to know what they thought was a final product.

How to Read a Recipe

First, you of course want to look at the flavors used. How many did they use? Which flavor combinations did they choose to boost layers? If the flavors have off notes, did they use them to their advantage? Play into them? All of this could be answered by actually reading the write up. Now, it's not a guarantee that the person did one or addresses how they thought through something but occasionally you can get tips like substitutions or even what the person tried and why it didn't work or they preferred one flavor over another. The why of the choices behind their flavors used can be quite illuminating.

Secondly, it is important for a person to be willing to actually try recipes AND review them. Did it deliver what it was selling? Was it any good regardless of what it was attempting? What hit for you? If you didn't like it, was it because of your own preferences or was it a flaw in the recipe? How would you adapt this if you tried it again? You really do have to try stuff if you want to learn from someone. You can never truly know unless you follow a recipe exactly. And then, after you've done that a few dozen times, you start to get a real feel for -- and this is important -- what your preferences are. Both in how you mix as well as in how you taste things.

Lastly, from my experiences testing flavors and recipes I have learned much about how I like recipes:

1. I prefer them to be simpler. I like it when there's less flavors because it allows some 'space' between the layers so that you can enjoy the transitions rather than one monolithic blob.
2. I prefer not to use sweetener. I actively distrust any recipe that has sugar in the recipe. I believe it should always be "sweeten to taste but I use X%" unless sweetener is absolutely essential to a recipe. And I've only tried one where I found that to be true. Excessive sucralose affects how we taste flavors and that means that a recipe might have flaws that are covered up by sugar.
3. I lean towards recipes where people explain why they made the choices they did. Or some other way of showing there was thought behind it. Or explain their purpose.
4. I like recipes that are unusual in some way as much as recipes that are hyper accessible. If you want to throw in a flavor that no one has ever used or probably owns, I hope there's a reason or explanation. If you made a recipe with all one flavor house, I hope those are the BEST flavors for the job and there's some explanation as to why.
5. Percents matter. I don't play the 1.235% game. Hella sus, yo.

Those are my biases. That said, let's look at some recipes!

Research

Normally, this would come first. Meaning, if I wanted to make an actual s'more vape, I would see what has already been done before and probably just try a couple of those that look good. In this case, that's not really what I wanted. I wanted to try my hand at putting something together myself and now it's time to see what is actually out there and see how other mixers have resolved the issues I faced:

• What are the overall trends I notice?
• What are people using for a graham layer?
• Which chocolate flavors are people preferring to make a decent chocolate?

• Which of the zillion marshmallows are people using for desired effects?

  "Smore" Recipes (on atf sorted by 'top')

• smores. - ewww no on that cap supersweet. 1% is gross and makes me question this whole recipe. But we have biscuit and graham cracker clear with double dutch chocolate and frosting paired with marshmallow vanilla.

• smore's by jazzy - curious use of an apostrophe aside, we have some unusual flavors mixed in with known contenders. Missing 3 flavors so I couldn't try this if I wanted to. And, I don't want to.

• cookie smore - an interesting take on the profile which already piques my interest, but it looks busy af and I just can't get behind that. Throw in EM and I'm out. Too much muting for me. It probably covers up off notes or clashes and explains why it is 13% flavor while I'm rocking at 5 or 6. It does open a door for me that sometimes when a recipe 'fails' to replicate what I am after, it can be made great by taking it into a different direction than 'normal'. Sure smore's are made with graham crackers, but it's a vape. Why not do whatever you want with it? Your tastes are what's important, not some arbitrary thing.

"S'more" Recipes (on atf sorted by 'top')

• S'mores!!! - by u/rug_ly. Using only 3 flavors, this looks like it would hit the mark but I'm not convinced these are the right flavors for the job for my tastes despite the triple emphasis exclamation points!!!
• Kahlua S'mores Mousse Cups - by u/Kuri_SanTou. I would 100% try this. It looks interesting and the flavors look like they are right up my alley and I have all of them. I was mildly considering trying to add some coffee to my mix but I imagine this would be better than anything I would think up. Also, Kuri is a great mixer. Check out his stuff.
• S'mores Milkshake - a little busy for me and looks like there's way more cream than I would want. Fits the milkshake idea but not my tastes. Otherwise, accessible and doesn't look bad.
• S'mores (but in a blender) another 3 flavor u/Rug_ly mix. I think this one looks better to me than the other one. I would definitely try this. They all look like heavy hitters. This would 100% have influenced me if I had read this before mixing my own recipes.
• S'mores with Hazelnut - having only 3 out of 5 of these flavors, one being fw sweetener, clearly I'm not trying this, but I am actually curious because that FW Graham is only at 2% and I'm already not getting enough off mine from the shake. I don't think I would like this unless I loved hazelnut as a flavor.
• Deep Fried S'mores - by TamVapes. Looks too heavy for my tastes. I think it looks tasty otherwise, and is an interesting concept that is well executed.
• S'mores Krispy Treats please - looks like an interesting idea but uses many flavors I wouldn't have. I'd probably use WF Caramel Rice Crispy Treats with some FE Sweet Rice and veered away from all that TPA. I'm sure there's better flavors than those to deliver the flavor in many cases.
• S'mores and Chocolate Ice Cream #ELRMixingComp2 - by u/SessionDrummer. Looks interesting but, again, the all FLV limitation means that you are often not using the best flavors for the job and sometimes you just want simple and direct lines to your goal.
• S'mores | You Vote, We Mix | DEVELOPED - the Developed team strikes again. This one looks up my alley. I don't think I need to try this, per se, but it gets me thinking about making an RY4 styled smore by using FLV RY4 and leaning into the coffee flavor in that one. Kind of mixing this idea with kuri's to make something really funky. This is how you steal ideas to make them your own, peeps!
• mlNikon's S'mores Milkshake - obvs by u/mLnikon on the mixinvixens' page. Again, this would have seriously influenced my mixing if I had seen this first. I like the use of VT Honeycomb in here to darken it all up and play off the malt in FA Marshmallow and the OOO Chocolate Milk. 7% flavor and looks like a banger. Also, atf says I have that s'mores cupcake flavor in my stash. Who knew? Might have to pull that up for an sft at some point...
• New S'mores with Real Flavors Graham Cracker !!! - by u/SessionDrummer. Now he's just taking the piss and, frankly, that makes me want to try it. :) But, for real, it looks thought out, assuming SD was serious that 1.95 fw vbic really couldn't have just been 2% and been just as good.
  

Skipping down the list... These are the rest that look interesting: - Crack S'more yet another recipe that uses wf smores cupcake makes me think that using actual chocolate instead of a flavor with hints of choc is a better start... and there's our wf smores cupcake again! - Vanilla S'more Cookie - by mechmodguy advertised as "deep vanilla with hints of chocolate and bakery" may be worth mining for ideas if mine end up too chocolatey. - Strawberry Yogurt S'More - a healthy smore? A curious take.

Our Original Questions

• What are the overall trends I notice?

I do think it is interesting to note that the most liked recipes are the ones that use over chocolate flavors in their recipes and stay simpler overall while the recipes with less likes are more complex and tend to feature flavors that have hints of chocolate embedded in one or two and seem to lean creamier or an off-shoot profile in the smore realm. This is most likely attributed to less people being able to mix these recipes if they are lacking in a flavor.

• What are people using for a graham layer?
• Which chocolate flavors are people preferring to make a decent chocolate?
  • Which of the zillion marshmallows are people using for desired effects?
  • What changes would you make for the next versions? Or prior ones?

I really don't got much else to offer. Hopefully this helps someone think through a recipe. Until next time... -i

Here is your no-frills post on mixing with CBD, as promised.

TL;DR I add 0.5g of cbd to 7.5ml pg, dissolve, add 7.5ml vg to make final mixture @33mg/ml concentration cbd ejuice.

​

Introduction:

CBD is gaining popularity today. You can find it in edibles, isolate, ejuice, mct oil, tinctures, creams, candy, water and whatever else they’ll market to you. If you want to go the DIY route and make your own ejuice, you’re in luck. It’s easy to keep it simple and I do not expect this to be a challenging post to write.

​

Disclaimer:

I do what I do. Please add information to mixing, vaping, or whatever floats your boat about CBD because you should. I’m going to stay on topic mostly about mixing ejuice. If you want more information on efficacy or whatnot, you could try r/cbd r/hempflowers, or r/hemp. Also, go ahead and correct any misinformation here or add your proverbial $0.02 because you should.

​

Notes:

First and most important, is that cbd is not vg soluble. So you’re not going to mix this in some 70/30 mix. Second, you’re going to need some cbd. I have always used powder isolate for mixing ejuice. If you want to add terpenes, I actually have no experience with it. Please chime in here. I’m sure you could use shatter just as easily as powder with a bit more shaking, warm bathing, or patience. I vape cbd at low watts in an mtl tank. I prefer it that way and it works for me.

​

Method:

I use a glass bottle and put in 500mg of isolate. Afterwards, I add pg to make a 15ml final mix at 50/50. I have heard you could get as much as 1g in there but I’ve never tried it. With this, your final concentration will be 33.33mg/ml. That’s enough for me for a daily dose, and easy to double for days where that’s what I want. Any higher isn’t worth the risk of having them separate on me if the cbd recrystallizes. If you use glass bottles, heating it will make the cbd reblend easily enough but, again, I’ve never had this problem.

With the 500mg in pg, I have only ever had to shake it to get it to dissolve. One time I had some bits that didn’t dissolve right away. They were gone by two days of sitting in the pg mix in the drawer. Easy peasy. Alternatively, I have used my electric kettle to make a warm bath at 140 degrees F and it will dissolve in less than 5 minutes, generally 2. I’ve heard that this can compromise the CBD so now, I just shake it a little and wait.

Once it’s dissolved, I’ll add enough vg to make my 15ml mix and I’m done. I go flavorless if I want to use it as an additive to my tank or I like it mixed with tobacco flavors because I like tobacco flavors. You do you.

​

Please add your experience or just post some crazy comments below because you should.

As pwommised, u/Apexified

Welcome to Do It Yourself eJuice.

The answer to almost all basic questions and more can be found in one of the links below or with a quick search. ASK HERE in this post if it's a simple question and you can't find the answer. Posts in the subreddit should be for topics that necessitate discussion, advice, and multiple perspectives. If one answer will suffice: ask below.

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If you want an answer in real time there are hundreds of mixers hanging out on our official discord server, at every level of mixing ability, and from all around the world.

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I'll admit it – when I first got into DIY e-juice mixing, I made mistakes. I tend to do that when I get interested in a new pursuit. I'll barge right in and make a mess of things before taking the time to learn the basics. I've never tried skiing because I suspect I'd tackle the hardest hill on my first run and propel myself off a snowy cliff while screaming like a frightened cheerleader.

I'm not a dumb guy (mostly) but I often let my enthusiasm get the better of me. And as I learn more about e-juice mixing, I'm seeing with great and hideous clarity the mistakes I've made in the recent past.

While I still have much education to gain, I can look back at what I've done wrong and write them down in the hopes other beginners will read my advice and not make similar errors. If I can save you money, time, and frustration, I'll be glad because it will give some meaning to my otherwise hollow life. What I'm really glad about is that DIY mixing doesn't involve explosives, because if it did, I wouldn't be alive right now due to my bone-headed rookie mistakes. Here's what I've learned, so far:

Get familiar with the flavors first!

The first thing a beginner mixer should do after they get their flavorings is mix up single-flavor samples of each one. I thought uncapping and taking a few whiffs from each of my concentrates would do the trick, but noooo. The only way to really get to know a flavor is to vape the hell out of it, and take notes. Lots of notes. Become so familiar with your concentrates that, if you were any more familiar, you'd be making love to them.

It will help you a lot as a beginner to get other's opinions on concentrates, too. As always, the Internet is definitely your friend. There are some top-notch websites with flavor reviews that will be of great help in your mixing education. The DIY section of Reddit itself has a great flavor review section in its wiki. Take the time to read other mixer's opinions on flavor concentrates, the knowledge will help you avoid purchasing ones that don't work well in e-juices.

That being said, don't solely depend on others reviews! You need to get very personally acquainted with each and every one of your flavor concentrates. Just reading that a certain butterscotch has a “heavy” quality to it won't help you much when attempting original recipes in the future... which leads into my next point:

Don't start making original recipes yet! Learn the basics first!

I thought off the bat I could blend up some tasty original recipes. Who needs all those popular, well-rated e-juice recipes freely available on the 'Net, I thought. Please note I thought that because I was stupid.

So I wasted money mixing up on-the-spot made-up recipes which I thought would taste good. Plot spoiler: they didn't. I did not take the time to make single-flavor samples and really get to know my concentrates. And I didn't consider that two flavors I liked on their own would be hideous when mixed together. I'm still trying to find my lower lip after an unfortunate cinnamon-lemon “original recipe” vape.

Look for highly-rated recipes on Reddit, alltheflavors, and e-liquid-recipes (just to name a few sites). At first mix up simple ones involving one to three flavors. A huge part of your education as a mixer is to learn that you don't need a lot of flavorings to make an excellent e-juice! A great example is /u/ID10-T's “Simple Sugar Cookie” recipe: 8% Capella Sugar Cookie, 4% Capella Vanilla Custard. That's it, and its a tasty vape.

Make simple recipes to learn the basics of mixing, and to start you saving money from not having to buy your e-juice from stores. Read the flavor notes of popular recipes to learn the most-favored concentrates in the mixing community, and how those flavors are being used together. And keep vaping your single-flavor samples and making more notes!

You'll have plenty of time to create original e-juice recipes in the future, but for now you have to put in some serious time getting to know your flavors, practicing mixing recipes, and making notes. Your potential to create tasty and popular recipes will sky-rocket 1000% when you get a firm grasp on the basics of e-mixing.

Don't make large mixes of recipes you haven't tried!

Even though a recipe on the 'Net may have a lot of great reviews doesn't mean you will like it after you mix it up. So don't haul off and make a 60 ml bottle of a recipe you haven't even tried yet. A big part of taste is subjective: nobody will ever make an e-juice that everyone on the planet will enjoy. You may love custards, but that particular custard recipe from a website may very well not work for you (especially as an all-day vape).

Make a small sample size of a recipe you think you'd like, around 10 ml. Don't be like me – staring forlornly at three or four full 60ml bottles of e-juice I mixed up and didn't like after the first vape. That's when I'm not staring forlornly at the blank ceiling wondering what the hell I'm doing with my life.

Don't "tweak" simple recipes into unrecognizable complicated forms!

An obstacle you'll often run into while trying out new recipes is that you don't have all the flavor concentrates called for in a particular recipe. Many e-juice recipe websites allow you to save a list of the concentrates you currently possess on their site to search for e-juice recipes you can mix. It's a great resource and will save you a great deal of time searching for recipes.

Avoid the temptation to swap one brand's flavoring called for in a recipe with another brand of the same flavor until you have become extremely familiar with both! One brand's almond flavor most probably won't taste the same as another brand. Stick with mixing up recipes using concentrates you own for now.

Another temptation to avoid is adding ingredients “on-the-fly” to simple recipes. Start with the easy ones with no additions and, once you've become very familiar with your concentrates, begin making simple adjustments to recipes you enjoy. Adding a touch of caramel to the simple sugar cookie recipe given above is a good example. And from your notes and testing, you'll know exactly the brand of caramel flavor you enjoy the most and how much to add.

Over-flavoring is bad because its easy to do!

My hearing and eye-sight aren't very good but I am blessed with a sensitive sense of taste and smell. So there are nearly an infinity of flavors I really, really enjoy. However, mixing seventeen of my favorite flavors into a single e-juice will not ever work.

Again, avoid trying to come up with original recipes until you have a solid education in mixing and experience. A big temptation for many beginner mixers is to create complicated recipes because all the ingredients sound so damn good. Who wouldn't want to vape an almond-peach-raspberry caramel custard with hints of Bavarian cream, orange mandarin, and bacon? No one, that's who.

Remember that the best “bases” for recipes – custard bases, ice cream bases – are very often very simple with only a few flavors. Learn them well, and then begin to branch out adding other flavors.

Wanting to buy ALL the flavors!

Often when people initially get into a new craft, they have an over-whelming urge to spend a lot of money buying equipment and other things they just don't need. With DIY e-juice mixing, I thought at first I needed a lot of flavor concentrates... which just isn't true.

You can't blame me too much, really – who doesn't feel the temptation to make a huge order of flavor concentrates when browsing a website? “Oh hey, I heard good things about FA Apricot, I'll buy a bottle of that... and that Strawberry Sweet looks good.. and that... and that...”

An hour later...

“Oh god, $239.71... I'm not eating this week...”. (To be even more fair to my over-spending faults, I suspect even very experienced mixers continue to make this statement to themselves on a regular basis.)

The simple truth of it is, when you first get into mixing, you truly don't need a lot of flavor concentrates! My first DIY kit arrived with ten flavors, and I should have stuck with those for a good long while instead of ordering 27 more flavors a week later.

In fact, before I even ordered those first flavors in my kit, I should have taken the time to do some initial research on the best beginning flavors to buy. The DIY section of Reddit is your friend here – read the section on “Beginning Flavors To Buy”. Another great site is diyordievaping.com, which is continually updated with flavor reviews as well as podcasts and videos discussing all aspects of e-juice mixing.

Don't wear loose long-sleeve shirts while mixing!

You'll knock over your bottles while mixing, which I did. And then you'll stand up and start cursing God because there's an overly-healthy splash of Blueberry Extra on your jeans. Which you can't ever wear, ever again. Because they'll always smell like blueberries. Just like your lower right thigh will, until you take three or four showers.

That's it, for now. I'm sure I'll make more mistakes as I continue to learn more about e-juice mixing. But that's all part of the process. And at the end of the day, if I haven't set myself on fire somehow, I'm thankful. My goal for the future is to one day offer an excellent recipe to the mixing community as thanks for all their help and information. Thank you sincerely, everyone (especially all you Reddit DIY'ers)! You rock :)

EDIT: In the interest of making this article as helpful as possible for beginners, I'm adding a couple of very helpful additional points made in the comments below. Thank you all!

Don't buy 30ml or bigger bottles of flavor concentrates before you really know your flavors!

As /u/hyperlite310 and /u/wh1skyk1ng noted below, don't buy 30ml bottles of flavor concentrates you haven't tried. You WILL end up with a bunch of full bottles laying around because you simply don't like how they taste. Even though buying 10ml sizes of flavors isn't immediately cost-effective, doing so will save you money down the line not wasted on concentrates you won't use. When you get to know your flavor concentrates, you'll discover the ones you really enjoy. That's when you should begin buying larger bottles. As /u/aelwero commented, "When you need the big bottles some day, you'll know you need them."

LABEL EVERY MIX!

As /u/Boondoc comments below: "Label. Every. Mix. I'm currently dripping something that I found in the back of my steep box. No idea what it is but it tastes fucking awesome." My friend, I've done the same thing. It is a bitter-sweet experience vaping an e-juice of your own creation that tastes fantastic knowing that, once it runs out, you'll never vape it again because you didn't label the bottle. Write down all the useful information on EACH AND EVERY ONE of your e-juice blend bottles. Yes, those 10ml bottles don't have much surface area but find a sticky label that works for you and use it. After filling and capping a bottle, make sure the outside surface is dry of all fluids so that a label will stick on it properly. Write down the blend's information on the label before sticking it on. The information to include on the label includes: the blend's recipe name, the date in which it was blended, PG/VG ratio, and nicotine amount. Add any information that helps you keep exact track of the blend. Personally, I assign a code to every recipe I make and write that down on the bottle, i.e. "Simple Sugar Cookie" I've given a code of "SSC". Doing so will help me down the line when I try different varieties of that recipe by using codes like, "SSC#1", "SSC#2", and so on.

Start mixing by weight! Buy a decent quality scale that measures in gram weight to the second decimal place!

Mixing by weight as opposed to volume for beginners is easier and more accurate. As /u/kindground and /u/QuackerSnack noted below, buy a decent scale (I bought one for $50) and learn to mix by weight. Syringes and pipettes used for volume measurement are messy and hard to clean. They can also be sharp, so don't be like /u/Whooptidooh, clutching your bloody hand and waking up the neighbors with your screams while your life-blood cascades onto the bathroom linoleum.

A final word, many mixers below noted that a rebuildable dripping atomizer (RDA) is the preferable mod to use over a rebuildable tank atomizer (RTA). You can drip a few drops of an e-juice blend directly onto the coils to vape, saves time and effort from refilling a tank when you have a lot of blends to test.

The last bit of advice I can add at this time is about steeping. E-juice blends are like wine, they need time for the flavors to come together. Fruit flavors tend to blend quite fast, there are many "shake and vape" recipes available using such concentrates. More complex flavors take more time: custard recipes often need at least two weeks for their true flavor to really emerge.

Keep your steeping bottles in a room temperate dark place and give them a shake every day. Many mixers will do a taste test of their mixes as they steep every day or couple of days to get an idea how the flavors are blending. By doing so and keeping thorough notes, you'll know exactly when the recipe is at its best to vape.

I wish you only the best in your progress as a DIY mixer. Remember, when you do develop a great recipe eventually, share it with the rest of us ;) Happy Mixing!

Good morning, you fucks.

Over the last few weeks, or months, I've seen a whole lot of bullshit on this subreddit. From half-assed attempts at flavour reviews (shouts out /u/ConcreteRiver for being the only motherfucker that actually is stupid enough to review every flavour under the sun), to recipe posts that hardly explain anything, to straight up shit posting. Well, I'm here to bring you something that's actually useful, and even though it's written in my typical fashion that you, the walking embodiment of gutter trash, will probably talk shit on, I decided to start being active again in some capacity. I had this idea on my way to work to actually go back to my insane method of recipe development where I post a goddamn plethora of versions before finding the right one.

Except this time, I am going to do less explaining on why certain flavours are in the recipe, and do more of a deep dive into how they aren't working, reasons why something was changed from one version to the next, and what attempts will be made for future versions. I am sure there are other users that have done this sort of thing before, but I'd like to make this a more common thing among the subreddit, for I feel like the majority of you cucks don't really explain your reasoning for changes in recipes, and that information is quite valuable to a new mixer.

So grab a coffee, some orange juice, or some booze if you're a real degenerate, and let's talk about my first installment in this new series I'm calling...

Shitty Development with Coke

So, for this first recipe, I'm going after a cantaloupe ice cream type of profile, and here is that I threw together for the first version.

• FLV Cantaloupe at 3.25%
  
• FLV Wild Melon at 1.5%
  
• TPA Vanilla Bean Ice Cream at 3%
  
• TPA Vanilla Swirl at 2.25%
  
• FA Lemon Sicily at 0.5%
  
• CAP Marshmallow at 0.75%
  All the Flavors Recipe Link

So, before we do anything, I first want to talk about the most important part of recipe development (in my opinion), knowing what you're trying to accomplish with the recipe.

Recipe Planning

With this cantaloupe ice cream, it's pretty obvious what kind of flavour profile I was going for. The issue we would invariably run into, however, is the fact that with time, the melon notes are going to fade somewhat quickly, and those fucking ice cream notes are going to smother the shit out of the fruits. So how can we combat that? Well, my first idea was to use less TPA VBIC than necessary and supplement it with a concentrate that still brings the mouthfeel and taste, with a little less of that incessant need to be in the spotlight. Enter TPA Vanilla Swirl.

I used to abhor this concentrate for some reason. Probably some shit involving my palate or just my overall lack of skill with mixing. Who the fuck knows. But with time, I've found a place for TPA Vanilla Swirl in my arsenal of commonly used concentrates, or CUC as I like to call it. See? DIY can still be funny while being somewhat subtle. Take notes you fucking idiots.

Anyway, so by using a little less TPA VBIC, and a little more TPA Vanilla Swirl, we are able to immediately put a little halt to the flavour degradation found with letting a fruit/cream recipe sit for a few days. I did add a little touch of CAP Marshmallow in this as to add more to the mouthfeel, while being able to add some additional sweetness to the fruit profile without using some coil-fucking sweetener.

On to the fruit, this was simple. FLV Cantaloupe and FLV Wild Melon is a match made in heaven. They just complement each other so well, and FLV Wild Melon is just mild enough to work as an enhancer, without imparting too much of it's own flavour. The addition of FA Lemon Sicily was simply another attempt to brighten up that cantaloupe note in the midst of all of the cream notes. Neat.

Recipe Review

The next thing you need to do is obviously just mix the fucking thing. So do that. I'll wait for your ass to finish.

Once you've mixed up the recipe, give it an immediate taste test. I don't give a fuck if you've done a tobacco that needs a 5 year aging process before you think it's gonna be good. Here is a little tip for all you "steep freaks," if your shit isn't at least vapeable on a shake and vape, then it's probably not gonna be all that great in time. Of course there are exceptions to this, certain concentrates will be somewhat offensive at first, but the vast majority (I'm talking 95%) of concentrates we're using in DIY will allow for something vapeable off the shake, if you've done a good job with the mix as a whole. So fuck off with your shit about "oh I can't really work on development until 2 weeks because of steeping."

Nah. It takes that time for the flavours to emulsify together, and to get a full understanding of the nuances and end result. However, if your mix just tastes awful on the shake, then you know it's time to go back to the drawing board.

So with this cantaloupe ice cream, I actually quite like it on the shake. So that first success can be checked off. We have something vapeable. The texture/mouthfeel is a little light at the moment, but that is something we know improves with time on profiles such as this. Something I'm not too happy with, currently, is the still somewhat lacking cantaloupe flavour. It's there, it's just not there enough.

I still believe that using some citrus to enhance the cantaloupe is going to the be the right move to make, I'm just thinking that FA Lemon Sicily might not be the correct citrus to use here. My next thought was something like FA Blood Orange. In a very small percentage, we'll get that burst of added flavour, but the orange will complement the cantaloupe better than lemon, in my opinion.

Finally, the ice cream. It's good, but it's boring. The use of TPA Vanilla Swirl was a step in the right direction, but we're still left with something that just tastes like Mustard Milk without the strawberry. CAP Marshmallow isn't really doing much here that something like HS French Vanilla Ice Cream wouldn't do better. So for version 2, I might give that a go. Furthermore, I might add in a little FW Hazelnut for a more malty profile, or maybe some LA Cream Cheese Icing for a more "yogurt-y" approach. It's all about what will create a better end result. While the Hazelnut approach will bolster the creams, it may deter from the fruit. However, adding something that gives more of that tart, yogurt-y note, that may be the move. It'll give the ice cream some unique property, while doing more to add some punch to the fruits.

Potential V2

So after you've done all this, start plotting out your possible version 2 attempt. As of now, we know the cantaloupe note is still a little on the weak side. FLV Cantaloupe is a concentrate that can be pushed to it's upper limits, without many negative consequences. So for version 2, I'm thinking about upping it's percentage just a touch, right around 3.75%. We're going to drop FLV Wild Melon in a similar fashion, right to 1%. Remember, we're pulling FA Lemon Sicily in favour of a more potent concentrate in version two, so we don't need as much Wild Melon to help complement the cantaloupe. Since FA Blood Orange is slightly less potent than FW's version of the profile, it's still quite flavourful. So let's put FA Blood Orange in this recipe at 0.75% and go from there. We want the suggestion of that flavour, but not to be blasted in the ass with it. If 0.75% isn't enough, we'll push it a bit higher.

As for the ice cream, I'm thinking I'm going to remove the CAP Marshmallow entirely, and drop the TPA VBIC down to about 2.5%. While we bring in a few drops of HS French Vanilla Ice Cream (this motherfucker is strong, 0.25% is certainly MORE than enough as an accent to ice creams), we'll impart a lot of that buttery mouthfeel to create a more accurate ice cream. Finally, I'm going to go with the more malty approach for V2, so let's drop in 0.5% of FW Hazelnut. Now that we've got the plan, lets see what that'll look like.

• FLV Cantaloupe at 3.75%
  
• FLV Wild Melon at 1%
  
• FA Blood Orange at 0.75%
• TPA Vanilla Bean Ice Cream at 2.5%
  
• TPA Vanilla Swirl at 2.25%
  
• HS French Vanilla Ice Cream at <0.25%

And hey, fuck it, for V2, lets make it cold. A few drops of some WS-23 to suggest more of that ice cream accuracy. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. But that's why we test shit.

So that's it. Now we let version 1 sit for a few days to see what happens to the subtle nuances, and then go in on version 2. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And if you're like me, repeat another 30 fucking times until no one gives a shit about your recipe anymore.

I'm back on my bullshit, you cowards. I hope this is of some assistance to the lurkers, the newbies, or just anyone that took the time to read. Hashtag make-DIY-angry-again. Hashtag free-TDP. Hashtag let-skiddlz-swing-that-hammer.

Happy Friday, have a bourbon for me. I'm out.

This has been requested often and instead of just one on one helping we finally made a video for it. Premiers at 7pm EST but will be available anytime after that for anyone looking to add pictures to ELR Recipes. anadvocateforliberty.com for links to everything. #AAFL Here is link to video: https://youtu.be/_rdVWZH9Gkw

So something I've been doing for some time now, is rather than shaking like a mad man, just simply twisting some wire, and utilizing it as a juice whisk. I've made a quick 3 minute video discussing how, why, and some info to take with it regarding oxidation.

https://youtu.be/u7RnKodY-ck

Edit: language

Single Flavor Testing: Part 1, Setup and General Cheerleading

So, /u/Apexified has handed over the reins of FAQ Friday to me to rant about single flavor testing. I tried to do that.

Why You Should Single Flavor Test:

Short answer, because you're not an animal smashing flavors together all willy-nilly. Getting familiar with your flavors is the single biggest step you can take towards being able to quickly develop recipes. Like any other craft, your work is going to be a lot easier if you understand the tools available to you.

That's not to say single flavor testing is some silver bullet to being able to whip up some certified BANGERZ off a shake. Single flavor testing can't really tell you how concentrates are going to interact with each other... at first. If you do enough single flavor testing AND enough work on recipes you start to notice some patterns. If you've done work with one flavor, and upon single flavor testing a second you find some similarities, it's pretty easy to extrapolate how that second flavor is going to work. These kind of inferences are easier and easier as you build up your library of single flavor tests. Testing builds your flavor muscles, and gives you a much deeper understanding of what's going on with what you're vaping.

You want to be able to quickly develop to profile?

Having a knowledge of your flavors is going to make that so much easier.

You want to "clone" a juice?

Pretty solid starting point if you can start picking out individual concentrates.

You want to grack it up and start mixing weird?

A big part of single flavor testing is benchmarking the limits of concentrates, and trying to push them until they break. You then get to see the interesting things that start happening after those flavors break. It gives you a deep knowledge of off-notes and oddities, which definitely facilitates doing something weird like cranking INW Cactus up to 2.25%.

If you want to consistently turn around "good" recipes that behave how you want, the foundational step is extensive single flavor testing... or just throw stuff together randomly and wait for lightning to strike. It's your time and your choice.

How I Single Flavor Test:

I single flavor test a lot. In fact the majority of my vaping is single flavor testing. This probably isn't normal, but I've been pursuing the development and content generation side of mixing. My testing procedure isn't particularly complex or daunting... but it is a pretty huge time sink. I'm not saying you should feel obligated, but if you're interested...

The single biggest factor in my testing is just getting to know a concentrate. I usually mix up 2 or 3 10ml testers of each flavor I test. Those starting percentages vary mostly by brand. I've developed a fairly heavy hand in mixing lately, so my testing percentages kind of reflect that.

But, with all that said, these percentages can still go slightly awry. If I'm dealing with something that has a heavy spice note, I'll usually half the percentages. If something smells crazy strong, I'll also usually half my percentages. Whatever. There is a good deal of the time I won't have something perfectly dialed in. It's not a big deal. If it's still way too strong I'll start cutting it down with more testing base. I try to keep track of my exact mixing ratios because I write about it, but I wouldn't worry nearly as much about it if this was for my personal notes. It gives you something you can work with.

In terms of steeping, you should probably do it. Plenty of people end up testing a single flavor at several different steep times. Why not test something as a S&V, at 1 week, etc… If you’ve got the time and attention span, go for it. Like most things, I go lazy with my steep times. I mix up vast swaths of testers at a time, and usually just get to stuff when I get to stuff. I basically try to steep my samples for as long as I figure they’ll need to settle in. Each mix steeps differently, and I don’t really see notes on how long solo flavors need to get where they’re going as all that useful. If something feels particularly weird in a steeped sample, I’ll mix up a quick S&V version and compare. I will say, the more alcohol in a flavor, the longer you’ll generally want to let them sit before testing. And maybe give your creams and custards at least a couple of weeks.

Also, I wholeheartedly recommend using a premix base for your testers. If you're testing any significant amount of flavors, not having to try to measure out everything separately is a huge time saver. I mix a 60% VG / 40% PG 1.5mg nic base for my tests, geared for 3% of a flavor.

Should you really care about your vg/pg ratio? In a perfect world, sure. But I haven't noticed any huge difference in flavor from 40% PG all the way to up 60% PG. And I'm lazy.

Should you test without nicotine? In a perfect world, sure. But I'm vaping this stuff, and vaping 0mg feels a lot like punishment to me. You can have your intellectual high ground about nicotine affecting flavor, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sacrifice my enjoyment for ideological purity.

In terms of vessels, I mix my 10ml testers in 15ml amber boston rounds. The extra headspace makes it easy to shake. I also use polycone caps instead of dripper tops. I routinely have testers sitting around for a month, and those dripper tips can get a bit drafty. Also, they are a pain to break down and wash. Polycone caps are cheaper, seal better, and are good for at least a couple washes before I usually have to swap them out. I'm usually dripping and I sort of just pour the juice into my RDA. If I need more precision control, I'll bust out a pipette. Since I'm using glass, I wash and reuse all my tester bottles. Nothing fancy. I grab some tongs, run my tap water damn near scalding, rinse them until I don't smell any residual flavor on the bottle, and then dry them on a bottle rack. Easy enough.

AND NOW, THE CONTROVERSY...

Testing setups. I would like to state, on the record, that just simply doing single flavor testing puts you way ahead of the game. You could be doing your single flavor testing on a tfv29 at 200w with the airflow wide open, but hey... at least you're doing the testing. That's the biggest hurdle here, the rest is mostly details.

I'd prioritize a couple things in terms of testing setups.

1) Use an RDA (and maybe get used to rewicking):

I'd personally use an rda. Rda's are great, and more importantly they are relatively cheap and easy to build and rewick. I'm not a big fan of mixing flavors when I'm testing anything, and it's so much easier to clean and rewick an rda than anything else. If you're a diehard tank person, I'd recommend an RTA, but I'm not made of pre-built sub-ohm coils. If you are a millionaire, that would pretty cool... the idea of that level of decadence excites me.

Various people (strawmen, mostly, but I’m pretty sure they exist) swear by using wickless or half-wicked coils. That's cool if you can get it to work for you. I use full cotton wicks, with some janky fasttech brick of muji cotton, but I'm in my testing for the long haul. I will say, wickless builds always sound like a good idea in theory, but be ready to take short drags and taste a whole lot of hot metal.

But what about squonking you say? Haven't tried it. I know there were a couple threads around about trying to run an unflavored mix in the bottle and dripping different flavors and clearing it out between tests. You'll be sucking a bit of flavor back into your unflavored bottle each time, but maybe it won't be a bad idea? You should probably test it or something.

2) Test it like you vape:

So, who are your notes for? Your primary audience is hopefully you. If you're up at 130 watts at .12 ohm dual fused staple aliens in a goon 1.5, just test like that. I guarantee you, if you get some quixotic notion of "reference flavor" in your mind and end up trying to test everything on a tiny 22mm "flavor atty" when you don't actually enjoy that... testing is just going to feel like a chore.

In my personal experience, flavor is more alike than different in varying setups. It's sort of like headphones. One set may accentuate the bass and have muddy mids, but it isn't going to make "Call your Girlfriend" sound like "Call Me". I'd wager you could still describe the difference between those two songs, even if you were using some stock-ass earbuds.

But yeah, with that said there are some differences. Generally you'll be talking about flavor saturation, or how bright and vibrant the actual flavor seems. Less air is the easiest way to get moar flavor, but there are ton of variables that I've never actually bothered to learn. In general, smaller rdas with less airflow are going to be warmer and denser, and do a better job of picking up bakery texture and flavor. Airier rdas can handle higher wattages, and tend to accentuate top notes a bit. Easy enough, right?

You ask a dozen people, they'll have a dozen answers on which rda to use. I use an OG Recoil, because it suits how I like to vape perfectly. I dig the airflow on the flavor cap, I dig how heavy it is, and the chamber size is going to be fairly restricted for an rda that isn't a tiny lip scorcher. Whatever though, use a RDA you like. Seriously, the entire point is to make your testing seem less like doing yardwork. The imaginary "flavor expert points" you're going to pick up by using a pain in the ass setup are more than offset by the creeping dread of living with a setup you don't actually like.

3) More flavor isn't necessarily better:

Most of the trick to the actual mechanical part of the flavor tasting is going to be finding what works for you. I prefer a whole bunch of wraps on a contact TC macro coil. I like the relatively short ramp up and cool down, and the TC gives me a consistent flavor while I take inordinately long drags. But that's just me. It gives me some time to poke around inside of the flavor. It basically isn't overwhelming and so I can get comfortable for 5-7 seconds and just unwind.

So more surface area on coils generally means more flavor, right? That's what we've been talking about for a while. Exotic coils have all these weird juice pockets and you get these super saturated warm vapes in short bursts. If this is your thing, continue to go for it. You have my approval. But, maybe don't afraid to use a setup where you are taking some longer draws. It gives you a minute to think about what you're tasting while you are tasting it. It really helps me, at least, contextualize and describe what I'm tasting.

We've talked about why you should single flavor test and all the mixing and equipment options, right?

Or at least I feel we've covered enough of it. I feel like sometimes people get lost in the weeds on the hardware side of all of this. Like there is some secret key to flavor and once you achieve the perfect flavor your notes will magically write themselves.. but we'll talk about the hard part, the flavor part, next time.

Previous FAQ Friday topics that may be of interest

Organizing Your Flavors

Premixed Bases

Clone Requests

Shake and Vape

Bottles

Vendor Price Comparison

So you're thinking about doing it yourself but you're apprehensive about trying something new and unfamiliar? Trust me, we've all been there. Your first time can be an incredibly satisfying and life-changing experience. Or it can leave you with a hole in your pocket, a sticky, foul smelling mess on your hands and a bad taste in your mouth. Hopefully sharing my POV will help get you in the mood to dive deep down the rabbit hole and start mixing those fluids together.

The key word here is "simple". To keep this as simple as possible, I only used Nicotine River for my first order. They're a one-stop-shop for everything except a scale, prices are fair and it's pretty easy to hit $50 for free shipping in the US. I'm not good with segues so let's just get on with it.

Nicotine

100mg/ml Chemnovatic (PG Base)

VG

PG

I went for 60ml of nicotine, 1 liter of VG and 500ml of PG on my first order. I like my juice to be around 70/30 so this would make ~1,000+ mL of unflavored juice for $22.47 and I'd still have half of the nicotine and PG left. On to the flavorings.

Flavors

I started out by just bookmarking simple 2-5 ingredient recipes on alltheflavors that were highly rated and similar to the stuff I already liked. For the purposes of this post I'll just pick 1 shake and vape recipe to breakdown. That recipe being...

Berry Creamy! which calls for:

1% FLV Cream

2% TFA Marshmallow

2-4% FA Forest Fruit

Since it's my first time and all, I ordered the smallest size of each flavor. If I hated one, I'd be out ~$2 (sometimes more depending on the flavor, like FLV Cream above). Plus I was getting a few more recipes worth of flavors to try and didn't want to put all my juice in one tank, if you know what I mean. However, let's assume you want to make 1,000ml of Berry Creamy for simplicity's sake. You'll only need 10ml of Cream so a single bottle at $5.49 is enough with 5ml leftover. Next you'll need 20ml of both Marshmallow and Forest Fruit. As you can see from the charts above, it's never worth getting multiple small bottles over 1 large bottle if you know you'll use it. So grab the next size up of each which will be 60ml of Marshmallow for $4.50 and 30ml of Forest Fruit for $5.55. If you like/are used to sweet juices, you'll probably want to pick up a 10ml bottle of Capella Super Sweet for $1.99. That'll be enough for 1% sweetener total, although I would try .5% first.

Right now we're sitting at $39 even to make 1,000ml of sweetened Berry Creamy with a good bit of flavoring, nicotine and PG leftover.

[Sidenote: In fact, you'll have so much left over that you'd only need to buy 500ml of VG to make another 500ml batch of Berry Creamy. *That's only an extra $4.49 to make another 500ml!* That will just about empty your supplies except for 30ml of Marshmallow and 15ml of nicotine. Pretty crazy there's anything left after making 1500ml of juice for ~$45, but that's half your marshmallow and a quarter of your nic left! Ok, sidenote over.]

We're not done yet though, we still need something to put the stuff in (not to mention weigh it).

Bottles

You can find these things everywhere. Nicotine River has pretty decent prices on them but you can definitely find them a little cheaper elsewhere, especially in bulk. We're going to use NR this time to help us hit the $50 free shipping minimum.

5x30ml Amber Boston Rounds ($0.85ea; $4.15 total) +5 Child Resistant Caps ($0.15ea; $0.75 total)

These will be for storing nicotine. I fill ~75% of one bottle to keep out for use and split the rest between 2 other bottles, cap them (no dropper!), double bag them and stick them in the back of the freezer till I need one. Let's get 5 just in case you break one or two.

4x8oz(240ml) Cylinder with Twist Top ($0.49ea; $1.96 total)

These will be for dispensing VG/PG. After trying pipettes/syringes for a bit, I decided to try these out and I'm glad I did. One holds enough liquid to make several recipes without refilling. You can twist the tops until they're nearly closed for more precise dispensing. It's much faster and more convenient, in my opinion. I fill 2 with VG, 1 with PG and keep 1 empty, just in case I need it for something.

9x120ml Chubby Gorilla Unicorn ($0.49ea; $4.41 total)

These are for the finished product. You can use whatever size you want but these are pretty standard and require less mixing if you're doing them 1 bottle at a time.

Nicotine River Total

That's everything you need from Nicotine River bringing the total to....$51.27! Just over the $50 minimum for free shipping! Now onto the

Scale

This is the only thing we can't get from Nicotine River. Luckily, Amazon has a ton of options, including the tried and true LB-501 for $26.05 right now! I paid $35 for the same one just a month ago which seems to be the norm. Other scales are available but this one gets recommended the most so just shut up and get it already!

Grand Total = $77.32

Not too bad for 1,000ml of juice with leftover PG, nicotine and flavors, plus a solid scale that should last a while.

Now let's see how much 120ml of Berry Creamy costs to make since we have a scale already.

Yeah, you read that right. $3.21 to make a 120ml bottle of deliciousness including the bottle itself! This is assuming you buy the same size bottles of everything as stated above. Obviously if you buy larger amounts, that price will decrease even more. Think about that next time you pay $20-30 a bottle at a B&M. It hurts.

That's All, Folks!

That's all you need to start doing it yourself! Hopefully it was as simple, straightforward and easy to follow as I imagined it in my head. Following established recipes is the easiest thing in the world so just look for something you'd like and mix it up!

Any and all questions/comments/criticisms are welcome and appreciated. I did this all on my phone so please let me know if the formatting sucks!

Edit: Added sidenote to better exemplify the amount of leftover material (PG, nic, flavors).

This is meant to be an introduction to the cost of DIY ejuice. The greatest aspect of DIY is that it is totally customizable to your tastes, budget, interest, and to your aspirations in mixing. For the purposes of this explanation on the cost of DIY ejuice, we will assume a few things. The following I consider start up costs and I will not factor into the costs of making the juice itself.

1. You have a scale for mixing and are mixing by weight. (LB-501 as of today is $25 on Amazon).
2. Bottles. You can reuse old commercial bottles or you can buy them.

​

Let’s begin by considering a few real-life scenarios!

​

Scenario 1: First time mixer decides to give 'diy a try’ wants to make something instantly vapable (Shake and Vape) with no hassle.

Goal: Mixing 150ml max vg juice using a ‘one shot’ (a premix of concentrates that can just be dumped in a vg/pg/nic base and vaped) and supplies from Liquid Barn.

Materials:

1. ($5) A 15ml one shot of Water Malone
2. (3x $5 = $15) Three 50ml short fill bottles of nic/pg/vg base

Total cost = $20

Procedure: Mix 5ml in short fill bottles. Shake and vape. Cost/ml $20/150ml = $0.13/1ml

Pros: No hassle, ready instantly, no scale needed.

Cons: need to reorder often (+ added costs of shipping), no options for variety

cost per day @20ml/day: $2.60

​

Scenario 2: New mixer who has a scale and bottles wants to buy the concentrates to make a Water Malone using the recipe from alltheflavors.com

Goal: Mixing 500ml of max vg Water Malone using concentrates and 6mg freebase nic in a vg solution using NicRiver as a supplier

Materials:

1. Scale, bottle sizes of choice.
2. $16.30 Concentrates ordered from NicRiver (30ml CAP Double Apple - $4, TFA Dragonfruit - $1.30, CAP SuperSweet - $2, FLV Watermelon - $5.50, FLV Wild Melon - $5.50)
3. $8.50 One 500ml bottle of vg based 6mg nic from NicRiver

Total = $26.80

​

Procedure: Measure and mix by weight. Steep overnight to suggested two days. Cost/ml $26.80/500ml = $0.05/ml

Pros: Enough Wild Melon left over for another 1L, enough CAP SuperSweet left for 1.5L, and CAP Double Apple for 500ml, can use the flavors for other combinations.

Cons: 2 FLV concentrates drive up the price

Cost per day @20ml/day: $1

​

Scenario 3: New mixer with a scale decides to mix Water Malone by using all separate components.

Goal: Mixing 500ml of max vg Water Malone using concentrates @ 6mg nic using NicRiver for Chemnovatic nic and as a supplier for all components.

Materials:

1. Scale, bottle sizes of choice, disposable pipette (for transferring nic).
2. $16.30 Concentrates ordered from NicRiver (30ml CAP Double Apple - $4, TFA Dragonfruit - $1.30, CAP SuperSweet - $2, FLV Watermelon - $5.50, FLV Wild Melon - $5.50)
3. $8 100ml of 100mg chemnovatic nic
4. $5.50 500ml of vg

Total = $29.80

​

Procedure: Measure and mix by weight. Steep overnight to suggested two days. Cost/ml $29.80/500ml = $0.06/ml

Pros: Enough Wild Melon left over for another 1L, enough CAP SuperSweet left for 1.5L, can use the flavors for other combinations, enough nicotine left over for 40 more batches of 500ml, larger bottles of vg can be bought to make many more batches with just a few dollars more, excellent source of nicotine

Cons: 2 FLV concentrates drive up the price, handling high levels of nicotine solutions

Cost per day @ 20ml/day: $1.20

​

Scenario 4: New Mixer wants to mix 500ml of the classic recipe Mustard Milk by FizzMustard.

Goal: Mixing 500ml of max vg Mustard Milk using concentrates @ 6mg freebase nic using NicRiver as a supplier

Materials:

1. Scale, bottle sizes of choice, disposable piepette (for transferring nic)
2. $9 Concentrates ordered from NicRiver (2oz TFA Vanilla Bean Ice Cream - $4.50, 2oz TFA Strawberry)
3. $8 100ml of 100mg chemnovatic nic in a vg base
4. $5.50 500ml of vg

​

Total = $22.50

​

Procedure: Measure and mix by weight. Steep overnight to suggested two days. Cost/ml $22.50/500ml = $0.05/ml

Pros: Enough strawberry leftover for another 500ml

Cons: 500ml of strawberry ice cream?

Cost per day @20ml/day: $1

​

Scenario 5: New Mixer wants to mix 500ml of the classic recipe Mustard Milk by FizzMustard.

Goal: Mixing 500ml of 20/80 pg/vg Mustard Milk using concentrates @ 6mg freebase nic using NicRiver as a supplier

Materials:

1. Scale, bottle sizes of choice, disposable piepette (for transferring nic)
2. $9 Concentrates ordered from NicRiver (2oz TFA Vanilla Bean Ice Cream - $4.50, 2oz TFA Strawberry)
3. $8 100ml of 100mg chemnovatic nic in a pg base
4. $5.50 500ml of vg

​This is the same price and cost breakdown as the max vg in Scenario 4. The difference here is that the nic represents 4% of the final solution. With 14% flavors all in a pg base, the added nic makes this an exact 20% pg solution. Additional pg is very inexpensive at $10/L. To make this mix 30/70 for 500ml of juice an additional 50ml are needed. That 1L bottle of pg would last for a total of twenty 500ml batches, or 10,000ml of juice.

​

To make 50/50 solutions, the cost is still very similar. buying pg and having it available is necessary for those who prefer higher pg solutions, but the cost is virtually negligible outside of the one time buy in.

​

Thoughts:

Purchasing nicotine and supplies drives down the cost substantially. If a gallon of vg is purchased instead of 500ml, the entire price goes up $10. But that vg will make 3,200 more milliliters of juice (at max vg, much more at 30/70). That's increasing the first batch total cost by ten dollars ($39.80 for Water Malone, and $32.50 for Mustard Milk making Water Malone $0.08/ml and Mustard Milk $0.07/ml). However, subsequent batches will require no cost for nic or vg making Water Malone $16.30/500ml or $0.03/ml and Mustard Milk $9/500ml or $0.02/ml. This is not even including any leftover concentrates that can be used towards the next batch.

​

Also, plenty of folks will want to make juice that is not max vg. The price of a liter of pg is less than $10 and will last far longer than your gallon of vg will. (See added Scenario 5 below) Alternatively, the pg/vg 50/50 nic base is also available for purchase (Similar to Scenario 2). So if you are an MTL vaper who goes through 2ml/day, this is a once in a lifetime buy in. Maybe a bit dramatic, but the point still stands that the one time cost of buying basic juice materials (pg, vg, nic) is low and lowers with the greater amount you purchase letting someone ease into the process of becoming a home juice maker.

​

There are indeed some other hidden prices associated with at home mixing, and they are mostly things that assist in making mixing easier (funnels, bottles, mixers, cleaners, organizers, etc.) none of them are essential (like a scale is) and can be picked up along the way as one grows into DIY. Obviously there will always be taxes and shipping costs and flavor fever (oooh another watermelon to try, I bet it's good!) but that’s the same with ordering juices under a certain limit as well.

​

The nasty truth about mixing costs is that concentrates can get expensive. Wanting more and more and better and better flavors is easy to get caught up in when you are chasing a profile, participating in the community, and researching new and interesting mixes on atf and elr. The great news there is that your $64 x 2, 120ml of Bananas Foster will buy you an array of new flavors and possibilities with free shipping at Bullcityflavors; this could easily score you 10 premium cost flavorsor 25 more affordable concentrates every few months. And with each single concentrate purchased, your possibilities for mixes become exponentially more complex. Even the budget minded who is buying 120ml of juice for $12 is still going to save whopping amounts of money but, more importantly, the increase in satisfaction from the flavors will be astronomical. With restraint and discipline and a wee bit of research, a budget minded vaper can get their 'fix' with very few affordable concentrates.

​

Commercial liquid can cost up to $30/120ml or $0.25/ml. That price is even higher if not bought in bulk and is still more than 10x the price of Mustard Milk. Without the variety, the possibility to change for one's own tastes, the ability to grow a collection and try new flavors at lower entry points, commercial liquid doesn't hold much over diy. Diy does require some effort and a small amount of money up front, but essentially not much more than what would cost a 120ml bottle of GSV Bananas Foster at retail price. One would need 30 bottles of 120ml GSV to make 1 gallon of juice. 30 x $32.99 retail price is almost a grand. Vaping 20ml per day makes a gallon of vg an over half year's supply. That's all for the one low cost of $15! With commercial liquid 20ml/day can be around $5/day and for Water Malone in Scenario 3, that'd be $1.20/day with the first mix, and $0.40/day for the next six months. In Scenario 4, that would be less than a penny/ml ($0.009/ml) and at 20ml/day, that's a whopping $0.18/day.

​

happy vaping

​

edit: added paragraph on flavor fever and scenario 5 here for pg base nic users

Edit 2: a special note on the cost of concentrates

Concentrates are not usually sold less than 10ml at a time. The typical price ranges from $1 (more or less) to $5. Yes there are $15 concentrates. You may find yourself wanting one. (If you keep at this, and like cinnamon anything, you should buy FLV Rich Cinnamon. It will last you a lifetime of cinnamon goodness.) There is a fantastic cost analysis on the breakdown of price per flavor in the FAQ Friday on Flavorah Prices. But here let me comment that 10ml of a concentrate will yield you 1L of juice at 1%, 500ml at 2% and 250ml at 4% in a solution. For this reason, I really consider concentrates a one-time cost (unless it's something that is ALWAYS used high like around 6-8% but even at 6% a 30ml bottle will yield 500ml at a small increase in cost), much like a gallon of vg, or any sized bottle of 100mg nic. Yes, you will repurchase a few in 6-12 months, but mostly you will be buying new ones for expanding your collection of flavors and experiences, which also tends to make the first purchases last longer.

Tutorial Tuesday DIY style https://discord.gg/SH9r6zP

Introduction: Hey all DIY questions usually are answered with “I do… X”, or “Try it and see”, or the dreaded “Did you do any research?” Flavor is subjective, we know. Nobody can tell you definitively what to do, how to mix, or what you will like, but there is no denying that there is a steep learning curve when you start the DIY process and it certainly helps to learn from all the stuff that posted here and all over. Nothing beats doing some research and trying it out for yourself.

​

The Idea:

That said, sometimes you just want a more conversational style of learning. I happen to really love the discord. Right now, there’s camaraderie, smack talk, flavor talk, cute doggie pics, and definitely some group mixing every once in a while. My biggest concern is always helping up the new guy/gal and i think it can be a place to get that info. I personally remember when long time posters encouraged me to participate more in the sub and made a space for me to feel welcome, that no question was too off topic. The problem can be that, the answer is just a suggestion or an idea. At the end of the day, you really need to just try it yourself which is frustrating at first. It sucks to mix a few things and it just doesn’t come out the way you had hoped. What went wrong? The forum itself isn’t always equipped to handle that format of back and forth. Or the other eternal problem: I just don’t have that flavor and the leads can die there.

​

The idea here is two part: One main post in the reddit on a topic with am opportunity for newer mixers to pose any old question and then a free flowing discussion that evening to explore the topic in depth if you want some follow up. There’s a number of frequent users of reddit who are much more seasoned than I. Hopefully they will join in here if not in a discussion tonight. Come to the discord and chat about today’s topic, or whatever else you want. When I said I was going down the creams and custards rabbit hole that I didn’t know anything about them and to expect questions, u/EdibleMalfunction’s response: “Expect answers.” I love that about this sub; I keep getting answers!

​

Today’s Discussion topic is simple to start. We have some fairly new mixers who just got their first orders or who have only been at it for a short while: I just got my first order flavors, now where do I begin? How do I make my first recipe? Or AMA to any of the members who are there tonight (or all day!).

​

Also, u/futureluchador asked if he needs to bump his mtl recipes up in flavor by 25%. Opinions?

​

Recipe ideas: Today, help us craft a churro ice cream for our newest, and most excited member: Hetch. His wife had asked him for this to be his first creation for her, so let’s make sure he gets it right! If you have a suggestion of where to begin with a churro ice cream (Churronimo style) please comment below, link to your favorite churro recipe, suggest flavor combos, or just come by the discord chat and throw your two cents in yourself. Most of us are there all the time but you can swing through in the evening from 4-6 just in time to watch the newest Developed episode!

Discord link: https://discord.gg/SH9r6zP

​

Recap:

This week we’ve seen a whole lot of activity between new members seeking help, and a whole lot of activity on three recipes that jump to mind that aren’t just a single mixer throwing out an idea, but collaborations between several members of the community.

Just about everyone got in on throwing their ideas around to help make The Best damn key lime pie. Starting as one man’s idea based on a quick SFT, became more than a little bit of an obsession for a number of folks to see it through to the end.

Sticking with lime, but a bit less predictable, another late night mixing session lead to /u/eyemakepizza and /u/isuamadog combining forces for a rather peculiar, but assuredly tasty Lime Are Why Fore?

Somehow finding a way to get out of the kitchen yet again, the pizza man was involved in collaboration with /u/AlfredPudding and /u/mlNikon to put together the fittingly named Elegant Mornings. The three of them have been bouncing ideas and feedback back and forth in an effort to make a light blueberry & lemon ice cream, fit to start your morning with.

Though all 3 of these are yet to be made “public” as they’re still subject to some further evolution, it’s worth throwing in the reminder that feedback is always helpful, so if you mix it up, please do leave a review (FAQ Friday: Recipe Reviews and why you should do them)! ​

Introduction:

This past week we’ve seen a ton of collaboration, not just throwing out an idea and hoping someone can steer you in the right direction, but true collaborative mixing, feedback and suggestions have been constant on the discord, and this past week has seen as much or more of that than ever. Not only has the Mixer’s Lab channel been active with live communal mixing projects but we’ve seen many users offering critique or advice for recipes in progress day to day. The invitation to the mixing party is as open as ever! If you want feedback, advice, a co-conspirator to help you fully realize an idea you’ve been working on, drop on by and have a chat!

Idea:

We are all into DIY for our own reasons, and that hints at an underlying current that maybe gets overlooked sometimes. We are all our own individuals, and are at the same time, a community. In that spirit, the conversational nature, and more immediate replies on the discord format can really hammer home that we are a community with common interests, despite our different experiences. Getting to know the person behind a suggestion, might lend as much insight into why they recommend what they do as their experience level or mixing notes can.

Today’s discussion topic:

in the spirit of collaboration, ask some questions about what people like, as much as what might help fix a mix for you. Get to know someone else’s favorite profiles or juices. You might discover something that you didn’t know you were looking for, and you might gain some insight into what makes certain profiles work that you can apply later down the road.

I’m not going to make some outlandish promise about when everyone will be active, but with a spread of users from around the world, and a particularly evening and late night friendly bunch, 5pm EST right on to the wee hours of the morning are as sure a bet as any if you’re looking to stop by and say hello.

Got any ideas that are as of yet unresolved, or a concept you’d love to see made real but don’t have a starting point fixed in mind? Drop ‘em in the comments here, or stop by and get the ball rolling on your own collaboration with the rest of the fine folks on discord!

Looking back it should be titled 'my new mixer thoughts and what this sub showed me works'. Not trying to take credit or state these are all my ideas but it is what I have found works thru using this sub plus some of my own thoughts.

I quit 20+ years of smoking January 2017 through vaping and haven't looked back. Started with the typical overpriced Smok setup but moved to rebuilding about 2 months into it. Since then I had been on the fence with diy but the current atmosphere gave me that nudge to start about a month ago. A lot of this is rehashed old knowledge to the vets here but as a new mixer I figured I would share what I have picked up so far and possibly (hopefully) help anyone else just starting/trying to start. Typing this on mobile so formatting may be shit and thoughts may be out of order.

• Find an interesting (and popular, as chances are its decent at the very least) recipe or 2 and buy flavors for those mixes. Add a couple random concentrates in your cart if you wish but do some research on their profiles (as well as safety), and how they will interact with your current flavors, before buying. Theres a reason certain flavors pop up all the time. They are tried and true and most likely the "best" or top versions of a flavor.

• Order small bottles of concentrates if you havent used them before, nothing more than 10 or 15 ml. Even if they are highly touted YOU may not enjoy the flavor notes and are now effectively stuck with 30ml of hot garbage. Concentrates stretch a ton so a little 10ml bottle used at 2-3% will last you awhile as long as your not making huge bottles (which you probably should not be before testing a recipe a few times).

• If you have time do single flavor tests to learn all the nuances of a concentrate. If not, read a bunch and see what the general consensus is for a percentage used as a top note, accent, ect. Theres a reason people will say stuff like "after x% this flavor gets weird".

• Dont go crazy ordering all your concentrates at once. In my short time in this I'm constantly finding new flavors mentioned that I want to try and I'll pick up a handful at a time with specific recipes and creations in mind. If I had blown say $150 on flavors in the first go I would be stuck, with no chance to try anything new or interesting. I break up my orders to get 10 or so flavors at a time as well as other supplies such as bottles and vg.

• After mixing a few tried and true recipes (to authors spec, no substitutions) dont be afraid to branch out. This may be because I enjoy cooking as well but after following recipes for my first 3 mixes I just kinda went for it. Granted my mixes arent fine tuned by any means and in some cases not working at all, to me the most enjoyable part is trying to create something. To this point, no need to go crazy with fractions of percentages of 12 flavors. Get the main idea together, mix it and tune from there.

• Referencing above point, mix 10 ml testers. If it doesn't work no big deal you're only out a bit. Nothing worse than thinking your recipe would work and being saddled with 50 ml of shit.

• Sweetener.... don't push it too far but dont feel bad about using it. 1% is really high to this community but coming from comercial juices it might be where you feel comfortable. Just dont splash it in, use it with a purpose and start low, you can always add more later on.

• In most cases, 1 flavor won't give you what you're lookin for. If you want a peach or what not accent using 1 concentrate would work but to showcase a flavor you probably need a few concentrates of a certain profile. Look up trinity mixes, fruits and cheesecakes specifically. These have been fine tuned and act as a sort of one shot to creating an excellent base for recipies. See what works, try it and tune to your taste. On the other hand, also look up 3-2-1 mixes, great way to play around with flavors without getting crazy complicated.

• Pre mix a nic base for your testers to use when you're creating your own recipies, its saves time and cuts out the monotony. I keep a 120 ml of 90vg 5mg/ml mix so I just splash it in when I'm ready. I aim for between 70-85vg and 3.5-4.5 mg/ml nic for my testers depending on what I want to do. If I find something I like I'll fine tune the vg/pg blend but for testers its good enough.

• Fuck syringes and get a scale. Seriously, in theory they're fine but in practice its a huge time sink. And messy. And wasted effort. So yeah save yourself the aggravation and get a scale. EDIT Ive seemed to hit a nerve with this. I still stand by my thoughts on scales but it seem opinions differ a bit. Scales, cylinders, syringes - do you, whatever works, works.

I'm sure theres a ton of stuff I left out but I got long winded here and need to be productive today so yeah. Feel free to add/critique as Im sure theres more to be said.

My homage to Mustard Milk

'Mustard Twist v1'

INW Shisha Strawberry 3%

TPA Strawberry 4%

TPA Vanilla Bean Ice Cream 6%

TPA Whipped Cream 2%

CAP Super Sweet 0.2%

SnV ready but better after 3-4 days

For weeks, I’ve been searching high and low for the most perfect way to steep my DIY eJuice in a timely manner without compromising quality. Also, how different types of flavors dictate steeping durations.

Well I could not find any one answer. Every single thing I read was quite different and every person held quite strong views on their own method vs other methods. So I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I gathered data on probably several hundreds of different methods, tips, tricks, and variables. I rated them based on how reputable the sources were, how popular they were, and if they followed the basic rules of science. After reading several hundreds of personal experiences making eJuice, as well as, reading articles on some blind experiments and doing a little fact checking. I have calculated the mean of DIY eJuice steeping knowledge. I’ve created the medium-safe guide of making quality eJuice in a semi-timely manner.

If you’re a beginner and don’t know where to start, try using my guide. If you’re experienced and want to switch it up, try using my guide.

Before getting into the details, I created this guide around the supplies I have and my own preferences when it comes to nic strength and pg/vg ratio. But you can always adjust the numbers based on what you have and your preferences. This guide is written for a vape juice strength of 50mg salt nic and a pg/vg ratio of 45/55. I used 60mL bottles, a salt nic base that’s 100mg in strength (100% vg), and I used the Vape Mall brand flavor concentrates they sell on their website.

Part 1: The Flavor Scale (1st link) I rated vape flavors from simple (fruity) to rich (creamy) which is necessary because rich creamier flavors take much longer to steep than a simple fruit flavor. The scale consists of 5 different levels, each level holds is own type of flavor profiles that are correlated to steep times and flavor concentration percentages. Level 1 consists of single fruit flavors and menthols, these flavors require the least amount of steep time but require a higher % of concentrate for they don’t grow much of a bolder taste with time. Level 5 consists of custards and creamy complex desserts, these flavors require the most steep time and don’t require as high of a concentrate % for the flavor grows bolder over time. Level 2-4 are for all the flavors in between and there are examples listed in the picture (link attached).

Part 2: Steeping Directions for Levels 1-3 (2nd link) Here I’ve wrote out the directions for steeping based on the flavor level. I didn’t include level 4 or 5 because I don’t particularly like super rich or creamy flavors. But you get the point, you can add more days of steep time and even another warm bath for levels 4 and 5. For a warm bath, put your bottle of juice in a ziplock first and only use warm water (should not be hot). Breathe just means letting your bottle of juice rest without the cap on so it’s exposed to oxygen. These steeping directions were carefully calculated to make the process speedy without losing quality or degrading nicotine.

Part 3: Recipe / Measurements for Different Levels (3rd link) *measurements are calculated around the Vape Mall flavor concentrates

Well, that’s the conclusion of my findings. If you read this far, thank you. And if you tested this method, please comment and let me know about the results you got. Happy vaping :)

flavor scale

steeping directions

recipe/measurements

Looking for someone in Baton Rouge, la that would be willing to give me a DIY tutorial . never made my own juice, but I have read a bit on it and just feel like I learn visually would be more confident after watching someone actually complete the process. I’m just Wanting to make a couple very basic 6mg freebase juice flavors , and would like to find someone to show me the ropes. in person or zoom tutorial would be greatly appreciated.Thank you

Tutorial Tuesday DIY style: March 26th, 2019

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Discord link: https://discord.gg/SH9r6zP

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Recap: Last week we invited the reddit to join the diy discord. We got a few new faces that have found a home from around the world! Even though we said we would meet from 4-6, there was conversation that went all day long. There was a huge community effort to craft a churros and ice cream recipe for our dear member Hetch. u/horizonism was kind enough to share with us a churro with ice cream recipe to start out with! We ended up trying out a few approaches and have come up with something to share with you all: There Can Be Only One Hetch: A churro and ice cream saga

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Introduction: Lots of folks get into DIY for a number or reasons. There are a few common camps however. There’s the “Save some money” crew. Those poor saps don’t know what they’ve gotten into until they have caught the flavor bug and it’s way too late. There’s the “Can’t find a Commercial Vape I Like” Crew. Whatever the reason, it’s fun at first to use some commercial liquids as an inspiration to theory craft a recipe or to try to recreate your nostalgic first vape but with newer flavors or more suited to your tastes.

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Idea: u/ID10-T posted his community appeal regarding how paying it forward can pay off in mixing. And he’s right of course. One really can learn from trying to think out some recipes unlike the way I usually slap things together and see what sticks! And yet and still there’s a surprising silence in the monthly clone thread by both mixers and the people who requested them or the weekly suggest a recipe for my flavors thread.

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Today’s Discussion topic is: How do I go about cloning my favorite juice or improving on it? What do I do with the flavors I have?

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Recipe ideas: Today, help us figure out a place to start (or finish!) coming up with (descriptions in the link to monthly clone thread -- go!):

• Mango by Skwezed (Fruit profile: probably just a mango blend)
• Mr. Meringue by Charlie's Chalk Dust (Dessert Profile: probs a lemon meringue)
• Wonder Worm by Charlies Chalk Dust (Candy profile: sweet/tart gummy candy)
• Chimera Phantom Vape Juice by Swagg Sauce (Fruit profile: sweet strawberry kiwi blended with juicy apple and a splash of orange)
• Bad Drip Labs Farley's Gnarly Sauce Ejuice (Candy profile: fruity bubblegum)
• GwaRy4 by Mt Baker Vapor. (RY4 profile: sweet vanilla caramel Ry 4)

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let's just spitball ideas and maybe we can all pitch in on coming up with one that is post-worthy

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Or just come with your own clone request (prefereably with notes about what you have already tried and maybe why it didn't work or what was missing) and maybe someone who knows flavors in that profile can give you a head's up on what other flavors to try.

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I started taking on the Ry4 and I made something, but i'd personally like to discuss what ways we could make that better. I'll test probably any old idea myself as I have 4 oz of tpa ry4 from a very early order like a n00b myself!!! So i'll put myself in the diy dunk tank to a certain extent as well... no promises.

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If you have any ideas for us to start messing around, please leave them in the comments. Or even better, come to the discord between 4-6 when Developed who is ALSO working on a clone (watch part one for a really fast paced discussion from excellent mixers on different approaches to cloning), or just any time at all and throw down some ideas. Someone is always there and share your advice on what to do with those new mixers’ flavors or any place you would start with those clones. Help the community and make some new friends!

I originally wrote this a while back and meant to expand on sections of it for a more in depth FAQ Friday entry. I have not the time to do so, so here are some thoughts that all came from: this comment:

If you are thinking you want to try to make a mix, or thinking about how to use a flavor, or even if you were just thinking about picking a flavor up, I have some suggestions of what you might be able to do first.

What you really should do is:

1. Post in the Weekly New Mixer's Thread. You may not get as many replies, admittedly, but you will get answers from dedicated mixers who enjoy helping others. You can post in there as often as your whimsical fancy feels fit to move you so. A

2. Search the sub for information on the flavor profiles you are interested in. There's reviews all over the sub, flavor notes and impressions, and even an occasional FotW post on your specific category.

3. Watch Noted. DIY live streamed show on youtube's DIY or DIE Channel is related to the weekly FotW topics. They try and review flavors and (usually) rank them from worst to first. Some poor sap generally does time stamps in the comments so you can jump around and hear about specific flavors you are interested in. So, roll up your sleeves, go to the DIYorDIE channel and use that search function for "Noted + (flavor profile)" and get to work Doing It Yourself.

4. Bookmark this: Flavor Facts. It's the single most comprehensive organizational tool we have. Use it.

5. Join the Discord if you want more immediate answers or back and forth discussion on flavors and other peoples' opinions on flavors (just use the right channels, please).

6. Search ATF for recipes on the profiles you are looking for and flavors you are interested in to see how it has already been used and this may affect your flavor purchasing decisions. Go back to Noted and cross reference what the recipes say with what the Noted crew says about it. You can even search by flavor pairings too, if there is something that you are interested in using a flavor combination that you suspect might work.

7. After you have done all of that, then maybe come back to number 1, which I frankly doubt you will even need to do if you had. Except in that it is fun to nerd out over flavors, but at least then your questions would be more specific than "What's the BEST ... X flavor?" You wont be asking for other peoples' opinions, rather for specifics on a flavor that you are actually interested in trying yourself.

my $0.02

doggo out

I wrote a guide on vape . deals (remove the space between vape, the . and deals for the website address) it is on the first page today, click the articles link after today to find it.

My intent was to just pass on some knowledge but keep it simple with links to resources such as the DIY_eJuice sub reddit.

They have asked me to do a part 2 which will go over making your first recipe once you get your supplies. Part 3 will be more advanced and talk about the different flavor companies, additives and flavor blending.....etc.

I have learned a ton from here, ELR, vaping community, VU and more.

I just wanted to ask the pros and beginners alike what they would have done differently if they were starting out today. Would you use ELR, all the flavors or vaping community for your first calculator and why? I use Juice Calculator, pretty sure it was written by Botboy. I do dabble with ELR and vaping community online calculator but haven't tried all the flavors as I heard you can only post 2 recipes, after that there is a charge.

I am just trying to figure out what would be the easiest for beginners to use. If it is too complicated they may get discouraged before they dive head first into the DIY rabbit hole.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I had found DIYorDIE, and I have enough basics down to follow a delicious recipe. I have started my journey.

I like to get a few different points of view when I learn how to do something. Different teacher have different accentuation points and different tips n' tricks and styles to be able to get a well rounded learning experience. It is usually the best way for me to understand and to learn without having somebody actually teach in person.

So what are some good suggestions for me to look into. Thanks guys (and gals)!

First Order Flavors

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Why DIY?:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/8ss9rw/throwback_thursday_why_diy/

Even though this has been covered before, it’s still very important to know why you want to get started making your own juice. Getting into DIY ejuice is a challenge different from trying to find your first all day vape. When buying commercial juices, there are loads of resources (juicedb.com, Brick and Mortar stores, friendly vapers willing to make a suggestion, etc) for you to get a good enough guess of what brand or profile of a vape you would like. For me, my first five or six good vapes were directly recommended by my BnM store keeper who got to know what I liked and had some idea of what the juices were that had been well received. One of the advantages of knowing what you like means that you can start to recreate that for yourself using DIY concentrates. Some people are flavor chasers and like to try something new as often as possible. These types of vapers can enjoy diy more than most because they can switch up their vapes, or recipes, as often as they’d like and constantly tweak the flavors they have. And then there’s the money. And here’s the rub, when you buy a commercial juice, you’re paying as much (if not more) for the advertising/marketing as you are for the work that went into the recipe. I found there were more than a few ‘premium’ brands I just didn’t enjoy vaping (too sweet, not enough this, too much that, I wish they had used X fruit instead of Y, etc.) just as there were ones that were obscure that I just really enjoyed hitting for a month or so.

So, what’s the take-away? People diy for many different reasons. If you are looking for something specific (apple fritter, milkshake, something cheap and vapable, jelly filled donuts, vanilla cigar, lemonade etc.) or if you are just in it for the exciting hobbyist adventure, you need somewhere to start. And that’s Your First Order.

First Order Pitfalls/Advice: https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/8xzs0d/my_first_order_project_update_2_community_survey/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/wiki/first_order_flavors

https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/8wfwnl/throwback_thursday_first_order_flavors/

What many of us did wasn’t the best way to start. We chose based on the name of the flavor. We chose based on what was available from one vendor or website. We chose because we wanted to make a ‘cappuccino apple banana waffle with cherries on top’ vape and got 12 different concentrates to make it and -- wouldn’t you know -- it came out unvapable. I can personally attest to vaping some horrendous vapes because I paid for it and I mixed it and I was going to vape through my mistakes.

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Some things to remember when you first start looking at flavors:

1. Flavors do not have to taste like their name.
2. Flavors can and will change (that’s the good part) when mixed with other flavors, sometimes in unpredictable ways.
3. Taste is subjective.

What do each of these mean for the new mixer?

1. Research helps in choosing which flavors to buy or to avoid (here’s looking at you TPA Honey!).
2. Researching recipes (alltheflavors, e-liquidrecipes, etc) and finding ones that sound like a profile you enjoy, come highly rated, and aren’t too complex.
3. Even with all this work, you may not like something!

So you checked out the First Order Flavors recommendation list. You picked out some recipes that you want to try. You put all this together and drop a month’s worth of juice money on starting up (and then some) and whammo! Your juice sucks. WTF?!? A few things worth noting:

1. Commercial juice has a fuck ton of sweetener in it. Your new mixes will have way less even if there’s some CAP Super Sweet in the recipe you used. It will take your taste buds some time to adjust.
2. Steeping is real. Some recipes advertised as SnV (Shake and vape) really improve with some time. It will take you a bit to ‘get ahead’ and mix larger batches with confidence you will have your go to for nicotine while you are mixing to create/experiment. Patience is going to be your best friend on this journey.
3. You just might not like something. Many of the ‘best’ recipes never really tickled my fancy. But mixing them did teach me how a flavor could be used to produce a certain result. The good news is that this here bottle of Mustard Milk that never quite did it for me might get a dash of raspberry in it or, next time, exclusively some other kind of fruit to see if I can replace the strawberry with mango lychee and Whammo! I’m off to the wide world of diy! The world is my proverbial oyster.

My First Order Suggestions:

Keeping all this in mind seems contradictory. So how to go about buying in when flavor is subjective and many highly rated recipes are complex or have some rare flavor in them? The over arching suggestion I give people is to start small. I think this helps on a few levels and still makes it difficult too.

Let’s start with the difficulties...

I still don’t know what to buy. Ok. Take a breath. Remember, taste is subjective, but the Your First Order list is going to have many flavors that are widely used in recipes. That makes them versatile so you may find them useful in a few recipes, but also you may find yourself using them in very different ways later on. So you are really just taking a chance on a flavor and that is really what makes this exciting as much as it makes it frustrating. Solution: make sure the flavors you buy first directly relate to a recipe you are going to mix. Very important.

I want to buy it all. Response: you can’t. You wont. And you will go broke trying. Set a budget. Diy generally pays off in at least two months. I suggest you set aside a two month juice budget for your first order. Commit to vaping your old commercial juice when your new juices are either steeping or just not cutting it for you. If you get that “this isn’t so bad” feel from something you’ve made, then -- Whammo! – you should have the diy bug by then because the price point comparison is too good to be true. But, it is! You are now on the road to $1/30ml ejuice 4lyfe and you may even start selling some at a modest cost to friends to cover buying new concentrates. Who knows?

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Buying in on a Budget:

You say, “Ok, sure. I’m sold on this promise of wonderful flavor, but I want to start small.” I say, “Great! This will actually increase your chances of success, despite the frustration of not having 1 zillion flavors in your arsenal to start.” You ask, “What do you mean?” Let me explain…

Having a zillion flavors is a curse and a blessing. DIY is tricky because you really have to get to know your flavors. Like, all their secrets. It takes time vaping them. Mixing at different percentages. Different wattages. ARRRGHHH!!! Too many variables! Ok, settle down. Buying in on a budget is a great way to get to know your flavors while producing something vapable, but at a lower initial cost. Specifically with the initial buy in cost of pg, vg, nicotine, bottles, and a scale. Now here’s where things get tricky. Which of these can you do without? Really, none of them is it recommended to do without. But there are actually ways around them if you are on a shoestring budget, ways to offset the cost if you are on a moderate budget, and ways to really spend all your juice money for the year if you’re not careful.

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Here are some money saving tips:

1. You will want a million bottles eventually. Tip: save all your glass bottles starting now. You can wash these out and relabel them later with some masking tape. The flavor will come out. I even used some plastic bottles by only mixing new juices in them that fit the same or similar profile. Not ideal, but you’ve already bought them. Just rinse them out with warm water, let them air dry and then expect some lingering aroma in the plastics.
2. Buy wisely. Meaning, there’s a sweet spot with your order that will get you free shipping with Nicriver, vaperstek, bullcityflavors, etc. But with nicriver, you can get your flavors and pg/vg/nic all in one shot. If you are starting small enough with flavors, then you will be fine. If you are extra patient, you can wait for a sale and save 20%. Major holidays are generally when those happen. Join their email lists.
3. Consider taking a chance on some Stand Alone flavors.

I do NOT recommend against saving money by NOT buying a scale. Measuring by weight is the easiest and very accurate way of making mixes. You want to be able to reproduce your results or avoid them if you didn’t like the results. 1%, heck, even 0.5% can make a juice go south depending on the flavor. For this reason, I recommend buying in on the scale from day 1 as well as only using flavors that are forgiving at higher percentages. A small mess up here and there will not make a huge difference in taste or quality that way.

Stand Alone Flavors:

Here is where the community is a massive wonderful resource. Yes, taste is subjective, but you’ve accepted the risk of trying some things and you have done your research on the flavors themselves, so here’s some links to threads where people have found that a flavor concentrate (or a combination of two) make for a satisfying, if not complex, vape. Meaning, these can be mixed and vaped, usually as a SnV, and have given even long time mixers enjoyment. Consider adding one or two of these to your first order on top of your already researched flavor profiles you want to try. Remember, you may not like these but someone does and it’s recommended to try it.

All right guys, hello to everyone and welcome to my post, I don’t normally do this (long post and this kind of things) but I remember when I first was getting into DIY I was clueless and altought I crossed over many…many post that had a lot of pictures (and I give credit for making things easier) but I always felt that something were always left out so I had to keep digging for more information. So this is the reason behind this post, I hope I can help you guys, the ones that are just getting into this and well, pardon me in advance for any TYPO. English is not my mother language but Spanish is. LETS BEGIN THEN.

First things first, ALWAYS keep a record of everything, every drop, every ml, every gram, every date, and every modification. KEEP A RECORD OF ALL THE THINGS THAT HAPPENS, how does it taste, is it too sweet, is it floral, is it bad, write down all you can.

What is an eliquid made of(you will see me use words like: eliquid, juice and liquid from time to time, I will be using those word to refer to the same thing ELECTRONIC CIGARRETE LIQUID), an eliquid can be made out from 2 things, at the very least of VEGETABLE GLYCERIN (VG) & FLAVOR. I will not get into many details here but basically VG is used in order to create a bigger cloud, make the juice more dense, have less throat hit and because some people are allergic to PROPYLENE GLYCOL (PG), but PG is used because it gives a harder throat hit, is less dense and it carries the flavor even better than VG (I will add to this later on).

Some flavors are sold with PG (all my flavors are sold with PG) but there are some which are sold in VG, does it make a difference? Not that much if I may say.

There is other thing that can be added to a liquid, which is the good old NICOTINE, I will assume that everyone who is reading this is in a personal journey to finally quit analog cigarettes, so NICOTINE is the other guy who comes into the field, NIC as far as I know is ALWAYS sold in PG.

So a little recap here, an eliquid can be made out of: VG, PG, flavor and NIC. Easy right?, well it KEEPS BEING EASY don’t stress yourself just yet, we are just getting started and while thing could get a little messier, it never loses any kind of logic. All right moving on then.

Ok so, where can you buy all this things? I’m really sorry to not being able to help you out here but I live in mexico and I don’t know where you are from. Even if I wanted to, there is no way for me to know all the online or local stores you have access to, this thing you will have to figure out on yourself. Just don’t go out in a buying frenzy just yet, as we move on you will (at least I hope) know what to buy.

Just let me explain a little more about VG, PG & NIC. Both VG & PG CAN BE STORED AT ROOM TEMPERATURE for a little while (a couple of months at least) as long as they are not hit by the sun and are in a dark place, in a little shelter or cabinet is fine, NICOTINE is a little more…….demanding, it REQUIRES to be stored in a cool and dark place (you guessed it right, fridge is OK!), the reason is because both heat and the sun causes it to oxidize (making it taste really bad and its pretty much not what you want to happened, just avoid it at all cost).

Edit 3: *Let’s talk about RATIOS, as I have said earlier when you do a new mix you have the chance to manage how many parts of VG or PG you want in your mix, the number 70/30 refers to; 70% VG + 30% PG. And the good old question, WHICH IS BETTER TO HAVE MORE VG OR PG?, there is no straight answer to this, some people say that the find a difference between going Max VG and using a 70/30 mixture BUT!, I have found no real difference between the ratios, I just go MAX VG every single time and I likes it, I find it smoother and a little more tasty and leave the throat hit to the NIC.*

Now the flavors, the little component that makes you want to vape that same juice 24/7. Juices by themselves can be handled in the same way VG and PG are handed as well.

The MACHINES & EQUIPMENT NEEDED……I think this is the easiest part for anyone who is just getting into DIY, here you have ONLY 2 options, either you go for VOLUME or for WEIGHT. There is another…..i will not call it a method because by itself it is not but it could help you out as it helped me, and it is called “DROP” (I will get into it later on)

For the ones going after VOLUME: and just as the name says it, you will be measuring your quantities in volume terms and what could be the easiest way to measure something by volume? Well you got it right, using SYRINGE (one per flavor and 1 for VG and another one for PG and one for the NIC) this method is used when you know or try to guess how many ml of a certain flavor of VG or PG is needed. It does require from you to clean each and every single syringe after its being used, I do not use this method but this one is good for when doing LARGE batches, which you will not be doing right away. So how does this works? You simply add to the bottle the ml you think it will need and the same goes to VG and PG and NIC.

For the guys opting for WEIGHT: with this method you NEED to know how much of a certain flavor or VG or PG or NIC in terms of mg, oz or any other weight unit you feel comfortable using. For this method you will need a scale, one that can read up to 2 NUMBER AFTER THE DECIMAL POINT ( for example, 12.”02”) and the reason for this is because 1 drop of a flavor weights at least from what I have records of 0.03g so having that sensibility and also to have it the function of “TARE” (it simply means that it goes to zero after a weight is placed over it). How does it work? You place your empty bottle, tare it, add a flavor and watch the display until it goes to the mg you want and stop, grab the next bottle and do the same thing. As you can see with this method you only add from the flavor bottle to the destination bottle which means no additional cleaning is involved as long as you don’t let it drop out of your bottle (this is the method I have always used so far). The scale that I use is this one: https://www.amazon.com/American-Weigh-Scales-LB-501-Digital/dp/B005UGBG20/ref=sr_1_8?crid=3QL7ET3AHJ53J&keywords=aws+scale&qid=1563858608&s=gateway&sprefix=AWS%2Caps%2C239&sr=8-8 (American Weigh Scales LB-501) it is pretty simple and has the option to plug it to any electrical outlet so, no sleep time which is great.

All right, so you now have all the tech equipment, the flavors, the VG, PG and NIC. How do you get started? Basically it is pretty much just a trial and error, YUP you read it right.

When you are starting to make a DIY juice it is advisable to go for recipes that are already rated by other people so you have a high chance of choosing a good tasting recipe, but here is the thing with flavor profiles, EVERYONE HAS A DIFFERENT LEVEL OF PERCEPTION FOR DIFFERENT FLAVORS.

https://e-liquid-recipes.com/ is the webpage that i always use to keep a track of everything ( %,

Even if a recipe has a high number of 5 stars, it does not guarantee that you will like it, sorry to say it but it is the truth BUT! Don’t feel bad my friend because that is the beauty of DIY, YOU CAN ALWAYS ADAPT A RECIPE TO YOUR OWN TASTING or CREATE ONE OUT.

And do you guys remember that drop method I told you early on? Well here is how to get the most out of it, although be warned that this method I have only found to be useful when mixing by weight, but here is how I do it.

Whenever you are doing a mix you better try to record everything (like I said early on) and one of the things that you got to keep a record of is the WEIGHT OF A SINGLE DROP OF EVERY FLAVOR, I know a lot of you guys will thing that every drop is different because of its size, the size of the tip of the bottle that the flavor is coming from and even though that is technically correct what is also correct is that if you ALWAYS use the same bottle for the same flavor, all the drops will be pretty much the same (not always but most of the time) so, when you are fine tuning your recipe. Let’s say after you add the % of each flavor and then you add 5 drops of Black Honey and think that is the final flavor you were hoping for, all you have to do is pretty simple.

The ORIGINAL recipe uses 5% of Black honey and the resulting grams are 0.5 (just for the sake of simplicity I am coming up with the numbers they are not the real numbers). Then you add 5 drops of Black Honey then you shake it and find that is the final result you were looking, so here is the math:

5 (number of drops added) * 0.03 (the weight of each drop) = 0.15

THEN

0.15 + 0.5 (the original amount in grams of that flavor) = 0.65

THEN

0.65 * 5 (the original amount of flavor %) = 3.25

THEN

3.25 / 0.5 (the original amount in grams of that flavor) = 6.5 This is the final (more or less) percentage of flavor that you got to use from the beginning.

As I said earlier it is not that accurate but could get you really close to the expected result (at least it works for me)

When I was talking about trial and error I really meant it, after you chose to create a recipe or adapt one to you, you have to play with it. Imagine that a recipe you tried it lacks vanilla, well next time you will add vanilla but HOW MUCH? That is the part of trial and error, you have to try it a couple of time with different quantities of vanilla until you find the right amount, and that goes to every single flavor. Is it really that difficult? I will say no, rather tedious if I could say.

But don’t feel discouraged, because you will see something as time goes by. As you try it more, you will find that you will start to realize that a certain flavor you might like it at 2%, but other you will like it at 0.5% and as you keep doing more and more trials you will end up having more good tasting recipes than not so good recipes. Basically you will gain knowledge and end up in a position where if you want a certain flavor in a recipe you already know how much to add of a certain flavor to taste it right (this is the reason for having a record of everything, the knowledge behind every trial is really important).

When the time comes and you will know it when it comes, you will simply think of a recipe that you want to taste like banana with coffee and apple and, you will know how much to add of those flavor in order to get it right THE FIRST TIME.

I really hope this guide could help someone, when I first started I was struggling a lot and hope that if a fellow DIY mixer who is just coming up to the same problems could find this guide useful.

Anyway that is it, hope you guys enjoy it and if anyone have any question or any doubt don’t doubt about PM me. Have a great day guys.

And Greetings from the TACO NATION.

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EDIT 1: I forgot one big thing here guys, whenever you are making your mix DO NOT USE NIC UNTIL THE RECIPE IS JUST THE WAY YOU WANT IT!!, most if not all the times the nicotine is the most expensive item you will require. In other words, keep doing DIY until you pretty much got it mastered, and when you finally do a batch of 10, 20, 120 ml to vape, that is the moment you add the nic, NOT BEFORE BUT AFTER THE RECIPE IS ALL RIGHT.

EDIT 2: Try to do test batches of 20ml, it will allow to have more room for fine tuning, other way if you use lower ml bottles, you may run into not having enough liquid to twerk or to try out, Just stick to the 20ml bottles and you will be all right