Mixing advice - just starting out

I'm hoping that some of you more experienced DIYers might have some advice.
I found this on the VC website and was wondering what you thought.

The Whole System Simplified

Step 1
Add 10 Drops PG
Add 10 Drops VG

Step 2
Add 1 Drop Flavour Concentrate to the 20 drops of PG/VG

Step 3
Shake well

Step 4
Place a couple drops into your atomiser and test vape

Step 5
If the flavour strength is too weak, return to step 2 and continue again.

~1mil seems an awfully small volume. just the surface tension of the liquids sticking to bottles and needles seems likely to throw off calculations. Then it says to add another drop if it's not strong enough. What about the drop you use to test? It will reduce the ratio.
So, if you then add another drop of concentrate you really are not getting a 10/10/2 mix are you?
Ive got a 306 bridgless for testing but I don't think that it will operate too well on one drop. 2-3 drops for testing then ... see above.
I'm thinking that I need to mix in larger batches. I've mixed up 11 test concentrates at the moment.
Any advice would be welcome.

 

Forget about 'drops'. Drops can vary greatly.

Use a calculator - ejuicemeup or filberts work best.

 

not good pipesub - 1 drop of flavouring to 20 drops of pg/vg is already 5% - some flavours will be already too strong at that level

have you got 1 ml syringes?

 

Yup Kingsr, I've got ejuicemeup. I've been using it to calculate mixing store bought pre-made juices. It's great. Read my next post

 

Yeah, I've got the whole kit 1/2 dozen syringes, 25 bottles (5/10/and 30 mil), pipetts. I mix in a round bottom whisky glass with a latte milk frother.
I have to calculate (with EJMU) every doubles cuz I ordered 50mg nic. 100 next time.

What I was trying to do was make flavour samples to judge intensity of base single concentrates before I mix them all tobether. I'm trying to replicate a pipe tobacco that I like, "1792 Flake". It has virginia, Latakia and Tonkin bean (which I'm told is "Bicyclononal Acitone") so I want to judge the strength beforehand.

 

i took the plunger out of a 1ml syringe and dripped into the syringe to see how many drops would make 0.1 ml - answer was 5 drops - so for the types of nipples on the bottles i was using it was 50 drops per ml - kinda shocked me cos all the calculators were suggesting 20 drops per ml

so if you are going to use drops make sure all the nipples on the bottles ur using are the same for a start - and get an idea of how many drops per ml

but like kingsr said - forget drops - work with the syringe and maybe do 3 or 4 ml batches - also i mix straight into bottles not whiskey shot glass and then i give the bottle a good shake - you can then fine tune with drops if you know how many drops per ml as per above imo

also if yer making 3 or 4 ml batches then dripping a few drops to test onto a 306 wont matter so much

im heading off now - but im sure someone more experienced than me will chime in eventually -

 

Hey - thanks for the input. The bottle stuff makes sense & I'll calibrate even though I've got 3 styles of drippers

 

I always make at least a 5ml sample when mixing, a lot less fiddly than drops and gives you the ability to play with the mix a bit more than just 1ml samples. And as Kingsr mentioned, drops can vary greatly. If you do want to use drops, find a dropper that suits, and stick with the same one for all your measuring, that way at least you will not have the same margin of error as you do when using different equipment. Even the same brand of eyedropper or pipette still has a margin for error greater than using just one single measuring tool.

Most mixing is fairly experimental anyway, and unless your selling juices, or particularly sensitive to taste and want every batch to taste exactly the same, it does not need to be super accurate, a lot of it is down to individual taste. The only ingredient you need to be super accurate with is nicotine, but even then a margin of error of 0.5mg is not going to be noticeable to most people. Strength can vary in between concentrates in the same batch, so even if you manage to get the right strength for one batch of juice, if you then buy the same concentrate to use again, the strength of the concentrate can be different from the first batch you used. I have bought several bottles of Vanilla custard, and had one that was noticeably stronger than the others, but this was noticable in the smell when opening the bottle, and I adjusted my percentage to suit.

Also with EJMU, you can save your nic strengths, and your preferred percentages for pg/vg etc, as the de.comlt. Then when you want to plug in a new recipe, just use the "get de.comlt" button, and you will then only have to put in the flavour percentages, and the amount you wish to mix up.

Have fun

 

Thanks Spud. I was really just trying to follow VC's advice. The idea of having a sample to .comge the base strength made sense. I can take the present 1mil mixes (in bottles already) and just multply up to 5mil. I do have syringes so its no problem.
Thanks everyone for the help.:victorious:

 

another thing i've read....and VC's rock just quietly...(also +1@ Avtek and Spud and Kings)

is that with base flavours a good way to judge their strength is to make up a the tiniest sample. say 5ml or even 1ml...but in water. Then make five batches each with say 5% concentrate per 5ml water, then taste it. Whirl it on the palette to get a feel for the strength of the flavour.

But on that note...what ever you do, the more complicated the mix you're making, the more it will change with a good steep.

made an apple pie recently....tasted initially like shite...diluted it and let it steep for a month or so...turned out to be a screamer of a mixture.

good luck

 

Very good point about steeping Sam, some juices take a long time to come good. I had a similar experience with a couple of juices, after one week one flavour was dominant, the next week another, then after 3-4 weeks it all comes together nicely. One of those juices was also an apple pie recipe, wonder if it was the same one you made Another one was a coffee flavoured juice, that smelt and tasted foul after one week, and I was glad I only made a 10ml bottle be.comse I thought I would never vape it and it would become aphid killer. I stuck it in the back of the cupboard and promptly forgot about it. Now 5 weeks later, it smell wonderful, and tastes even better. So I guess it just needed time. I now put all the juices in the back of the cupboard and try and forget about them for a few weeks. Impatience seems to be the enemy of a lot of vapers

Some juices will be vapable after only a day or two, so I make these regularly to give me something to vape while waiting for the steeping to work its magic.